Wanted to bring this up, since many people seem to have very strong feelings about this subject that are baffling to me. Some comments were made recently that brought this confusion back, so I thought I might address it.

First some observations:

1) In my stint here at the Forge, I've encountered several people who seem to think that the distinction between fantasy and reality is a critical component of roleplaying. It should be clear, they seem to be saying, when you're talking about something that is real and out-of-game and when you are discussing the fantastic story elements within the game itself.

2) Further, I've had multiple people lecture me about "characters not being real." Characters, they say, do not have desires and emotions outside of the player that represents them. A character cannot want to do things that their player doesn't want to do, for instance, having no real or independent emotions. This seems basically to be a strain of #1, that the distinction between real player and fictional character has to be drawn clearly.

Now, my gut reaction is to reject these claims entirely. They seem almost nonsensical to me. But I wanted to state my case and let those who think differently state theirs as well. We gain nothing by continuing to misunderstand each other, even if, in the end, we agree to disagree.

On issue #1: Honestly, I don't really know where to begin. Sure, there might be some danger in confusing fantasy with reality, but only if the people involved already had personal and emotional issues that they needed to deal with. Among mature, stable individuals, a little confusion would be a safe, interesting, and rewarding thing (hence Powerkill).

Say a player is going through some tough emotional times with family members, but doesn't know how to confront them or resolves the issues. Is it wrong to bring some of those issues into the game, having that player's PC be having similar problems with other characters in the game? No, I don't think so. Obviously, it would be nice to have that player's permission first, to make sure it's not going to upset them further, but there's no reason that roleplaying always has to be escapist and can't confront real issues that people face.

I mean, look at how roleplaying is often used in other contexts: for problem solving. You go to workshops and they give you tough situations that you have to handle. Then, you and the other people in your group act out the scene and try to resolve the issue. Is there a reason that this can't work in a game setting? Hell no. Why can't you blur the lines between fantasy and reality and bring elements of the players' real lives into the game? Why can't their having resolved problematic situations in a fantasy context enable them to deal with their RL problems in a more constructive manner.

And this is just one example of a way to healthily mix fantasy and reality, among the zillions of possible applications. What's wrong with this type of thing?

On Issue #2: This one seems a bit more complicated, but, for me, boils down to similar components. When people say "characters aren't real" I feel like I want to be Morpheus and say "What is real?" Sure, a character's identity is just a construct of their player's invention, but, hey, the player's own personality could also be described as an invented construct. There has been much talk recently of the "masks" people wear and the different personalities they have with different groups of people. Is a roleplaying or theatrical character really that different? Like the normal masks people use in social situations, a character is often just a tweaked and exaggerated version of a player's existing personality (or one aspect of that personality).

From this perspective, saying that character's aren't "real" or "don't have desires/feelings of their own" is bull. Sure, the player is projecting those desires onto the character, but the player-as-character is also feeling them as legitimate desires. We talk all the time about immersion in one's character, where the difference between player and character desires is virtually indistinguishable.

Additionally, writers often talk about certain characters "getting away from them" or "writing themselves." Characters seem to take on a life of their own and their previous established personality demands that the writer continue in the same vein, having the character do things that the writer may not necessarily want. This is the kind of distinction I often want to make between player and character desires. Just because a player chooses to make a character act a certain way in one instance doesn't mean that the player wants the character to act similarly in similar instances later on. However, the player may feel that upholding the consistancy of the game (in true Sim fashion) is more important than what they desire at a specific moment. This is when player desires and character desires can diverge.

Ultimately, it may be that we'll have to agree to disagree, but this is the way things seem to me, where player-character distinctions can be both nonexistent (in some situations) and strongly constrasting (in other situations), both of which are great opportunities for roleplaying.

Jonathan,

On #1, the idea that player and character must never, never blur, I think this is some kind of hang-over from the "bad old days" when everyone was worried about or accusing gamers of going nuts and hitting people with axes because they couldn't see the difference between fantasy and reality. On the gamer side, this residue is defensive, but I agree that the extreme, absolute distinction is totally unnecessary.

On #2, this emphasis that the characters aren't real: well, I think this remark usually has a certain kind of context. There is a relatively traditional sort of player who cannot see outside of the character. All choices and decisions made by the player in play are constrained by "what my guy would do." While this is a perfectly legitimate way to play, a number of folks around here want to point out that it is not the only way to play. And in fact, that sometimes stepping back from the character allows you to do cool things, or solve group problems, that don't happen from within character as a rule.

