another take on "the character doesn't exist"

[AgentFresh]

simon_hibbs wrote:

I',m sure it would be possible to go a step further and develop a more sophisticated game mechanical model for the psychological states of our characters. In Call of Cthulhu the Sanity attribute can make our characetrs go mad whether we like it or not. In 'My Life With Master' our characters can be compelled to actions we deplore and we might dearly wish we could avoid the character having to perform, yet in that game we clearly are not in complete controll of our characters.

So do characetrs in My Life With Master have more of an independent existance than a Traveller character? More than a D&D character with an Alignment? More than a Pendragon character with a range of psychological attributes?

To what extent are they mere expressions of our creative energies, or external constructs with a life of their own?

It... lives!?

I'd say that your choosing to play a game in which "loosing control" over your character is possible is still a variation of the "Characters want/do/feel what the Players want them to" principle. The Character may be compelled to obey the tyranny of loss of Sanity or the ravages of Frenzy or what have you, but the Player is going along by his consent to the rules of the game and the social contract. The Player can technically choose to break these at any time.

To me the phrase "the Character doesn't exist" is sort of meaningless, overly-provocative and smug. Having said that, I don't believe that Characters exist outside of their Creators or outside of the parameters of their statistics and our imagination. I think the phrase "the Character wants what the player wants him to want" is a much more informative, respectful way to state this idea. Who coined it? Jack Spencer Jr. in this thread?

The Spencer Principle?

[simon_hibbs]

...But I would still point to the possibility that a player uses part of his brain in character portrayal that he doesn't normally use in day-to-day operation of "self."  ...

I think that's unlikely. Some modern theories of how the brain works suggest that subconciously we consider a huge range of options and possibilities when faced with choices, and that these are whittled down by some poorly understood process to a few of which we become concious of, and that our concious awareness of our internal mental processes is merely analogous to the surface ripples on what is actualy a very broad and deep sea of processes.

I agree with Ron and others that we cannot be anything other than ourselves, even when portraying a character that is notionaly a seperate entity. I would argue though that personality trait mechanics can sometimes take over the behaviour determination role from us. Nevertheless we interpret the results of such mechanics and portray their effects through the character.

I have sometimes seen players deny responsibility for the actions of their characters "because that's just how the characetr is" despite the fact the the character is almost always that way due to the player's free choice. Consider a situation where everyone creates a character, writes up their personality and then passes the character to the player on their left. Even here the character has no independent motives, they were all either made that way by the character's creator, or interpreted in a certain way by the character's player. Someone is responsible for everything the character does.

Despite all that I realy do think it's sometimes useful to talk about characters as though they were independent entities. We can discuss "What were Puck's motives in The Tempest" and we can discuss "How did Shakespear intend Puck to be portrayed in this scene" and understand that these are different questions that can both lead to worthwhile discussions.


Simon Hibbs

[Marco]

Actually, (and I think this is odd for this forum) it looks like it's a personal-responsibility argument on the "does not exist" side and a "immersion" argument on the "does exist."

That's where the disconnect is (and I think where the implicit aspect of dysfunction enters in here).

Clearly, when undergoing immersion, there is a Suspension of Disbelief element that suggests that the particiant is playing "as though the character exists." No disagreement there (yet--I remember someone arguing that SoD doesn't actually exists).

Clearly, when a character is unbound by any game-mechanic constructs the player is responsible for the actions taken by the character. I see room for disagreement there (the literary character suprises the author theme--but that's getting more philosophical than I think I want to--and anyway, the presence of that argument does not, I think, absolve the "author" of responsibility for that character's actions).

And I'm all about personal responsibility.

But sometimes, with some characters the owning player is not responsible for that character's actions (plain and simple--if someone on the "doesn't exist" side of the fence has never heard of a GM interceding to prevent "out of character play" I'd be amazed--and they call *me* sheltered).

The idea that this can simply be "turned off" by the player is wrong--and flies in the face of System Does Matter. The player can't decide to overrule the game--and under many systems/social contracts can't overrule a GM judgment call on OOC play.

And when "the player" is not responsible for the totality of the character's actions (or, indeed "wants/desires"--especially in the sense that Simon brings up--discussion of literary characters within context) then you get a scenario similar to the one that Ron brought up concerning drama mechanics:

Specifically, when more than one person is involved the results become interestingly "random" (or, more appropriately, *unpredictable*)--and this creates a situation which may be seen, properly, IMO, by "the player" as a "want of the character" external to him/her (the player).

