Meat less Roleplaying

[Jared A. Sorensen]

I don't know what the subject means.

Here's a question:
Has anyone here ever altered or limited character concepts because of personal beliefs?

I was wondering if, for example, a vegan player only plays vegan characters. My characters are almost always teetotalers. If drugs are involved then they're always an ex-user...

I don't answers will solve any of the problems in the world, but I'm kinda curious.

[jburneko]

Wait a minute.  Are you trying to tell me that all those wacky games were produced WITHOUT the aid of drugs or alcohol?  That just blows my mind. You really ARE a mad scientist. :wink:

But to answer your question, I'm not sure.  Not really personal beliefs per se.  Instead I tend to play characters that are exagerations of my personal flaws.  Odd since most people prefer to play characters that are their ideal self.  I play characters that are me at my worst.  Two qualities that end up in a lot of my characters are Arogant and Lecherous.

In terms of personal beliefs I tend not to play violent or abusive characters.

Jesse

[kwill]

I've noticed that personal belief has influenced real-world based games of mine (where real-world includes alternate and future histories) in that religious issues never came to the fore, even when faced by dread monsters and the like

my most recently created character was a half-orc cleric for D&D, so I had to spend some time wrapping my head around his world view; of course the whole idea is that Faerun religion is a different to real-world quite significantly in that differing beliefs aren't competing as to who's interpretation is right

it'd be interesting to play a real-world devote religious type in a long-term campaign; I'd probably have to read a lot of C.S. Lewis first

other than that personal "issues" only reflected themselves in a character I specifically decided was gay, just because; apart from asking a male NPC's Appearance and a few jokes, though, nothing came of it; the issue was confounded, I think, by the fact that I generally don't roleplay any type of romantic relationships anyway (I certainly don't start them, too much time spent fighting monsters :grin:)

[joshua neff]

Well, I've never played a rapist, racist, or sexist character. But when I wasn't eating meat, I played meateating characters. I've played characters who kill (while I'd like to think I would only do that under very extreme circumstances). I've played characters who use drugs I don't. I've played characters with values different than mine, though I guess I do tend to avoid playing characters who have values radically different than mine. I probably wouldn't enjoy playing a character who was a member of the NRA or who was anti-choice or who was a misogynist. But I played a Kult character who was a capitalist wheeling-&-dealing weasel & enjoyed taking him from being a pretty shallow caricature to a fleshed out character I cared about.

[Bankuei]

  I always play characters with some level of common sense.  Whatever the "wisdom" stat is, I always put a fair amount into.  It's always easier to play someone dumber, but players really can't play someone smarter.

  Unfortunately most of the players I'm used to aren't exactly the brightest, so if I'm lacking, then the whole party is out of luck :razz:  Also, I just can't stand idiocy.

Bankuei

[Marco]

I've played smokers (a cigarette makes a cool prop) and I don't smoke. I've played drinkers and drug users (esp. in cyberpunk).

I think the difference is that I don't find smoking, drinking, or drug use *morally* wrong. A health-conscious vegatarian is very different from a moral one (and I suspect that the health conscious one would play carnivores far easier than the morally conscious one).

As I said, the big difference is violence and that's because in most games violence is morally justified (if I *was* attacked by a horde of ninja I guess I would shoot to kill).

-Marco

[Laurel]

I've never altered or limited characters to conform with my own personal beliefs- but I've done it a number of times in order to cooperate with other players or GMs and their own morals or ethics.  I'm a big believer in tailoring down my own roleplay stylistically so that it doesn't make my play partners uncomfortable.  If I'm making them feel awkward because my characters are too violent, too passive, too moralistic, too hedonistic, the game is going to suffer.

[mahoux]

Ya know, I have racked my brain about this question, and I suppose that I don't have much in the way of a "character" moral compass - I just play what seems to be the most entertaining. My whole reason for gaming seems to be entertainment, and I just figure I can put a character away when the game is over.
For example, my group played a game of Noir where I was a weasly little screenwriter from the 1940s, and I was all set to sell out one of the other players (my best friend incidentally) to the mob for personal gain.
My thoughts as an amateur actor on this is to look at it as a role. I wouldn't do a nude scene, but those who know me know that's more of an aesthetic standpoint than anything. However, anything that stretches me beyond my own realm of life seems to be fair game.

[Blake Hutchins]

Given how much heroin and acid I take during a game session, I make sure my characters avoid railroad tracks and high buildings.

Seriously, I've always taken the opposite reaction.  I'm pretty clean living, but nearly all my characters take drugs, drink, smoke, and have unsafe sex.  (Well, my long-time-ago DnD paladin didn't, but he hung around with a Chaotic "Good" group, so it's kinda the same thing.)  Vices provide interesting flaws and flavor, but then I'm attracted to the notion of the tragic hero.

Best,

Blake

[unodiablo]

I think a lot of what you've played, or what you're willing to play is also influenced by the games you've played as well...

For instance, D&D or a standard RPG is less about who you are (character personality wise), and more to do about what you have (magic items, level, hit points, etc.) in many cases. I can't recall any of my old D&D or Gamma World characters having particularly strong personalities beyond their basic role in the session (fighter, thief, seeker, etc.). With the possible exception of a goody-Paladin. Part of that was the age I was, and the social dynamic of the group involved. In fact, the Paladin was probably the last and most 'mature' game of D&D I played. The character was emotionally involved with another character, a cleric who he eventually married...

Since then, I've played everything from cute cartoon characters on up to total sicko's. And a lot of that had to do with the game. 'Toon for the former, and Kult and Sorcerer for the other end of the scale. Granted, most of the sicko's I was playing as an antagonist and GM, but that didn't make me any less into the characters. If you can't get the Players to believe your role, you can't scare the crap out of them.