I'm uncertain what you're asking. I couldn't identify the two claims you want to reject.

For your #1 you say "I've encountered several people who seem to think that the distinction between fantasy and reality is a critical component of roleplaying." The answer to this is, of course it is - how else do you know when you're adding something to play? But later in the message you bring in the issue of character's facing issues the same as those currently in the player's life. It seems were not talking about making distinctions, but whether real world concerns should enter play.

Your #2 also confuses me. You want to reject the claim "characters are not real." The question is real what? Real people? Real ideas? Real experiences?

Can you reformulate the two claims you want to reject?

Jonathan Walton wrote: On issue #1: Honestly, I don't really know where to begin. Sure, there might be some danger in confusing fantasy with reality, but only if the people involved already had personal and emotional issues that they needed to deal with. Among mature, stable individuals, a little confusion would be a safe, interesting, and rewarding thing (hence Powerkill).

Say a player is going through some tough emotional times with family members, but doesn't know how to confront them or resolves the issues. Is it wrong to bring some of those issues into the game, having that player's PC be having similar problems with other characters in the game?

On Issue #2: This one seems a bit more complicated, but, for me, boils down to similar components. When people say "characters aren't real" I feel like I want to be Morpheus and say "What is real?"

For my style of play, blurring the lines between character and player is a bad thing, and not because of the potential for unstable types to go overboard. I think it's important to have a sense of who the character is as a person. When you're done playing him, he should feel like an old acquaintance or a character like Frodo that you spent many hours getting to know as you read LotR. It shouldn't feel like it's just you dressed up for a Renn Fair.

That said, there's nothing really wrong with bringing player issues into the characters. Most of my characters are me, with the addition or subtraction of some element. One character is based on the pre-Christian me, as a ninja. One is based on me, but with all sense of compassion or empathy removed. During a phase when I was working on my real life social skills, I played a politically-active cop.

Done in a non-disruptive way, this is extremely valuable. It adds depth to the character and (I believe) is a powerful way to examine yourself and your life.

Hey, Jonathan

I think we need to quantify this with a situation. First off, I doubt we're talking about a loss of reality like in Mazes & Monsters. What we're refering to is more about who is the audience and for who's pleasure the proceedings are for. The character? Heck, no. They aren't real, so it's for the player's benefeit.

Problem is, what motivates or effects the player can often be the same thing as what effects the character, so like a lot of stuff we talk about, it can be a slippery little shit. But I think we can discuss this with the whole "what is reality" thing which is only so much smoke, TBH.

Example: Ever see Last Action Hero? Few did, but in that flick Schwartzenegger as the movie character Jack Slate laments "All I want to do is be a good cop and husband and father, but I keep getting into these silly adventures." This is the character dealing with the player, as it were.

You see, it's odd and it will vary along GNS lines for people and other things. For some, their desire is to "get into" their character others use their character as a means to an end. Some do both. Slippery and probably a tad big to go into, I think.

But the main thing is the player created the character. The player plays the character. After the game, the player goes home and if the player doesn't show up one week, neither does the character (in most cases). So the player is the real person you deal with and dealing with the character as a motivating force in play only works insofar as the player is invested into their character.

Stupid anecdote:
In a recent D&D3e game, I played a half-orc. Well, sorta. I was drifting away from my group by then. But part of my background, determined randomly by Task Force Games's Central Casting, was that my father was captured and sold into slavery. One day, We just happened upon my father. Lame, true but I, the player, did not react. Almost as an Afterthought did I have the character do something about it. Good thing this happened when it did. At the time I merely discussed with the perfume merchant who owned the father to buy the father's freedom. Today, I would probably have just made sure he was alright, being well treated and left him in slavery or, if pressed by the GM to try to free the guy, killed the merchant in broad daylight in the city streets and then been killed by the guy's bodyguards or tried and executed in a court of law. Am I so soured?

The point here is, the character does nothing apart from the will of the player. In this case, the player was unmotivated in the game period, much less the character in question. Thus, motivating the character into action is futile because the player will not act except, perhaps, out of a feeling of obligation.

Hear, hear, Mr. Walton! I think I've said something akin to this before.