In otherwords: the character may very well wind up wanting something I didn't choose, don't want him to want, and which I have little control over him wanting.

And cases of this are trivial to describe.

But, as I said, the personal responsibility argument interests me (especially the way I think it's being made here)--so I'd like to hear more about it.

-Marco

[Walt Freitag]

This business of "responsibility for the character's actions" seems kind of slippery to me, since technically the character's actions don't exist either. (Subject to the sort of qualifications being discussed here; of course they exist as concepts in a conceptual space, but they don't exist as actual deeds in actual history.)

For instance, if my character in a game massacres hundreds of innocent people, I don't see any responsibility that needs avoiding. I have no problem saying that I, Walt Freitag, the actual living person, am directly responsible for (fictionally) slaughtering hundreds of (fictional) victims, and so what? Tomorrow I might add to my crimes by drawing some stick figures on a piece of paper and then crumpling it up and tossing it in the trash. Lock me up and throw away the key!

But, if those actions make another real person at the table uncomfortable... that's something to worry about and accept responsibility for. I cannot dismiss a complaint out of hand by justifying my behavior as "what my character would do." (That's when you counter with "Your character doesn't exist," and we get into three long threads worth of argument.)

That doesn't mean I must always regard such a complaint against me justified, or that I will always feel a need to make amends or correct my future behavior. There are many reasons at the social contract level that might justify an action that someone else didn't like, including "it was required by the rules of play that we all agreed to follow," "it was a well-established genre trope for the milieu we're playing in," "it was the same type of action you (the complainer) have been doing yourself," and even, "it was what my character would do, and we've all agreed to play using what the characters would do as the main basis for decision-making, regardless of the consequences."

- Walt

[Marco]

The responsibility thing I was referring to wasn't distance from in-game actions--but rather the case of a player refusing to do something because "it's not in character."

And claiming that the issue is taken out of his hands (i.e. denying responsibility for the inaction).*

Sometimes "acting out of character" *is* out of your hands as a player. This is especially game-depedant.

-Marco
* And while I can see a dysfunctional case being implied here, what's missing (IMO) is the distinction between the power-struggle case ("I won't do what you 'want' me to--it's not in character") and the problem case ("I don't want to do that--but it *is* in character--and that IC action is being enforced by the rules/GM/other-players, etc.)

And what's really missing is the acknowledgement that a choice of "actions that would make for a better story" can conflict with "the consistency of my character" in ways that are specific to interactions between two people in ways unique to RPGS as opposed to, single-author or even multi-author narrative works--but still qualify as functional gaming (i.e. absent of power-struggle but still with room for discussion and improvement).

[pete_darby]

So we're getting down to dysfunction in rpg sessions being a result of a breakdown of the social contract due to differeing but unstated expectations in the style and content of play, including but not confined to the balace of power between the rules, the setting, the GM and the other players?

Now, who would come up with a crazy theory like that?

Seriously, I get the feeling that the simulation, model, whatever of the character internalised by the player is looking more like another element of the system, along with the game mechanics, etc to be popped into the social contract of the group: the degree to which the game is to be shaped by the characters motivations is as important and different to each group as the degree to which the GM controls the plot, the level of power of the game mechanics and the mutability or otherwise of the established setting.

What these discussion have really opened my eyes to is how unexamined my own thoughts on character autonomy were: they've not changed a great deal, but I know better why they're there and their consequences for play, and have a better idea of how I can alter their expression to better fit a particular group.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Marco pegs an important part of this for me with the personal responsibility angle.  I see this at two levels - one is just the fact that this thinking in-character thing is kinda sticky/grabby.  It seems to encourage us to forget that we are the real human beings here, and the characters can only push us around if we let them.  Now, sometimes we WANT to let them.  Some people even don't see the point in playing unless we let them.  But that doesn't change the fact that what's happening is a player choosing to have "the character " control what happens.

("We let then," of course, also externalizes the character, and maybe would be better rephrased as "choosing to allow the charcater's actions to be determined by your immediate conclusions about what the character would do, based perhaps on an analysis of previously-determined parameters, or alternatively based upon an instinctive/emotional intuition into the character's behavior (which might even feel like the character talking to you).  But that's a mouthful.)

