Adventures in Shared Character Vision

[lumpley]

It's over a year ago...

"Hey, has everybody else noticed that Vincent's not playing any of the covenfolk?" Meg says.

"Y'know, I had noticed that," says Emily.  "I've been wondering if he's just like an enormous slouch or what?"

"Oh fer christ sake," I say.

"I think he should play Avis," Meg says.

"Me too, like he said he would last time we talked about it," Emily says.  "But hasn't."

"'Cause otherwise I have to keep having these conversations with myself," Meg says.

"Oh come on," I say.  "You know I'm not gonna."

This was maybe not precisely what they wanted me to say.  They look at me.

"Because you don't think he's gay," I say.

"He's not gay," Meg says.  "He's, y'know, French."

"French and yet somehow also gay," I say.

"Vincent, he's not gay!  He was totally in love with Renna in the village.  He was totally in love with that beautiful girl in Golu.  It's clear he's into women!"

"Inaccessible women.  So he can moon around and declare his impossible love and not have to do anything about it."

"Y'know, that is kind of interesting, isn't it," Emily says.  "But that doesn't mean he's gay."

"I know it doesn't," I say.  "Him being our horse guy doesn't either.  But I just think he is.  And meanwhile I'm not going to take responsibility for playing him if I can't play him the way I want to."

"Rrr," Meg says.

It's last night...

"...So I'm going to post more about shared character vision.  I'm going to post about Avis," I say.

"About Avis?" Meg says.  She's been playing him right along, although he gets little screen time and not much has come of him.  "What about Avis?"

"You know.  That I think he's gay."

"Oh, right!" Em says.

"Gay?  Avis isn't gay," Meg says.

"Says you," I say.

"You think he's gay?  He was totally in love with Renna!  He was totally in love with that beautiful girl in Golu!"

"...Who were both inaccessible, thus safe, thus non-challenging to his poor closeted sexuality," I say.

"Rrr," Meg says.  "That doesn't mean he's gay."

So that's how it goes.  Am I right about Avis' sexuality or is Meg?  We don't know.  It hasn't been tested in play.  It's not pressing; it may never be tested in play, he's just some minor character who's not gettin' any.  Meanwhile, we're all free to look at his behavior to date and draw whatever conclusions we want.

What do you think, though: can we disagree because it's not pressing, or is it not pressing because we disagree?

-Vincent

[Valamir]

So what you're saying is that you won't play him because if you were to play him, you'd want to portray him as being gay, and since that violate the other players vision of him, you'd rather simply not play him...

Hmmmm, seems to me there are 2 ways to handle this.

1) find the most common ground you can that is universally shared among the players and agree to play him that way, until such time as people vision clarifies one way or the other.

In this case it seems that you can all agree that he's somewhat...gender preference ambiguous.  While that seems like it came about purely as a coincidence of actual play events rather than a concious effort to make him that way, the fact remains that that's where the character wound up.  That's where actual play took him, so even if it wasn't intentional, it can become intentional now, and your shared character vision can reflect this.

Instead of worrying that your shared vision won't make him out right straight or outright gay, agree that he's ambiguous and wait for actual play to point the arrow at the answer at some point in the future.


2) The buck stops here.  It seems to me, that unless you have a group that is just amazingly on the same wavelength and has the ability to collaborate peaceably indefinitely, that it would be helpful to give someone the ultimate authority to make the call.  My sentiment would be (and this likely ties back to the Yin Yand discussion we had earlier) that at some point someone takes charge and "makes it so".

[Meguey]

So that's how it goes. Am I right about Avis' sexuality or is Meg? We don't know. It hasn't been tested in play. It's not pressing; it may never be tested in play, he's just some minor character who's not gettin' any. Meanwhile, we're all free to look at his behavior to date and draw whatever conclusions we want.

What do you think, though: can we disagree because it's not pressing, or is it not pressing because we disagree?

I think it's not pressing and we disagree, not because  we disagree.

On the shared character vision front, I think the biggest stumbling block to the Avis question is/was not his sexual orientaion but the degree to which it was a shared vision. I think that, in the two examples Vincent gives, Emily and I are not in a place of shared character visioning, but in a place of shareing out the GM grief and goading Vincent to pick up some of the slack. From this angle, the question is more one of assignment than development, as per my as-yet-unfinished game 1001 Nights (gee, I guess it's official now, huh?) There is a fairly long-standing rule in our game of 'you named it, you play it', so I felt responsibility for Avis as one of Eki's entourage. While wanting Vincent or Emily to take him on, I was not yet released from the 'YN,YP' rule, so felt weird conflicting vision issues.