Alan's right that your first point is a bit blunt, but I see what you're after--why should we not try to explore real issues in play? I think around here at least that's pretty well accepted, although with caveats which I think you include. Do we want to explore what it's like to be a rape victim in a game in which one of the players is a rape victim? That's almost certainly callous, and is going to lead to hurt feelings and broken friendships. There will be aspects of reality that one group will not include in its games because members of that group don't want to go there. On the other hand, using role playing to understand (even dimly) what it would be like to be a rape victim is not itself an entirely undesireable goal--it should give you a lot more compassion for those who went through it in reality, if it's done well. No argument there. Let a bit of reality into your game worlds, to the degree you can all handle it.

On the characters, put me down as an author who has had characters refuse do to things. That's ridiculous, I hear. How can a fictional character you created refuse do to something you want him to do? Just write that he does it. It's not so absurd as it sounds, though. I can't just write that he does it. I can, if I wish, destroy who he is and create a new character with the same name, snap the disbelief suspenders of every reader, and derail the intended focus of my story with this jarring shift, but I can't make a character do anything that serves my plot merely because I want him to do it. Sure, characters do things that surprise readers; but you have to build to those, and they become major points of character development. A character has to struggle with that kind of decision for some time before making it, and the reader has to see him struggling. Otherwise, it's nonsense.

Certainly every character I create is drawn from somewhere inside me. On the other hand (as shown in a thread not long ago about Myers-Briggs types) I can take tests as different characters and get different results. Several are extroverted (I'm introverted). I'm intuitive, but most of my characters are sensing. Nearly all my characters are, like me, thinking--but one is feeling. Also, most of my characters match me as perceiving, but one (and not the one who is feeling) is judging. Once I'm in my character's head (written or role played), I know what that character would do, and it's not always what I would do, or what I would want done for the purposes of the story or the game.

As Justin says, this can be a great way to examine who you are and who you want to be. In that sense, gaming always blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, because if we're not learning from our characters we're doing something wrong.

--M. J. Young

On Issue #2: This one seems a bit more complicated, but, for me, boils down to similar components. When people say "characters aren't real" I feel like I want to be Morpheus and say "What is real?" Sure, a character's identity is just a construct of their player's invention, but, hey, the player's own personality could also be described as an invented construct. There has been much talk recently of the "masks" people wear and the different personalities they have with different groups of people. Is a roleplaying or theatrical character really that different? Like the normal masks people use in social situations, a character is often just a tweaked and exaggerated version of a player's existing personality (or one aspect of that personality).

From this perspective, saying that character's aren't "real" or "don't have desires/feelings of their own" is bull. Sure, the player is projecting those desires onto the character, but the player-as-character is also feeling them as legitimate desires. We talk all the time about immersion in one's character, where the difference between player and character desires is virtually indistinguishable.

Additionally, writers often talk about certain characters "getting away from them" or "writing themselves." Characters seem to take on a life of their own and their previous established personality demands that the writer continue in the same vein, having the character do things that the writer may not necessarily want. This is the kind of distinction I often want to make between player and character desires. Just because a player chooses to make a character act a certain way in one instance doesn't mean that the player wants the character to act similarly in similar instances later on. However, the player may feel that upholding the consistancy of the game (in true Sim fashion) is more important than what they desire at a specific moment. This is when player desires and character desires can diverge.

On the characters, put me down as an author who has had characters refuse do to things. That's ridiculous, I hear. How can a fictional character you created refuse do to something you want him to do? Just write that he does it. It's not so absurd as it sounds, though. I can't just write that he does it. I can, if I wish, destroy who he is and create a new character with the same name, snap the disbelief suspenders of every reader, and derail the intended focus of my story with this jarring shift, but I can't make a character do anything that serves my plot merely because I want him to do it. Sure, characters do things that surprise readers; but you have to build to those, and they become major points of character development. A character has to struggle with that kind of decision for some time before making it, and the reader has to see him struggling. Otherwise, it's nonsense.

Well, after reading over the original message and some responses, I think I see that there are several issues all mixed up here. This is why I asked Jonathan to clarify his original post. As people have gone merrily ahead, we've developed a jumble of subjects, including:

A The fear that players will confuse fantasy and reality if not strictly reminded of the difference.

B Player emotional attachment to in-game events which may spill over into real-world choices. (eg you killed my fighter, now I'll kill your thief.)

C Should play include in-game situations that reflect a player's own real-life concerns.

D What stance should a player use to make in-game decisions.

E Do characters have a life beyond the player?

...and others, I've probably overlooked.


