In the thread about introducing N players to S play, Paul Czege linked to a much older thread about making the same character over and over again. Since that particular thread was lacking in personal anecdotes, I'd like to share my experiences, if only to give credence to what was stated in the thread and to see if my own experiences are unique or if they are part of a greater phenomenon.

During my senior year in college, I finally found a group that was doing World of Darkness games. Long story short, it started well enough, but our expectations began to clash, and it seemed to them that I was doing things wrong and rehashing the same types of character ("All your characters are either Chinese or racist Southern white men."). I pointed out that another guy in our group did the same thing (his characters were often Alpha male types but with more brains than machismo), but they either didn't notice it or thought that as long as it was wish fulfillment (instead of tackling personal issues in a safe environment), it was OK. I won't get into the double standard of that, but suffice it to say that the one thing I wasn't asked was why I found the concepts so intriguing in the first place, or what my goals and ideas for the characters were. Of course, equal blame lay with me for not speaking up about them because I was too intent upon defending my own creative agenda and reasons for playing. Also, at the time I didn't have a means of really expressing what I wanted to do with these characters in the first place. I parted with the group for other reasons, but it seems that had I known about the Forge and found the thread about creating the same character over and over, it would have saved me a lot of headaches.

Fast forward to a LotR game I played. I created the "same character" again: a Dunedain who had gone to Harad after a war to find some manner of inner peace. There, he'd met and fallen in love with a local woman. They had an affair, and he later abandoned her out of shame, a shame based in no small part in his own attitudes towards other peoples. He later regretted his decision, but believed there was nothing to be done about it. Long story short, the Narrator used that part of his background and close to the end of the campaign, my character's past became an important element of the story, and I managed to resolve the issues I had in mind when creating the character. He earned his lover's forgiveness by admitting he was wrong. He was killed, but I was very happy. I even did a little dance. For the first time I can recall, I actually managed to do what I set out to do with a character and resolve the issues that were central to its creation. Since then, I have not created a "racist white male" character type.

Paul Czege in a PM wrote: Green,
Do you think you were consciously more aware of what you were wanting for your "same character" than the players I described in the thread?
Paul

I have a player in my games at the moment who joined as an ArM campaign was coming to an end.
I believe that the idea of playing a wizard was what attracted him to our group.
Since then he has gone on to create wise man style characters in all our games since. I believe that this is because I have never directed the story in a way that allowed him to develop the character further.
I am unable to see the premise of such a character ie. what point of conflict needs resolution. The wise man archetype strikes me as a hero at the end of a journey, not the begining.

Having recently discovered the forge and the concept of a clear premise for characters I have hopes that I can encourage this player to provide me with enough information to help him tell the story of his character.

That the kinda thing you were looking for?

My most favorite characters all center on exploration of the theme of finding personal values, humanistic stuff generally. I've been blessed with campaigns (the word we used) that terminated in some way - and all those that terminated have not led me to re-create those explorations.

Funnily, now that I think about it, the importance of children is something that was present in a character that didn't get resolution. And it is something I'm now pondering on putting explicitly in my game under design. However, it might just have something to do with my age, singleness, etc. :)

Just as an example of what I've played, since that seems part of what you're asking:

1. A priest-to-be in modern-day amsterdam, non-religious but convinced he can help people under the guise of religion. Embraced by a vampire, and thus shock-forced to acknowledge the supernatural. His values centered strongly on finding the right 'god'.

2. A rastafarian dwarf in a shadowrun game - pursuing his lost/kidnapped sister to seattle. The bonds of family.

3. A male greek verbena mage ('witch') in victorian england, father of a 'special' child. Fled his old coven because they were bloodthirsty sacraficial types and eying his kids unsavourily. Exploring the value of something human, but not average.

And some more stuff, but a lot less memorable.

Green and Mojo,

You've helped me get a new perspective on why some of my players always seem to create the same characters.