If we were to place available characters on the table in a shared character vision session, as we did Jaslyn, they would similarly develope in unexpected and interesting ways. That might be a great thing to do next time we feel the need for a story bridging mechanic such as we've used with the 'now people arrive at GA' and 'now we see what all the other covenants are thinking' bridges.

With that in mind,

I just think he is. And meanwhile I'm not going to take responsibility for playing him if I can't play him the way I want to.

What do you think, Em? Shall we consider Avis to be open to the shared character visioning treatment, and let Vincent "play him the way [he] wants to"?

~Meguey

[Matt Wilson]

Who created the character? In PTA, each player has connections for their protagonist, who are supporting characters on the show that deal primarily with that protagonist. Sorta like how on Home Improvement, that Wilson guy (no relation) deals pretty much only with Tim Allen's character.

Anyone can jump in and play that character, and it's usually more interesting for the game if someone does. However, the player who created that connection gets final say over how he/she/it's played.

[lumpley]

Matt, that's it exactly.  Meg created the character as a member of her main character's entourage, then asked me to play him.

No I've been kind of flip in my refusal, but what it's about is taking playing someone else's character as a serious responsibility.  My only insight into the guy - the only thing that really grabs me about him as a character I'd want to play - may not get the group's buy-in.  It's not that I'll play him my way or the highway, it's that I don't want to take on a responsibility I'm already not living up to.

Ralph, your #1 is pretty much what we're doing.

We actually spend a lot of time in free-for-all whenever we introduce characters, tossing them around and making suggestions and brainstorming until the proprietor (if there is one) or any random one of us (if there isn't) goes ding! and takes ownership.  Poor Avis is a case where the suggestions and brainstorming didn't ding and we keep trying to foist ownership off on one another.  

Well, Emily not so much, she's fortunate that way, but between me and Meg it's a positive foist-fest.

-Vincent

[Matt Wilson]

Matt, that's it exactly. Meg created the character as a member of her main character's entourage, then asked me to play him.

No I've been kind of flip in my refusal, but what it's about is taking playing someone else's character as a serious responsibility. My only insight into the guy - the only thing that really grabs me about him as a character I'd want to play - may not get the group's buy-in. It's not that I'll play him my way or the highway, it's that I don't want to take on a responsibility I'm already not living up to.

Is this for Ars Magica? I have to confess I only have peripheral knowledge of the game. Are there any rules that keep you from getting Avis into all kinds of trouble if you choose to play him? Does he come with a list of dos and don'ts?

In Universalis, another player can pay for the right at any time to take control of a character I created and change the crap out of him or her, and that can sometimes discourage me from investing too much in that character. But it's easily remedied with a house rule -- is that the Uni name for it? Like only the creator can add traits.

So maybe it'd be easier to solve the issue by working backward from Universalis. Start at the assumption that you can do anything you want with Avis when you play him, and build restrictions on that.

[bluegargantua]

We actually spend a lot of time in free-for-all whenever we introduce characters, tossing them around and making suggestions and brainstorming until the proprietor (if there is one) or any random one of us (if there isn't) goes ding! and takes ownership.  Poor Avis is a case where the suggestions and brainstorming didn't ding and we keep trying to foist ownership off on one another.  

Well, Emily not so much, she's fortunate that way, but between me and Meg it's a positive foist-fest.

 Then your solution is self-evident:

 Emily plays Avis.  That's what you get for trying to avoid the issue.  :)

 I guess here's a larger question -- would your take on Avis translate into any substantial deviation from the way he's been portrayed up until now?  Meg says he's got this pining for women, you claim it's pining for women he can't have to cover his orientation.  So no matter how you play it (straight or gay), that's still going to be the way he looks -- pining for women he can't have.

 If you play Avis your way then he's got this tortured conflict between what he says and what he feels and will have to take risks to satisfy his heart's desires.  If you play Avis Meg's way then the angst factor isn't quite as high but he'll still have to take risks to satisfy his heart's desire.  The nature of the risks he takes will be very different, but fundamentally they come down to the same thing.

 There are two other questions that also spring to mind here:

 1.)  He's covenfolk.  Does he even rise above grog status?  If he's just a spear-carrier, then maybe his orientation isn't that important.  Maybe he's not much more than a name and a distinctive voice or mannerism.  I know that you guys put a great deal of effort into understanding each and every person in the convent (and in the wider game-world) but I find it hard to believe that you delve so deeply into every individual person.  Sometimes, even when they have a name, they're still just mooks.