The other level is that it is an amazingly convenient and hard-to-dispute "excuse" in power struggles to say "it's what the character would do."  Asking the player to instead say (and thus confront the responsibility) "I can't see any other solution working for the character" or "We've agreed to use the game system, which is dictating that Y happen, so Y is going to happen" has sometimes been very useful to me.

I read something by Dan Simmons related to the channeling-the-character phenomena recently - I'll see if I can find it at home tonight.  It was something to the effect that we are forced (by Derrida and his like, damn them) to admit, yes, what we hear is not a person, but rather a character.  Which (says Mr. Simmons) means much less than some people think it does.

Gordon

[Jason Lee]

Now that I think I know what was being said by "the character doesn't exist" I think it's definitely worth being said.  It's a valid point.  However, I'm not convinced "the character doesn't exist" is the right way to say it.  It certainly didn't come off that way to me.

Tiny actual play example:
Recently one of my characters accidentally killed a PC with an area lightning spell.  It wasn't actually the PC, it was an alternate dimension dupe conveniently placed so we would quit looking for the real PC, but the characters don't know that yet.  Ah, guilt...I feel bad for my character.  

Anyway, casting the area lightning spell was a sleepy decision on my part; not something the character would have likely done.  This bugged me, it meant a lot of things for the character I didn't want it to - the big one being an inability to keep the character around and remain consistent with the character's personality.  I couldn't well change what happened; it integrated into the shared space and effectively left my control because I didn't correct it immediately.  I was stuck killing the PC.  My fix was to talk to the group between session and tweak the events.  I made it a chain lightning effect and gave it stray bullet feel - made it more or an accident.  This wasn't entirely consistent with the system, but it solved my problem, or at least made it tolerable.

As you can see I've got a very character exists approach.  I'm, generally speaking, pretty unbending about character.  I'm a lot more willing to bend system, setting, events or anything else around the character to create the effect I or the group desires.

You can still get cooperative play without bending on character by controlling the character's stimuli.  "The character doesn't exist" only addresses character, so I think it's misleading and incomplete.

Disclaimer:  If personal experience yields good results telling people "the character doesn't exist", honestly I probably shouldn't be criticizing.  It could just be that when you say it to a forgie you get a different result.

*****

Oh, and I think my example illustrates what Marco has been saying too.

[Jonathan Walton]

I know I'm entering this discussion pretty late, but I thought I might help clarify things (I hope)...

The player has the right to enforce his will upon his character.  The character does not have the right to enforce its will upon the player, because not being a real person, the character has no rights outside of what the player chooses for it.  The player may choose to give a voice to the character's "will" by portraying in play what the player thinks the character would do or want.  But the character has no right to expect the player to do this, and the player has no obligation to do this...because the character is not a real person and has no such rights.

I think Ralph nailed it here.  The issue, that is, not the solution. What you're ultimately talking about is social contract stuff, issues of perception. Is the character a tool or is it a role?

When I'm on stage acting out Richard III, the social contract involved in theater prevents me from breaking character, ignoring Shakespeare's script, and have Richard treat people nicely, even if I think it would make for more interesting story.  Sure, it's possible for me to do those things, but, if that happens, I'm no longer abiding by the unspoken social contract that describes how theater works.

Now, many people view roleplaying as a similar situation.  Sure, they could break character, ignore their character's previous actions and preestablished personality, and have them do something that doesn't quite fit, all for the purpose of steering the story in a more interesting and fun direction.  However, many people believe that this is against some portion of the social contract governing roleplaying or, even, that it is undesirable for aesthetic reasons of its own.  Perhaps it destroys the illusion of realism, where things follow a causal path relative to the imagined reality.  Perhaps the player's enjoyment of the game is closely tied to the character's development, which would be disrupted by having the character act in ways that don't seem to fit.

Obviously, this isn't the only way to play.  Many social contracts encourage players to be not so resolutely tied to their character's imagined personality.  However, when different players have different ideas about how roleplaying should work and what gets priority, either maintaining character or maintaining narrative, you get disfunction.

So, ultimately, Ralph's right that the character can have no expectations of the player to obey its commands, but the player can have expectations for themselves (as can other players), which they may not be willing to divest.

[Marco]

Well, I've said it before and I'll keep saying it until someone can point out to me why it doesn't matter or addresses it:

In many (traditional) RPG's there are *written* rules that place the character's actions outside your control. These are not necessiarily constraints you *chose* for the character--they may have been thrust upon you.

