This may not be the right forum, but thinking it is at the moment...

What point of view do you prefer when reading rules? What I mean is do I describe everything in terms of "your character", or do I say "you", or take a third person approach and talk about "him" or "her" when referring to PCs?

Are there important reasons for using one or the other POV? Implications?

I ask because as I owrk on my game, I realized that I didn't have one consistent POV. Going back through to fix that, I had no idea what it should be.

Aidan

Thinking this goes in Theory, or Publishing? It concerns presentation rather than game.

Anyway, as long as you make your PoV clear and stick with it, it should be fine, I think. One thing that tends to turn me off, though, is having characters talk in metagame terms, or talking to characters in metagame terms. Another thing is the soulless voice of a lot of D&D (all versions) stuff. Nobilis, in my opinion, is a great example of strong PoV - you're clearly a player or potential HG, and the tone of the writing is consistently colourful or conversational, never encyclopedic.

I'm a fan of the souless presentation. :-)

I like things cut and dried. What can the players do? How are they empowered (through their characters)? What do you do?

I prefer to keep player and character separate, for sure. Don't ever say, "You" and expect that to mean the player and the character. That's a sure recipe for misunderstanding. In fact, I'm even for moving away from "your character can do..." to "you can have the character do..." It's a mouthful, but characters in RPGs don't "do" anything. Players do things, sometimes through the agency of a character.

I don't expect there to be a flood of movement to that POV, but I can only advocate what seems to me to help create better meaning in RPG rules.

Are you asking in terms of your current design? Can you give us a small portion of rules to do examples of?

Mike

I would say it should shift depending on who's talking to who. As player (GM being a player) talking to another player about their character, use the third person. When addressing a character while in character yourself, use the second person.

The trouble here is that it is sometimes difficult to determine when someone is in character or not. Hence why I'm working on the Chapeau (C) System where the players put on hats when in character. Naturally, the GM will wear several hats.

Well, I have to agree with Shreyas, I hate the impersonal approach. It makes for boring reading. Sure, it may be clear, but I don't think using a different POV means unclear, if it's done well.

It seems to me that making a distinction between the player and the character in general, while good for beginner games perhaps, doesn't actually do anything, and promotes non-involvement. At crucial stages in the game, "I have Jonas run very fast away from Black Meg" is very different from "I run like a crazy junglecat to get away from her!", in terms of feel, tension, and emotional impact. I know that some of that difference is just in how I said things, but some part of it comes from POV issues.

Ostensibly, the point of roleplaying is to pretend to be someone else, so using the rules to distinctly separate the two (the player and the character) doesn't really seem to serve any purpose. It's obvious that they are two people, but refrring to them as one person (if the mechanics support it - and I am trying for that), seems much more sensible to me. The only place where cut and dried player-PC separation is mandatory is where mechanics detract from the in-game experience (most RPGs).

A couple of you asked, so here's some segments from my game, and you tell me whether it works or not, POV-wise.

From ideas for character concepts - I wrote:
- Soldier: on the street, keeping Ma and Pop safe. You serve your country in the Army, or your community in the police force. You protect with outreach programs, or with a certain sense of recklessness that has spawned several major motion pictures. You will be the hero, and you will save the day. Hi-ho, Silver, away!

From description of Nature - I wrote:
A Nature includes all the general skills associated with the specific time and place described. It accounts for literacy, computer use, driving, general cultural knowledge (such as the stuff you learn in grade school), and anything else that might come up. Nature defines the basic circumstances in which you live, so all skills covered by the Nature are reflected in the character's Traits. If you need to make dinner for a date, but aren't a chef, you can draw on your Charisma, Knowledge, Dexterity, or Precision, as the Guide deems appropriate, because basic cooking skills are covered by Nature and thus represented in the Traits. If you want to find some information, but you aren't a researcher, you can draw on your Perception or Intelligence, because most members of your culture will have some idea of who to talk to or how to find the needed details.

Hi there,

Moved now to RPG Theory! By the initial poster's request.

Best,
Ron

Aidan:

I've been running into the same issue non-stop while drafting and re-writing my game. As a long-time player, I'm used to an at-the-table blur between other players and their characters. Usually it's picked up in context while at the table as to which "you" I mean when I'm talking to a player, but even then there's sometimes some clarification needed.

In the rules, I've included references to "you," because I don't want the game to look like a user manual, but that's exclusively addressed to the reader, not the character. You as a player. Not you as your character.

I think it also helps to promote the game's desire to incorporate other stances besides Actor in play.

On a related note, I've had to pay attention in play examples to avoid describing the character getting a bad die roll.

Here's the thing: it seems to me that supplying rules in terms of a 2nd person (you) POV would help create immersion/illusionism (I think that's what the term is here), but only to the extent that the mechanics do not detract from the setting/world presented in the game.