Mojo, your criterion for a successful character concept as having a "point of conflict [that] needs resolution" seems to cut directly to the heart of what I'm seeing with one player in particular. His characters are always interested in what is essentially dating: flirting, seducing, etc other characters. Up until reading your comments, I'd thought that the reason he kept repeating this character was that I'd never given him the opportunity to play in a game where those activities were more than just colorful side activities.

While I still think that's true, I'm also not sure what the conflict that needs resolution is for that character. I'd like to articulate that for him, but I'm not sure how to approach it--I think because I haven't fully figured out what constitutes a conflict. Insights?

It might be right there on the character sheet, or in his background story.

It's probably not stated in big red ink, but there might be a common thread. Say, all his characters have a high beauty/appearance. It might mean something if the player isn't the prettiest looking guy - or when he's good-looking himself. Same thing for a really low score. Maybe he's looking to see if beauty matters. Maybe he's looking to see what 'tricks' work in game. Maybe he's looking to see whether being an extravagant personality matters. Maybe he's lonely in real life. Maybe he wants to see if the surroungdings will accept him for his inside, instead of the outer shell. Maybe he's examing the shallowness of flirting - or it's possibility for True Love.

I have no clue, of course. And I might be messing up player and character motives horribly.

Hey Mojo,

...I have hopes that I can encourage this player to provide me with enough information to help him tell the story of his character.

That the kinda thing you were looking for?

Yes, that's exactly it. Did you read the "on making the same character over and over" thread that Green linked to? In it, I describe my friend Tom's efforts to do exactly what you propose with this player. Scott Knipe's comments on that thread are definitely worth reading:

hardcoremoose wrote: Paul's most recent comment cuts to the very heart of what makes directorial/authorial power so damned cool.

If you're playing a game with someone, and you're approaching it from the traditional player/GM relationship (i.e., primarily actor stance), the GM might hit the cues he's supposed to. I repeat, he might. But even if he's good friends with someone and he has a reasonable understanding of the things that person likes, he's still going to be lucky to play into their wants and needs about half the time. Because we're not psychoanalysts...We can't know what the player wants....

Now deliver that player some extremely powerful directorial and/or authorial power and stand back.

Almost all of my characters, by design, either want something impossible for them or are dreaming of something they lost... the Chaos Lord in this game, for example, is working for Amber against Chaos, even though his sympathies are basically the other way around. He's a walking contradition that can never get straightened out. Almost all my characters, in whichever game I play, are broken in some essential way. Seeing them get hosed a little more adds to the fun.

Hey Danny,

I do wonder, do you consider playing serial similar characters to be a flaw?....I definitely lean towards...a definite type. I would love to have more GM's play to that type, but I'd hate to think they were trying to "cure" me of that preference.

I think Green's choice of the word "rehashing" for this thread title is a little unfortunate, as it carries a somewhat negative connotation. I suspect its choice was driven by the character count limit on thread titles. My original thread was "on making the same character over and over."

"Rehash" suggests to me a character that has been done, and done again. But I don't think that's what we're talking about here. I think we're talking about players creating characters with the same embedded thematic content over and over because consistently the individual characters haven't achieved done status. Does that make sense? Have you read the original thread?

Paul

Tobias, I'm in agreement with you in that there is a common thread in all these characters; what I'm saying is that I haven't, either by looking at the character background information or observing play, been able to see a conflict that the character needs to resolve.

I suspect the player has some personal reasons why playing a don juan is appealing, but what I'd really like to discuss is the idea that a conflict inherent in the character is important (and linked to playing the same character over and over).

You may be right about some of his motivations (although I'm not interested in psychoanalyzing the player per se). For instance, he may be investigating what it's like to be beautiful, or having an extravagant personality, or shallowness... in fact I think you may be hitting the mark with several of the motives you mentioned. However none of those seem to be anything that can be resolved (eg the old wise man in Mojo's example). I'm curious to find out whether we can nail down what constitutes a conflict at the heart of a character, and if resolving that conflict makes a character no longer as compelling to repeat (eg Green's anecdote).

To sum up what I'm asking: what's all this about conflict then? :)

edit: I took too long composing this, and missed several posts. To clarify my feeling, I do think that playing the same character over and over is bad for my group. It may not be for others, but for me, I would like to both a) play to the players' desires for their characters and b) enable them to resolve these characters (and play new ones).