 2.)  Maybe he's bisexual?  You put it at 80% gay, 20% straight and Meg reverses the numbers in her head and he remains ambiguous.  In fact, it almost seems that your debates around "is he gay or not" have pretty much pushed him into this realm.  If you, the creators of the universe aren't sure, then neither is anyone else, possibly neither is Avis himself.

 If it was me?  Well, if you're the guy who's playing Avis, I say you get to call the shots on his orientation.  I don't think Meg can make a compelling case for why Avis should be straight (it's not like she's got some mage-grog romance plot building up).  Likewise, I don't necessarily think that you've got a compelling case for why he should be gay.  But since you're the one being asked to play him, you should get to make those kinds of choices.  I'd fall back to the "No Negation" rule used by Improv groups and just let the player run with it.

 All of this, of course, under disclaimer that I might not be in full possession of plot/character details or play structure/group dynamic rules.

later
Tom

[lumpley]

Matt, it's only sort of Ars Magica.  We ditched the published rules long ago.  So the dos and don'ts that he comes with are just Meg's vision and sense of ownership vs. mine.

Emily plays Avis. That's what you get for trying to avoid the issue. :)

Ideal!  If only Emily hadn't been very reasonable and not at all a slouch about taking up several characters from the entourage already.  Here I shake my head ruefully.

Fortunately you're very right about Avis not being a big deal.  His up in the air ownership isn't holding our game back any, at least right now - let alone his up in the air sexuality.  And naturally we'll resolve it posthaste if it starts to interfere.  Currently he's just a curiosity.

-Vincent

[Emily Care]

*chuckle*

Me bail you two out? I wouldn't dream of it! Avis exists in a limbo state, a no-one's-land where concensus has broken down.  Since it is not obstructing play, particularly, I kind of dig it.  

It's been interesting to hear the (very sensible) responses here and suggestions about what to do about Avis: determine ownership, get a ruling from the written system, have a third party take it over, find a compromise in the character conception and play him down the middle (hmm...maybe we should pull a King Solomon :).  Any of those solutions would do well, and if it was more pressing--or if it mattered less--I'd say pick one. But what I'm waiting for is the real resolution of the issue, which will happen when we reach an organic consensus.  

If all we needed was for something to be true about Avis, we'd have used one of the techniques listed above.  What I think is more important to us is that we all feel not just "okay" with what is decided about his sexuality, but that we are all behind it and are, to some degree, invested in it.  The fact that he is still unresolved tells me that we think this point is rather significant--which is my answer to your original question, Vincent.

And Tom, yes, we do seem to pay an inordinant amount of attention to small details about characters' personal lives, but that's actually pretty integral to our games. They are character oriented, and the personal lives of our coven folk are both 1) important fuel for plot and theme exploration and 2) of interest to us as authors and audience.  Also, from the start, the heart of this character's conception has been about his romantic nature.  The reading we decide on will determine a great deal about his essential nature, and narrative potential. (Yes, even grogs have them in our game)  

Meg, I think your suggestion is good--to offer Avis up to the shared visioning process. Actually, I feel like that is exactly what we are doing by not deciding which idea is true. As Mike suggested, we are in some sense waiting to see what happens in game.  But also we are waiting to see what happens in us. We are letting the internal jury of our concensus be out for as long as is needed until we can all go "Yeah! That's what's up with Avis!"   That's the kind of organic concensus I'm talking about.   It's true when it feels right and true to all involved.

And, definitely a way to avoid this in future would be to have the originator of the character hold him/her open for negotiation as we did with Jaslyn. That person would have final say on what was eventually decided.  I held my veto strongly (though quietly) during the negotiations for Jaslyn.  Everything suggested had to match with what felt right about her, even though I didn't "know" what she was like before that session. Really, it's rather amazing that this kind of conflict doesn't happen more often for us!  

Regards,
Em

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Has anyone considered a group agreement (in sense of, "valid until someone gets a wild hair") to reinforce the ambiguity in Avis' sexual preferences specifically as the goal in itself?

Kind of a "Is that guy gay or not? But he said ... oh, but then he did ... and what about ..." kind of way. In other words, as a supporting character, he's a tease - toward the audience.

This is a big deal in a lot of serial media, especially comics and TV. Did you know that Colossus is often cited as a gay character in the X-Men? Maybe the writers and artists (often co-writers) were all conspiratorial about it from the beginning. Or maybe that's just a fan interpretation that's taken on great power through (a) consistency and (b) a wise editorial policy of winking and looking wise.