My game has this blurring of mechanic and setting as one of its primary goals. Using little colored tokens to represent various kinds of energy that power given actions, in-game descriptions of 'rolls' and such actually mirror what happens in the world. If you say "I'm drawing on my hiking Talent", your character in the world is actually drawing energy using their hiking talent and the associated mental complexes.

That's a poor explanation, but hopefully you all can see my point. If I want to describe the results of a poor draw in the rules, I don't have to worry so much about the mechanical description detracting from the immersion. If this is the case, then it seems to me that POV /should/ be direct, and /should/ blur the lines between player and character, just as the lines between mechanics and world are blurred.

But I am curious, how can "you" promote stances other than Actor? I'm not sure I think there /must/ be other stances, and I think that just Actor can be enough for an immersive experience (my goal). How does direct address ( "you" as player or PC) help establish a Director stance, for example? Does any other particular POV inculcate such a stance, or any other?

All this aside for the moment, I wonder how much of the standard POV (strong distinction between player and PC, and neither are ever directly addressed, just discussed) is a remnant of "classic" rulebooks. Is this a standard way of doing things simply because that's how D&D or WoD do it?

Aidan

But I am curious, how can "you" promote stances other than Actor? I'm not sure I think there /must/ be other stances, and I think that just Actor can be enough for an immersive experience (my goal). How does direct address ( "you" as player or PC) help establish a Director stance, for example? Does any other particular POV inculcate such a stance, or any other?

First, I disagree that "being the character" is the point of RPGs. It's probably the point of some RPGs (most Sim games), but not all. Or this may be just another reason why Universalis isn't an RPG. I mean in that weird game you can "be" one character one scene, Direct another character the next, and then have someone else play the same characters in the following scene. Characters don't belong to the players. But you can role-play them if you want to.

The point is that you are assuming that there is some "standard" way to play that all RPG players are familiar with, and that it's similar to how you play. Well, that's gotta be the source of 90% of bad RPG writing. People have no idea what's "normal".

Take for instance the fact that in different groups the default way to play D&D is to speak in the second person. They say, "Lurgi the wizard goes to the door and opens it." As opposed to other groups that would say, "I go to the door and open it." Why the difference? Because the text doesn't tell them what to do. It assumes that there's some common knowledge way to play. In fact early examples of play in RPG manuals have both examples. There is no "standard" and the fact that you think there is a standard is alarming.

The point is that far from promoting a certain style of play, not addressing these things in an open fashion is asking for problems.

Look at the following example: "I open the door to the closet, what's inside?" and "I open the door to the closet, and get a shirt out." In most games, both statements would be allowed, because the rules don't specifically say that the player has power soley as director of the character's actions, or as director of a story around the character. The only way to address this is to make it clear where the player's powers start and stop. Simply trying to indicate what the character can do will imply that this is the only power that the player has. But players used to having more control won't know that.

Players don't always, or neccessarily ofthen even, read the rules of the games they're going to play. Many groups rely on the GM to get the text across. Yes, even if the text targets the player. In any case, I certainly don't worry about the text detracting from Immersion. Do you read the text while you play? I never do. Even when there are rules that need adjudicating. If I can't remember, I usually make something up on the spot. Because no matter how well written the text will take you out of the game anyhow.

So if the players aren't being influenced by the text in play, why would it be harmful? This all assumes that players can't shift rapidly between metagame disscusion and Immersion. Which they can. I just don't see it as an issue.

The king as far as this sort of presentation has to be Castle Falkenstien. And I have to say that it was a fun read, even inspiring. But if I had to choose a reference for actual play, I'd go with GURPS Falkenstien each time. Because it's clear. If I must look something up (which I hate), I don't want to have to parse to be clear on what you can do.

I am tempted to relent on the subject. I mean I can concieve of a game text that was so well done that it actually became a prop in play. But it sounds too idealistic to work. If you can swing it, more power to you. It just sounds extremely risky to me.

If you want players to speak in a certain voice, or play in a manner that's conducive to Immersion my suggestion is to tell them that in no uncertain terms. Penalize them luck motes if they speak in other than the first person without some OOC signal, for instance. That is, it's my opinion that players are better informed as to how to play by direct reference rather than by inference. The latter leads to problems.

Just my take. But this is an area that is often glossed over, and is, IMO, critical.

Mike

You're right, of course. I hadn't thought through my idea very well, obviously.
I hadn't even recognized that the rulebook is rarely used in game, for example!

I don't think that a gamebook can be a prop in game. At least, it would have to be a very freeform sort of game. Even Aisling couldn't do it, I think.

Thanks for your thoughts on this, Mike. I'll take them to heart, particularly the need for explicit descriptions of how play is done (with penalties for OOC comments, for example).

Aidan

You know, the best suggestion I have is to write the game in the manner that you feel best gets the information across. Then, once you've done that, have lots of people edit it. This is far better advice than sticking to just some prescribed ideas of how to address certain issues. You may find that in the writing that it all becomes very clear how you have to get it across. In which case speculation is pointless.

You communicate well here, I'm sure your text will make sense.

Mike