With out going into my personal bad habits :smile:, I've played characters from straight-edge to burnt-out junkies or alchies, celebates to evil torturing rapist bad guys to male whores. Priests and cops to drug dealers and criminals and terrorists. Heck in V&V, I played a superhero version of myself.

I even played a dog once, but that's another thread... :smile:

Sean

[unheilig]

Nah, I'll play anything.

If it makes the character interesting, it's cool.

I'm not actually "becoming" the character, i'm "playing" the character.

Gary Oldman has never turned down a role and neither have I. :smile:

unheilig.

[Epoch]

I specifically and very self-consciously play characters who are morally opposed to me most of the time.  I also play characters who don't have the habits I do -- for example, back when I didn't drink, my characters regularly did.  My characters often smoke, and I don't.  Etcetera.

I've also played psychotic, evil sunsabitches who ought to be shot on sight.  And I'm not one of those.  Honest.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I'm thinking about my standards of play, and it so happens that I periodically write down all the characters I've played (not many; I've always been picky about being a player, in whose game, why, that sort of thing). I'm also thinking about those sessions when I have been openly irritated with the character being played by someone else.

The latter situations are very rare for me. Partly it's a matter of selection; as I say, whom I play with and why is a big deal to me and has been since the middle 1980s. Oh, being irritated with a PLAYER is less rare - most especially the Jerk variant, and GNS casualties of the sort I describe in my essay. But characters, per se? H'm.

I do not think I can separate the three following standards-sets from one another.

1) Aesthetic: "That's stupid." When I was playing a hell of a lot of Champions, I took the idea that we were creating an imaginary comic together pretty seriously. The story or events didn't have to be deadly serious, but the COMIC had to be GOOD, in my opinion.

I dislike, to this day, comics/superhero characters that would be laughed out of any comic book, due to lack of originality ("ooh! Power armor! Stole it from the covert-op government lab!"), or to lack of any semblance of heroic, even flawed-heroic behavior ("You can't make me! I have super powers!" My response: "And that's why you're going to jail, perp.")

Same goes for fantasy, which is why I don't play much fantasy. Anyone who's read my chainsaw-butcher assessment of the modern stuff, especially that brand itself derived from role-playing, knows about that (the rant in question is found in Sorcerer & Sword).

I'm pretty much a bastard about this. I'll look another player in the eye and say, "That's stupid. Why would I want to play in the same game as that?"

Don't mistake this #1 for me being a genre-fiend who can't stand to see any comic-stuff that doesn't match his one true beloved-comic moment in history. I'm fine with innovation or deconstruction - just not pastiche.

2) Moral: "Protagonists aren't total assholes." Most tough, loner, proud protagonists are actually big ol' softies. Mad Max is a prime example, along with Josie Wales, the assassin in The Killer, and more. Even really nasty protagonists are never AS BAD as the bad guys. (Cases in point: The Terminator: Judgment Day, and Payback.)

(Other case in point: compare the principals of "Your Friends and Neighbors" with those of "Requiem for a Dream." Which movie is a tragedy?)

If I'm to be interested in a character someone else is playing, then I'm not asking that he or she be a moral paragon. I do demand that the character be situated SOMEWHERE in the moral spectrum, and that events of play are to be "commenting" on that position.

Dav Harnish apparently routinely plays really awful rugged-individualist bastards a lot of the time - I can live with that, if he is willing to see what happens because of that as a form of shared commentary upon that kind of character. (Oddly, he hasn't played that sort of PC in any of MY games.)

3) Gender and sexuality: "No friggin' Ken dolls." As I have grown older, my characters have grown more gendered, more defined at least in my mind regarding their "selves" as sexual beings. The female characters I played or NPC'd in the 80s, for instance, were pretty good comics/sf protagonists, but now I look back and say, "H'm, not really women." Same with the men: "H'm, not really men."

This is not to say that the behavior of the characters has become more oriented toward getting laid or talking about it. Far from it. It means, though, that a character of mine is going to be SOME BRAND of notably male or female, and on occasion a GM has been startled at behavior that - although decorous - illustrates this.

I get irritated with characters that don't have any of this. Any VERSION of it is fine. But neuter? Forget it. People are equipped, and a great deal of one's identity has developed in reference to that. Say I'm playing a male character - a gay man, or a weak man, or a man who identifies with women ... all would be fine. But who he is exists in reference to his maleness.

FINAL POINT
Please don't write to argue or disagree about the appropriateness, fairness, or suitability of my views, especially the last part. That's not what this thread is about, and in this regard, neither you nor I should CARE about "how awful" someone's standards might be.

What matters is getting some idea of the diversity of this issue across us Forge members.

Best,
Ron

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Same goes for fantasy, which is why I don't play much fantasy. Anyone who's read my chainsaw-butcher assessment of the modern stuff, especially that brand itself derived from role-playing, knows about that (the rant in question is found in Sorcerer & Sword).

Or, gee, the ENTIRE TEXT OF ELFS! :smile:

I'm really, really into game aesthetics (as evidenced by my posts, my games and my personal style when playing) and yes, it pisses me off to no end when I'm playing a game that should be dripping in style (er, Cyberpunk or Vampire) and NOBODY GETS IT. The classic C-punk example, I'm the cool, wired badass with low-light eyes, a leather jacket and a pistol whereas everyone is a chromed monstrosity and/or merc soldier. Vampire's even worse...putting a Y in your name does not make you a goth, people. Living in the 1980's and listening to Specimen and Aliex Sex Fiend DOES.

Heh.

[Jason L Blair]

What about an "X?" Does an "X" make you goth?

I fully agree about Cpunk, though. Style, baby! STYLE!