To stretch your analogy: you mis-act Richard and the play's director steps in, kicks you out, and acts the part himself--in full accordance with the audience and the other actors--and the contract that allows him to do this isn't "unwritten" at all--it's in a manual everyone there has (and that you have agreed to).

The character continues on in your absence. The character acts in ways you no longer control.

Is *someone* acting the character's part? Yes, of course. Is it "the player"? No. It isn't. In some cases it may be the *game designer* (who may even be dead at the time the rules are aportioning him credibility--a stretch of the Lumpely principle in a sense)--but it isn't *you.*

Again: Does *someone* bear responsibility for the character's actions? yes. Is it always the creating player? Of course not.

So: Is the creating player right to look upon his character as an artifact that can act outside of it's creator's will? Yes. Yes he is.

Can that artifact said to, in context of the existence of the game itself, be had to have wants or motivations (same as discussion of the motivations of a fictional character)? Yes. It can.

Is the character's creator always responsible for the character's persuing of those wants or goals? No. He isn't.

So is this whole discussion really just about the case where the conflict is entirely internal to one person? Or is it about the presence of unpredictable characters in general?

Judging from the first post, I would say the latter. I don't think anyone would argue that a player can choose between immersion or story-directed play if they want to and there are no other rules in play to prevent it.

-Marco

[Mike Holmes]

I like your point in general, but before it gets sidelined tangentially, I would comment that nobody is talking about doing anything "out of character". It's entirely possible that a player can make an Author stance decision that's completely in character for the PC in question. We're not assuming that the problem is doing something that breaks with the estabished continuity, or with perception of the character, or anything like that at all. This would be bothersome to the "immersionist", but it's not the issue at stake. For to say it was would be to erroneously say that the "authorial" player can't play it straight.

No, what bugs the "immersionist" is that he can see the player's decisions behind the character's. Yes, this would occur if the player made the character do something in an implausible or inconsistent way in order to make the plot go a particular way. But it can also happen when a player makes a completely plausible decision to, for example, drive the plot in a particular direction. Sometimes it's just obvious, despite the actual decision that the player is selecting being the same.

Example:
Player A: "You know what would be cool. If Bob remembered just now that he left his wallet, and returns to the appartment in order to get it, and finds his wife with his best friend. Bob goes back. "

Despite it being something that Bob would totally do given the character, and the established fact that he left his wallet, it's still obviously Authoring.

Player B: "Bob realizes that he's left his wallet, and goes back to the appartment."

This is less "offensive", because the player is not making it obvious what his thought processes are. But given player knowledge of the situation with Bob's wife and friend, and character non-knowledge, the "coincidence" is just too convenient. Still might annoy the "immersionist".

Player C: "Bob rolls to see if he remembers his wallet."

This is a little better, because though the player is obviously trying to author the events, he is allowing for the in-game resolution model to take credit for the event. If he rolls well, it's not only "what the character would do", but "what happened" according to the game reality. But it's still not "perfect" as we see the motive behind calling for the roll.

Player D: "Bob goes to the bar."

The player is choosing one of the many plausible actions that the character might take. But this one can't be Authoring, because there's obviously no attempt to create a dramatic situation. In this case, that's the purview of the GM to accomplish. If the group wants Bob to catch his wife cheating, the GM will have to call for that roll, or just tell the player that his character remembers.

This gives an idea of the spectrum of what I'll call the Authorial Appearance. It's precisely this Authorial Appearance that the "Immersionist" doesn't want. Because at that point, the game ceases being a Simulation (hence Simulationism) in which the player is participating, and becomes a collaborative storytelling act at some level. Which has an entirely different feel to some. So if you want the Simulation feel, you avoid Authorial Appearance.

I hope I'm clarifying, and not muddying.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Marco and I cross posted, so this answer to his post follows my other one above.

Well, I've said it before and I'll keep saying it until someone can point out to me why it doesn't matter or addresses it:

The discussion revolves around player decisions. It's these decisions that make play suitable or objectionable to particular players. Nobody has a problem with the mechanics taking over the character if they've agreed to use the particular system (and knew what they were getting into).

So it's entirely the question of what the player decides for the character, and how he does so. The system can promote some particular method, or take over, but that doesn't change player preference, neccessarily. This is why some players dislike certain systems.  