Frankly, I think A and E are the least interesting. D. has been discussed extensively in the GNS forum. B. would make an interesting discussion about social contract and player interaction.

But C interests me the most.

Should play include in-game situations that reflect a player's own real-life concerns?

Real-life concerns _always_ enter play. The player's own psychological landscape resonates with the fantasy landscape of the game. This resonance is what engages the player, whether they want to kill orcs to relieve their anger at their boss, or just to feel more effective than they are in everyday life. In a traditional RPG, the GM places most elements of the fantasy landscape - a good GM would be sensative to what engages their players and bring those elements to the front. A game with more player-empowerment allows players to create or focus their own conflicts - thus relieving the GM of much of the burden.

However, should a GM place specific, overt elements of the player's real-life into the game? Should he (or any player) have the character's wife leave when the player gets a divorce? I think this is where we get into dangerous ground. It becomes a boundary issue in the real world of people around the table. The player may enjoy working out his geshtalt fantasies, but not want to deal with his issue overtly. I think it would be just plain rude for another person to bring another's overt issues into play.

This is where player empowerment becomes interesting - a game that allows players to create conflicts for their characters, may provide a venue where a player feels safe enough to actually introduce real-life issues.

So, I think a wise social contract forbids one participant from putting another's issues into overt fantasy elements. Only the player themself may do so (or request so). Likewise, any player can ask to have element which upsets them removed from the fantasy.

I think these rules are a general part of our social contract with friends, so why not in an RPG?

Greetings Mr. Walton,

Great weekend so far, eh?

Jonathan Walton wrote: 1) In my stint here at the Forge, I've encountered several people who seem to think that the distinction between fantasy and reality is a critical component of roleplaying. It should be clear, they seem to be saying, when you're talking about something that is real and out-of-game and when you are discussing the fantastic story elements within the game itself.

Jonathan Walton wrote: 2) Further, I've had multiple people lecture me about "characters not being real." Characters, they say, do not have desires and emotions outside of the player that represents them. A character cannot want to do things that their player doesn't want to do, for instance, having no real or independent emotions. This seems basically to be a strain of #1, that the distinction between real player and fictional character has to be drawn clearly.

Jonathan Walton wrote: Say a player is going through some tough emotional times with family members, but doesn't know how to confront them or resolves the issues. Is it wrong to bring some of those issues into the game, having that player's PC be having similar problems with other characters in the game? No, I don't think so. Obviously, it would be nice to have that player's permission first, to make sure it's not going to upset them further, but there's no reason that roleplaying always has to be escapist and can't confront real issues that people face.

Alan wrote: Real-life concerns _always_ enter play. The player's own psychological landscape resonates with the fantasy landscape of the game. This resonance is what engages the player, whether they want to kill orcs to relieve their anger at their boss, or just to feel more effective than they are in everyday life. In a traditional RPG, the GM places most elements of the fantasy landscape - a good GM would be sensative to what engages their players and bring those elements to the front. A game with more player-empowerment allows players to create or focus their own conflicts - thus relieving the GM of much of the burden.

Jonathan Walton wrote: Writers often talk about certain characters "getting away from them" or "writing themselves." Characters seem to take on a life of their own and their previous established personality demands that the writer continue in the same vein, having the character do things that the writer may not necessarily want. This is the kind of distinction I often want to make between player and character desires. Just because a player chooses to make a character act a certain way in one instance doesn't mean that the player wants the character to act similarly in similar instances later on. However, the player may feel that upholding the consistancy of the game (in true Sim fashion) is more important than what they desire at a specific moment. This is when player desires and character desires can diverge.

I'm mostly reiterating,but...

Issue #1 is not about worrying about players needing psychiatric help. It's about simply understanding that the player has different needs than the character. They may coincide, but they may not. So when designing, and most importantly when writing, it's important to be clear about who's being catered to by what. Not doing so has the theoretical advantage of engendering an immersion response in the reader, but I think that's of marginal value. I don't think that the reading transfers to play (if the players read at all, which they rarely do in my games).

The down side to conflating th eplayer and character is the potential confusion that occurs. And that is truely problematic.

Issue #2, nobody says that the character doesn't exist as a construct of the player, or as a fiction. Obviously they do. The point is that one can still address both ends of the construct effectively with the player-character split (and again the other side is problematic). When people say they're not real, they're simply saying that their motives are not independent of the player, and cannot be. They do not exist without the player.