The point is that Colossus is a solid secondary character because of the ambiguity, and frankly, it's a thousand times more interesting as such than, say, some kind of coming-out storyline (God those are so lame).

So why not do this for Avis? At the very least, it's a nifty artistic challenge, and you guys could even pitch hot potatos at one another by shifting control over the character at ... well, at interesting moments during play.

Best,
Ron

[Meguey]

Has anyone considered a group agreement (in sense of, "valid until someone gets a wild hair") to reinforce the ambiguity in Avis' sexual preferences specifically as the goal in itself?

Kind of a "Is that guy gay or not? But he said ... oh, but then he did ... and what about ..." kind of way. In other words, as a supporting character, he's a tease - toward the audience.

Hm. I don't think so, somehow. I think that presupposes a main thrust of the audience' interest being focused on Avis' preferences. I'm more interested in figuring out the cooperative character development break-down and clearing up how we're handling that than Avis' actual orientation. This conversation has been very helpful to that end.

I guess here's a larger question -- would your take on Avis translate into any substantial deviation from the way he's been portrayed up until now?

Good question - it may not change it at all, since he's mostly off-screen now. I suspect that the whole 'thing with Avis' is a future plot line, like the 'what's up with Soltis?' line and the 'so what does Berhas do now?' line. Tom's other questions about the amount of attention to relatively minor characters have been answered by Emily already. In the one AM game where we did have faceless, nameless 'grogs' (servant / soldier / workers not worthy of individualization), it fell down completely, since there was nothing there for primary characters to bounce off. The grogs became background noise to the point of non-existence.

In our current game, I've seem grog class characters used only twice - once in our My Life With Master cross-over, and once in the 'no sh*t, there I was, and the mages did XY and Z' re-telling of the clash between Quintus and Regere Lux.  The faceless masses of servants that Coeris must have just don't even exist to the mages, so aren't named or mentioned. Eki's servants were companions and there were few enough of them to differentiate quickly and easily, and I feel like they deserve complexity, even if we don't play them.

we are in some sense waiting to see what happens in game. But also we are waiting to see what happens in us. We are letting the internal jury of our concensus be out for as long as is needed until we can all go "Yeah! That's what's up with Avis!" That's the kind of organic concensus I'm talking about. It's true when it feels right and true to all involved

That's exactly right. And in a way, doing what Ron suggests about letting the ambiguity be.

~Meguey

[lumpley]

Would it be social contract sabotage if I went with Ron's idea anyway?  Secretly, like?

-Vincent

[Mike Holmes]

Would it be social contract sabotage if I went with Ron's idea anyway?  Secretly, like?

That would be a male revolt. You think they wouldn't see through you like a spring break tee-shirt? You'd get squashed like a bug. :-)

Mike

[Jason Lee]

What do you think, though: can we disagree because it's not pressing, or is it not pressing because we disagree?

I think you can disagree because it's not pressing.  If it was forefront, you'd hafta reach consensus or someone would feel like the character is 'off' when being played.  A little off-ness in a background character doesn't harm suspension of disbelief much.


Avis can't be gay, that'd bug Meg...  Avis can't be straight, that'd bug Vincent...

Heh, I'd probably want to do something weird to solve the conflict like make Avis a straight woman in disguise.  Now Avis isn't gay, but is still going after unattainable women to cover up her orientation.  I dunno, maybe her parents died, and because women can't own land she masqueraded as a man to keep the farm, which is long gone (somehow) now that she works for the coven, but it's been so long she can't stop.  It'd be No Myth in action if you'd never seen Avis without a shirt.

Or maybe, Avis is possessed by a spy of evil Mr. So-and-so, that's why he seems like two different people.

Ya know, be a slippery little weasel and change what you're talking about if you can't agree.

[Gordon C. Landis]

My only insight here is to say if there's a question as to Avis' sexulaity, ONE valid way to answer the question is through play.  I guess this is Ron's advice, with the added commitment to eventually answer the question (or at least address it) as play continues.  Let things come up in gameplay that continue to bring the issue of his sexuality to your attention (maybe a male begins pursuing him?  Or whatever . . .), and if/when that causes a light bulb to go off - you get your answer.

Now, you've got three people, each with their own lightbulb, so there's no way to know if it'll go off for everyone at the same time and/or in the same way, but - "more play with this issue around somewhere" doesn't seem likely to be a *bad* thing . . .

Gordon