In Who Cares? before Ron declared it finished,

Drew a.k.a. erithromycin wrote: It may just be the groups that I play with, but I only encounter "my character" when people are objecting to things. I wonder if "my character wouldn't" is more common that "my character would" in other people's experience?

For me - "my guy" is negative. But "that isn't how I see my character reacting" isn't. I USED to see "my guy" a lot (hell, I used to use it), but now I notice it as a sign to either discuss things with the group or leave.

I think a local convention game a year or more ago was the last time I thought I saw rampant defensive "my guy"-ism. But my memories of some really unpleasant play that involved it are quite strong.

Gordon

M. J. Young wrote: I don't think I ever see that; but then, I don't remember being in a game in which people objected to how others played their characters.--M. J. Young

I think that there are two main triggers for hitting the 'pause' (rewind) button that "my character would..." represents: The first is to get a moment to figure out what, indeed, that character would do - I have seen it used as you said, to give people a chance to frame their own reaction and then decide what their character is going to do, and, like I said, I've also seen it raised [more often in my experience, but I'll get to that] as an objection.

The first one, I think, is good, and valid. I like people to think when they're playing, it deepens the experience, as far as I'm concerned. Entirely divorced from GNS too, I might add - when I'm doing something with anyone I like them to be paying attention to what's going on. Ahem.

The second one, I think, while sometimes annoying, is also valid, and, indeed, important - it's a key indicator of dissatisfaction, be it with the game, the interpretation of an action, or the character. Every time I here "my guy would" I want to ask "why?", and at two levels - "why would your character do that (instead)?", and "why would you want your character to do that (instead)?".

I encounter it a lot in the LARP I run, but that's because a large part of it is Downtime, effectively PBEM, which sits around it - like I said, I sometimes have to interpret what's going on, and sometimes I get it wrong - when I'm told why someone would have done something one way, I can say why I thought someone would attempt it another. Now, in most cases, where it kicks in and it's an objection, it's because somebody meant to do something a little differently, and I filled in the gaps they left in a way they didn't expect. So we talk about it, and next time they leave different gaps, or take steps to fill them in, as their character would - it's a learning experience for all involved, so to speak. When it's what I'll describe as pissiness, it's awful. I hate it. I hate having to be the bad guy [actually, that's a lie, I hate being made to feel as if I'm being the bad guy]. I don't coddle when people screw up, but that's the way the game's run. In another game I'd fill in every gap to the player's advantage, but that's not what the game's about. Though, thinking on it, I'd better make sure everybody's clear on that. Thanks, The Forge, for giving me a second to think about something to improve my games. Again, I mean. Anyway.

At it's most extreme "my character would" is probably about people attempting to appropriate what amounts to Director stance for themselves. I certainly encounter it in games that grant all the power of that Stance to the GM, especially where that function is an interpretive one. So, of course, it's guaranteed to crop up in a PBEM that works on submission-response rather than Blue-Booking, now that I think about it, and, also, in tabletop play where 'scenes' are handwaved as "you get the thing", with two (or more) sets of imagined details. There are, of course, easy ways to solve this.

With regard to the L5R game, I think that the best way to bring that sort of behaviour to the fore, to avoid the "my character would" in play is to front load them. Those, I think, are an advantage of "social mechanics", which, to some extent, anyway, 'control' how a given character approaches situations. Certainly some games afford a view of this, with reference to reward, certainly. TROS and its shiny toys, but also, now that I think about it, Vampire (et al) with Natures and Demeanours. Willpower being gained for doing particular things sounds a lot like what I'm trying to get at. In the situation discussed, I think it's more about honour than anything else. Certainly Hero Wars has mechanics in place for the relationships between master, stranger, and a code to all vie for consideration, and I'm sure there are other approaches that I can't think of right now.

Anyway, that's what I think, now that I think about it. "My character would" comes about when people on either side of the character (player/audience) are not clear about their conceptualisation of that character, so the key thing, it seems, is to ensure that there is that clarity. The means to that end are various, of course.