Mike

Hmm... and now I get to try to pull together this jumbled discussion. Sorry I wasn't clearer in the beginning, guys. Here's the main points I was wanting to discuss (which have be greatly clarified by your comments):

1. The Don't-Get-Carried-Away-With-Actor-Stance Attitude

Reprisal wrote: "Remember, your character is ultimately controlled not by himself, but by you. Regardless of what 'he' might want, you are the final arbiter of his actions."

Alan wrote: I think these rules are a general part of our social contract with friends, so why not in an RPG?

First, I wish to concede to Kester's excellent distinction between characterization and what I might call in a word personality. I think this clarifies the issue very nicely. Of course my characters don't really have "personality", desires, goals, concerns, or issues--they only appear to do so because I have drawn these aspects within them. I have goals for them on two levels--those which I attribute as their goals and those which are strictly my goals for them of which I do not consider them as recognizing. That is, in one story currently in editing, the character has been transformed into a sprite. I have a goal for him which he has, to deliver the sprites from the oppression of the humans; I have another goal for him, to have the ability to transform between human and sprite forms in future adventures, but he has no knowledge of this goal, and as close as he comes to it is wondering whether he will ever be human again. So saying that the character has desires or any of these other aspects of "personality" is only a shorthand way of distinguishing my goals attributed to him from my goals externally for him. He has no personality; he is characterized as having aspects thereof, and seen as having such aspects by the reader, to the degree that I am able to convey this.

I think Reprisal (has anyone asked you your real name yet? oh, welcome to the Forge) attempts to distinguish authoring characters from playing them on a basis which for me at least is too pragmatic: how will it affect game flow. I think Jonathan has dealt with this pretty well. Rep, you're playing the wrong games for your group. You need something that lets them play characters who aren't joined at the hip--something like Sorcerer, in which they're tied by drivers that are going to bring them into conflict with each other, or Alyria, where they're all part of the story before it begins because they're connected to the core issue; or (dare I say) Multiverser, where they only matter to each other insofar that they want to matter to each other, and are otherwise quite free to do whatever they wish. Your players are looking to get out of the box, and your games are trying to keep them in it. Get a new box.

As far as Jonathan's refocused issue, we've been doing personal issue games in Multiverser probably longer than it's been published. We've got worlds that deal with the morality of competition, with racial tensions and prejudices, slavery and oppression, prejudices, the morality of magic, and probably other matters that aren't coming to mind at the moment. We don't do hot issues all the time--and certainly in the main when I run an issue world I let the players decide whether to go for the issue, and to what degree. The first time I ran Orc Rising, the player did no more about slavery than buy one slave and treat him well, telling him that he should consider himself a friend and a free man, although recommending that they stay together so there wouldn't be any questions raised about this. I've had others go for the jugular there, incensed that seemingly good people would enslave anyone. I create worlds in which the exploration of issues is possible, and let players take it from there.

I'm not against doing it with more personal issues, but as Alan observes, you don't want to go after someone if they aren't ready for that. That was my point earlier about including rape in a game: don't do it unless you know the players are able to handle it. That applies to all issues that have the potential to be intensely personal.

--M. J. Young

Giddy and Jovial Greetings,


*quirks eye brow at Mike's reaction*

Too informal?

Mike Holmes wrote: I'm mostly reiterating,but...

Mike Holmes wrote: Issue #1 is not about worrying about players needing psychiatric help. It's about simply understanding that the player has different needs than the character. They may coincide, but they may not. So when designing, and most importantly when writing, it's important to be clear about who's being catered to by what.

Mike Holmes wrote: The down side to conflating th eplayer and character is the potential confusion that occurs. And that is truely problematic.

Mike Holmes wrote: Issue #2, nobody says that the character doesn't exist as a construct of the player, or as a fiction. Obviously they do. The point is that one can still address both ends of the construct effectively with the player-character split (and again the other side is problematic). When people say they're not real, they're simply saying that their motives are not independent of the player, and cannot be. They do not exist without the player.

Greetings Jonathan,

Jonathan Walton wrote: Hmm... and now I get to try to pull together this jumbled discussion. Sorry I wasn't clearer in the beginning, guys. Here's the main points I was wanting to discuss (which have be greatly clarified by your comments):

1. The Don't-Get-Carried-Away-With-Actor-Stance Attitude

(snip)

I think this is what I was trying to get at originally, when I said that character desires are "real too." I was imgining a playing style where the player's desires were subsumed by the charcater, where Author and Pawn stance were not utilized at all, only Actor Stance. I was imagining a playing style that made it "safe" for you to cut loose and "be the character," without worrying about OOC issues so much (even though it would be impossible to ignore them totally).