Mike

[Valamir]

Marco, you HAVE raised that point several times...and IMO its been addressed several times already.  I'll summarize:

1) The issue at hand is whether the character exists or not as an independent entity with a mind of its own.  The existance of rules that say "the character failed his morale check, the player must now portray him as scared" is IMO totally irrelevant to this point.  The character has not suddenly gained a will simply because some mechanical construct is put in place.  If anything, the mechanical construct highlights the fact that the character is an imaginary being with no mind of its own, because you need a rule to tell it to be scared.  I don't see how the existance of such rules is even relevant to the discussion.

2) Further, if one accepts the Lumpley principal (which I do) one realizes that game rules have no credibility save what the players allow.  If a group of people are sitting around a table and one says "Hey, you know, according the rules, you'd have to make a morale check" and someone else says "no that's stupid we're not going to play that way"...what happens?  A thunderbolt from above?  The rules get up and walk away?  The paper character sheet suddenly stands up, picks up the dice, declares "its in the rules", and makes the roll.  No.  The rule gets discarded.    OR   The rule gets enforced.  Either way that's entirely at the will of the actual flesh and blood players sitting around the table (or using another medium) not at the will of the character.


Mike:  Authorial Appearance...I like it.  It ties into the concept of Congruence but adds another layer of "does the congruence seem natural or contrived".

[Mike Holmes]

Mike:  Authorial Appearance...I like it.  It ties into the concept of Congruence but adds another layer of "does the congruence seem natural or contrived".

I'd call it one facet of congruence between Sim and other modes.

Situation is king here, BTW. If you can maneuver into a situation where the "what the character would do" is the most dramatic thing, then choosing it has high Congruence. Sorcerer is great for this, IMO. The character reverting to use of Sorcery is completely appropriate in most cases, and always dramatic due to the rules. And, given the ramifications, not using Sorcery is dramatic. So no matter what you do in the face of conflict, the result creates themes. Which means you can rely on "What my character would do" all the time, and the Narrativism comes automatically.

Mike

[Gordon C. Landis]

Mike,

Your option D - I see where it is clearly non-problematic for the "Immersionist" (quotes very important as we have no definition for that term and can only hope everyone kinda-sorta knows what we mean), but I disagree that it would, of neccessity, be a non-"Authorial" act.  The player/group may see more drama in the affair continuing to be unknown by that character for now.  It may set up an encounter at the bar with someone ELSE who's going to reveal the affair.  Or etc. etc.

For the basic point, I'm not sure if that matters - but this discussion seems highly prone to wandering, and I wanted to nip that bit of possible dispute rather than let it be a distraction.

All,

I also think Jonathan is basically on track, and I think the only revision I'd make is along the same lines as Mike's point about "out of character" not being relevant.  I'd phrase it this way: it's not (preferably - perhaps STRONGLY preferably, or perhaps not) that folks break character and ignore previous actions and/or preestablished personality - it's that they work to find something (out of the *many* possible actions/directions/interpretations available) that is consistent with all that AND also works for the other goal (story, shared group enjoyment, whatever).  IMO, too much unconsidered "the character is in some way kinda-sorta a real seperate being" can get in the way of looking at those many possible actions.

Now, getting past that one still has to do things in a manner that doesn't offend OTHER desired attributes of play (not looking too contrived, displaying "too much" Authorial Appearance, etc.).  And I'd say it's a pretty common preference to want as many "what the character would do" impulses as possible to just flow right into the gameplay without conducting too much perceived and/or experienced "contemplation" of the myriad other possibilities.

I just happen to strongly believe that there are some times (NOT all times) when that contemplation so greatly improves play that the cost of momentarily lost (and perhaps, if it matters to you, not even noticed by anyone else, if you're lucky/good enough) "flow" from character-thinking-derived impulse to in-shared-gamespace realization is well worth it.  And I've met a number of people who in principle agree, but in practice act AS IF the direct flow from character-impulse to play were all-important.  Shaking them of the (potientially valuable and rewarding) myth that the character is real can remind then to act from the principle, rather than habit.

There are people who in principle *disagree* - who hold the direct flow to be in actuality all-important, and who'd rather have the game fall apart and try again than allow that kind of contemplation to interfere with their play preference.  For them, the fact that characters aren't real hardly matters, though I guess you could get almost all of 'em to admit it's true.

Knowing where your fellow players stand on this issue - at an extreme, with a leaning, firmly balanced, or whatever - is a valuable thing, IME.

Gordon