Drew.

Hmm. I wonder what I'll think tomorrow.

M. J. Young wrote: Are the majority of "my guy" experiences negative and defensive ones in your experience? I don't think I ever see that; but then, I don't remember being in a game in which people objected to how others played their characters.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: For me - "my guy" is negative. But "that isn't how I see my character reacting" isn't. I USED to see "my guy" a lot (hell, I used to use it), but now I notice it as a sign to either discuss things with the group or leave.

And remember the other half of the dysfunctional pairing. "In my game..."

:(
guilty

cruciel wrote:

Gordon C. Landis wrote: For me - "my guy" is negative. But "that isn't how I see my character reacting" isn't. I USED to see "my guy" a lot (hell, I used to use it), but now I notice it as a sign to either discuss things with the group or leave.

I still think treating the character as if it exists isn't the problem with "My guy would". I still think that's blaming the symptom.

The way I see it, the dysfunctional my-guy-ism is all about the my, not the guy. The naughty player isn't saying "this is how the character works, so this has to happen no matter what you want", he's saying "mine mine mine, I can do whatever I want with this character, because it's mine".

I find it odd that you are all viewing 'my character would' or 'my character wouldn't' as a negative thing. In my games, and the games I've played in, it's always been a wholy positive thing. Sure, the characters aren't real, but the whole point is to act like they are. By discussing 'my character would', 'my character wouldn't' we not only help keep the characters psuedo-reality consistent and workable but help the other players, and the GM, get a better concept of who, or what, the character is.

Like most other problems on the Forge, I feel we're talking about My Guy being a problem when it's a problem, not when it's functional.

The problems are coming when players feel the need to ring fence their characters from the other players & the GM. "My guy, my toy, I'll take him away..." while the GM is trying to protect "my game" from the players. Dysfunction in a can.

That, and "My guy wouldn't" can be a euphemism for any number of statements:


Don't tell me what to do
That's impossible for my character to do
I'm really uncomfortable with that idea
That doesn't make sense
Gamist: But that puts My Guy at a disadvantage
Sim: That's out of character for My Guy
Nar: That removes My Guy's freedom of choice
My character is better than your game



Some of these can be functional, but it depends on context. You need to get to asking "why" without sounding like you're challenging.

Hi all.

Jason and Peter, thanks so much for nailing down what I couldn't figure out how to say in response to Gordon's conerns.

I'm not a big fan of the "this might be a problem (even if it isn't for all) so let's not even go near it" approach to social contract management.

Gordon, the fact that you got burned in the past doesn't mean certain points of view that your burners used to justify their actions doesn't nescesarily mean that that point of view is invalid -- or shouldn't be present at the table.

Just something you might want to stew.

Christopher

Actually Gordon's perspective meshes perfectly with my own experience.

There's alot of bad dysfunctional role playing that comes about because of habits and assumptions on how its "supposed to be".

One of those assumptions about how its supposed to be is "my guy". "playing my character". "Staying in character, good. Using out of character knowledge, bad". This is one of the most powerful false assumptions in roleplaying because its been reinforced for decades in game texts, articles, and baton passing sessions.

And its fundamentally not true. It is not necessary to "stay in character" to have good roleplaying. Acting on out of character knowledge is NOT bad by default etc.


Now for some the above represents a preference. A carefully-considered, well-evaluated, conclusion-came-to preference. Great. Fantastic. One can disagree with opinions, but one can't really disagree with preferences.

*BUT* and here is the big huge critical issue. For a great many...if not MOST...of the gamers who currently adhere to the above assumptions about the "proper way to play"...they do so out of habit. That's the way they've been taught, that's they way they've always done it.

I have zero animosity to peoples critically chosen preference. I have great animosity to reflexively spouted dogma. And there are lots of players out there who reflexively spout dogma.

For some of these people, like the player in Gordon's example, what it takes is simply to break the wall of assumptions by demonstrating that those assumptions ARE simply 1 approach that can be freely discarded without violating the physics of the known universe. Once they realize there are alot of other options out there too, the real exploration of gaming can begin for them.