I play with loki and we got talking about our gaming group. What we noticed was there was a LOT of repetition across characters and games. The same barbarian in Cromaich lands would have almost exactly the same personality and outlook as a space monk from Zimbuka.

To me it's kind of a letdown. I think to some degree is a sign of neophytism or lack of effort on the part of the player. Maybe people get out of role playing different things, but it's much less interesting to me to be starting up a new game and know that guy z is going to make a character like this,etc.


as for me, i think playing different kind of role playing games a few stints as gm has really helped me get into the "role" of the characters more, trying to expand their characters and interact how i envision them. I've tried to make up characters that are different with odd or peculiar motivations. Our group is about to experiment with the pool, which i hope will increase player creativity and get people to try and see their characters as part of an evolving story.

gk3

I play with loki and we got talking about our gaming group. What we noticed was there was a LOT of repetition across characters and games. The same barbarian in Cromaich lands would have almost exactly the same personality and outlook as a space monk from Zimbuka.

To me it's kind of a letdown. I think to some degree is a sign of neophytism or lack of effort on the part of the player. Maybe people get out of role playing different things, but it's much less interesting to me to be starting up a new game and know that guy z is going to make a character like this,etc.


as for me, i think playing different kind of role playing games a few stints as gm has really helped me get into the "role" of the characters more, trying to expand their characters and interact how i envision them. I've tried to make up characters that are different with odd or peculiar motivations. Our group is about to experiment with the pool, which i hope will increase player creativity and get people to try and see their characters as part of an evolving story.

gk3

Paul Czege wrote: "Rehash" suggests to me a character that has been done, and done again. But I don't think that's what we're talking about here. I think we're talking about players creating characters with the same embedded thematic content over and over because consistently the individual characters haven't achieved done status. Does that make sense? Have you read the original thread?

Greg, have you read the comments from the original thread? About how players might repeat because they never get to "finish" their character's story? What do you think about that supposition? Could that be the case with the barbarian's player?

It's been my experience that even the newest of players can switch up characters, but usually only do so when the character concept seems "played out."

Mike

Mike,

I was nodding my head as I read the original thread (only read about the first 3/4 of it). I think that it's vital for the players to feel like they are controlling the story enough that they might ever feel like the character's story is finished. As someone noted, d20 (which is mostly what we've played) runs rather counter to having your character do cool stuff, because it usually doesn't work. :\

I think for our group the whole idea of role playing isn't evolved to the point where the players feel like they can act outside of a set story. We've been taking some huge strides lately to rectify this (great ork gods was rather enlightening in this regard, although the characters are quite short lived)

reminiscing:
Troll boss: I want u to go kill everyone in town.. get girls and money.. you understand.

My ork: U ugly.

Troll kills ork. :)

Shortest lived character EVER, but he pretty much did what I had in mind for him.

Anyway, I do think that some different games would help. Our latest D20 was much more free-form, I htink i rolled a d20 3 times the whole night.

I guess I was making another point which goes back to the original thread, which is that when the players don't or can't elaborate what they want their characters to do, either b/c the system is throttling them from directing the story, or the GM just sucks in this regard (I'm speaking of my own railroaded games, Loki), then an experienced player can still enjoy it, play out the character and move on, but a less experienced one might not have a problem doing so.

I'm going to suggest that we spend some time as the group discussing this issue in general, so that the players get more used to it. I think the dynamic in the Pool where the characters get to narrate their own outcomes will help tremendously. (Our version of Great ork gods ended up playing like this.)

Loki had another good idea for the group and getting people to play other characters. It was to literally have them pass their character sheets to the right, and keep playing. now I'm playing another character for awhile. Literally, just jump into another role and see if you can hack it. Weirdly, i might imagine this could have a similar effect to playing through a character..

Anyway, it's all about fun and our group does have fun.. so not too much reason to complain. I would just like to see people expanding their repetoire a bit.

gk3

Paul wrote: I think we're talking about players creating characters with the same embedded thematic content over and over because consistently the individual characters haven't achieved done status. Does that make sense?"