I'd be interested to hear what the rest of you think about this possibility. It would basically involve trying to prove Reprisal's quoted statement to be false in some situations, where the game and social contract was set up to support Thespianism.

Jonathan Walton wrote: 2. The Check-Your-Life-At-The-Door Attitude

Alan wrote: I think these rules are a general part of our social contract with friends, so why not in an RPG?

I totally agree with Alan. This is what I was trying to get at. Not roleplaying as some sort of amateur therapy, but roleplaying about real issues that face the players. These could be religious issues, potiical issues, moral issues, whatever. And they wouldn't necessarily have to be problems. I'm talking about roleplaying that isn't purely escapist but explorative and almost like a discussion. Lately, I've been working on a few games that involve the players playing avatars of themselves or themselves+ (such as themselves with superpowers or themselves in a world gone crazy, etc.). This gets at some of what I'm talking about but not really.

Alan's right that any such system would work best if the players and not the GM were the one to incorperate elements from "real life." But some things are almost fair play, simply because of their ubiquitous presence in modern society. For instance, in any of the modern games that you've run, would you feel comfortable dealing with things like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Or 9-11? Or any of the other issues facing America and the world? I would hope so. I would hope that players don't have to check their lives at the door.

Jonathan Walton wrote:
Additionally, writers often talk about certain characters "getting away from them" or "writing themselves." Characters seem to take on a life of their own and their previous established personality demands that the writer continue in the same vein, having the character do things that the writer may not necessarily want.

Not wishing to derail the thread any further, I point to Stephen King's On Writing and the description of his own writing style and the example of how Misery grew as a story.

Nabakov's comments are very much similar to a hard-core simulationist saying things about narrativism. It is not how he writes, there is no reason for him to comment on the phenomenom.

Nabakov's comments are very much similar to a hard-core simulationist saying things about narrativism.

Mr Jack wrote: [Nabokov's interested in the story and the characters do what they're damn well told because it's the story that matters

Mr Jack wrote: Maybe I'm just misunderstanding things here, but isn't it the other way round? Nabakov's interested in the story and the characters do what they're damn well told because it's the story that matters (and story is what narrativism is about, yes?), whereas the 'King' view is simulationist since the characters do what they would if they were real?

Thierry Michel wrote:
A: My knowledge of Mr. Forster's works is limited to one novel which I dislike; and anyway it was not he who fathered that trite little whimsy about characters getting out of hand; it is as old as the quills, although of course one sympathizes with his people if they try to wriggle out of that trip to India or whereever he takes them. My characters are galley slaves.

simon_hibbs wrote: Ok the GM can engineer a linear plot, but only at the price of excluding choices from the players, and hence limiting their ability to play their character. The ultimate extreme would be for the GM to ordain all character actions and eliminate actual roleplaying (and gaming) altogether.

I think Reprisal (has anyone asked you your real name yet? oh, welcome to the Forge) attempts to distinguish authoring characters from playing them on a basis which for me at least is too pragmatic: how will it affect game flow. I think Jonathan has dealt with this pretty well. Rep, you're playing the wrong games for your group. You need something that lets them play characters who aren't joined at the hip--something like Sorcerer, in which they're tied by drivers that are going to bring them into conflict with each other, or Alyria, where they're all part of the story before it begins because they're connected to the core issue; or (dare I say) Multiverser, where they only matter to each other insofar that they want to matter to each other, and are otherwise quite free to do whatever they wish. Your players are looking to get out of the box, and your games are trying to keep them in it. Get a new box.

John a.k.a. Reprisal wrote: ...at this point my group seems to only want to play one of two games, none of which I'm particularly interested in or presently involved with at this point: Shadowrun and D&D:3E. In essence, they've been choosing the box fairly regularly after several years, so I'm guessing it has to do with either the way my GMing interacts with their expectations or their hesitation in regards to a new system.

Hey, guys, we've got this really limited wonderful opportunity to playtest an unpublished game and give the author feedback before it goes to press. What do you say we put the other games aside for a few sessions and try this one?

As an aside, John wrote: By the way, is there any accepted way here to differentiate the RPGs from other nouns? I've started to underline them like the titles of novels recently, is that a good way of doing it?