I'm seeing a lot of agreement here with the idea that players will create characters to address an issue in their own subconsious.

This has a lot of resonance for me as I am reading "the hero with a thousand faces".

I think this is getting at larger issues with roleplaying. I know that when I started playing as a teenager I used roleplaying as a way of addressing my adolescent issues.

I think for most players and GM's this kind of "therapy through play" is an unarticulated area. I imagine (I have not played like this yet) that kickers would "force" resolution but are dependant on players being able to correctly create a situation that connects with the characters story.

A game that is specifically designed to tell the hero's journey could help players successfully resolve this kind of stuff (an idea I am working through at the moment).

Thoughts?

hanschristianandersen wrote: It made me realize that I tend to play the same character over and over again - a strong-willed, competent and trained (but not ubercompetent or whiff-proof) individual with very deeply held convictions. Crucially, this character's backstory ALWAYS involves a substantial outside force that threatens the character's self-identity, either directly ("You are not who you think you are") or indirectly (by threatening something the character holds dear). In response, the characters must grow and move forward lest they be lost to the outside force.

I continue to make this sort of character, without consciously trying to do so, even though I've played the story through to conclusion at least three times - including one time when the character ultimately couldn't come to terms with the necessary sacrifices, and had very satisfying tragic ending.

Hans, I can completely identlify with you. The characters I have played over the years fall into the same archetype over and over and I finally figured out why: a) they are an attempt, like you it seems, to explore something central to my own self-identity, and b) I have never played the character type to a point of completion. The campaigns I have been involved in all tend to peter out long before any real sense of completion has been accomplished. (Its rough when everyone goes home every summer...I'm in graduate school, so the semester system wreaks havoc with our gaming:)

I've been reading this thread a while, and I understand why so many players have archetypical characters that they regularly return to. It's an interesting discussion.

I noticed, though, that nobody has piped up to say that they don't play similar characters repeatedly. I look back over my own characters and few of them are even similar, let alone thematically unified. Or if they are, it lies beyond my analytical powers to discern. The only thing I note is that they are all more "effective" than I am- but I'm pretty sure that's a common theme of ALL role-playing characters. I mean, how often do you play a character who is less effective than you are in real life? Maybe for a particular game with an unusual theme, but not in general.

So, I'm wondering about the experiences of others who don't fit the mold being discussed here, and if maybe there is some kind of underlying psychology behind that style as well. Are we "searching for ourselves"? Are we making some kind of statement? Are we more secure in our real personas, or less?

Anybody have any thoughts? And if this seems too divergent from the topic it can be split off into a separate thread, or whatever.

Nev the Deranged wrote:
So, I'm wondering about the experiences of others who don't fit the mold being discussed here, and if maybe there is some kind of underlying psychology behind that style as well. Are we "searching for ourselves"? Are we making some kind of statement? Are we more secure in our real personas, or less?

Neel,
I think you make a great point. When I was younger, i had a rash of psychopathic characters - they generally fit thematically into the campaign pretty, but often they didn't. (I don't even want to think about what this says about my inner being :) - maybe just that I was the younger brother.)

At some point, it became clear to me that this was like 99% of the characters I was playing. Eventually, it seemed like a good idea to try another archetype. Since then, I've tried to vary the characters, although looking back on them, there are certain common thematic qualities throughout most of them.

Honestly, I'm not sure that there's a good way around this. Role playing is fundamentally an expression of one's self, and it seems to me impossible or at least very difficult to remove all common thematic qualities from a role. Isn't really good acting just an ability to hide one's own self while in the role? And for most actors, they have the advantage of not having to write their own script.

Actually, thinking back to it, the characters I've developed that were most different were the ones that we used for play-by-email, back when email was *new*. The ability to spend some time thinking about the ramifications of the story led us all to rely less on our "crutch" of spontaneous role and more on the storytelling.

We're playing today and I hope to have a discussion about what kind of characters we all usually play.

Greg