That's why these things are issues. That's why I continually challenge the notions

Yup, Ralph's got it, IMO - though I actually LIKE the staying-in-character approach at times, as long as it's a chosen and agreed to approach and not just a reflexive "of course" or some overly foggy "channel your character" mumbo-jumbo.

I agree - and have tried to include indications of this in various posts - that imagining your character as a seperate entity does NOT have to be a problem in every circumstance, and certainly maintaining an in-character perspective can be a really cool thing in RPing. Properly considered, I LIKE this point of view at the table, and I'd only say it's invalid if it's meant as a full description of roleplaying and/or what HAS to happen. To be honest, I thought everyone had pretty much come to an understanding about that part of the issue.

But . . . IMO, the ways in which this CAN show up as a problem are occasionally subtle, and IME they were often unconsidered by groups I've played with. My, uh, passion here is just that the issue be considered, that the core reality that these characters are our creations and our tools to use in the wonderful, wacky process of RPGing is acknowledged. If part of how we want to use the tool is to kinda forget that they are our creations and pretend they have an existence outside us, that's cool - but remembering is sometimes very useful too.

Allowing a problem to persist in a game because of something "the character wants" or is "doing" is just silly, IMO. It IS perfectly legitimate for a problem to exist becasue it's important to a player that their character be x, not be forced to y, or whatever - but that's because the player is allowed to have a desired agenda for play via the charcater. And I can negotiate the social contract with a player, look for solutions, and/or agree that there's no resolution that works for both of us and just live with the difference and/or stop playing.

I can't negotiate the social contract with a character, and I see people try and do that often.

So, perhaps that's my more precise answer to MJ's inquiry - it's a problem when social contract issues (not JUST/NECCESARILY about how someone is playing their character) fail to be negotiated between PLAYERS because the "issue" is about the CHARACTER.

Man, is that more understandable to folks? I think we've talked a LOT about some pretty subtle diferences in understanding/opinion. I happen to think those subtleties do have some significance, but no one (I think) disagrees about some big issues like "thinking like your charcater can be good."

Gordon

EDITED to say "not JUST/NECCESARILY about how someone is playing . . . ", and to emphasize - You can't negotiate the social contract with a character - it only exists amongst the real humans. I think that actually summarizes why, and in what circumstances "there is no character" matters. Because, again, I think folks do try and negotiate social contract stuff as if the character were real, and that causes problems.

Valamir wrote: There's a lot of bad dysfunctional role playing that comes about because of habits and assumptions on how its "supposed to be".

One of those assumptions about how its supposed to be is "my guy". "playing my character". "Staying in character, good. Using out of character knowledge, bad". This is one of the most powerful false assumptions in roleplaying because its been reinforced for decades in game texts, articles, and baton passing sessions.

And its fundamentally not true. It is not necessary to "stay in character" to have good roleplaying.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: So, perhaps that's my more precise answer to MJ's inquiry - it's a problem when social contract issues (not JUST/NECCESARILY about how someone is playing their character) fail to be negotiated between PLAYERS because the "issue" is about the CHARACTER.
...
EDITED to say "not JUST/NECCESARILY about how someone is playing . . . ", and to emphasize - You can't negotiate the social contract with a character - it only exists amongst the real humans. I think that actually summarizes why, and in what circumstances "there is no character" matters. Because, again, I think folks do try and negotiate social contract stuff as if the character were real, and that causes problems.

John Kim wrote: My impression is that "characters don't exist" thinking tends to not look for this sort of solution. Maybe that's not what you meant, though?

Gordon C. Landis wrote:

John Kim wrote: My impression is that "characters don't exist" thinking tends to not look for this sort of solution. Maybe that's not what you meant, though?

Emphatically the opposite - I see "character's don't exist" as fascilitating this very kind of solution. My example player was an instance of this - his character was a problem for the group, and all the solutions were running into "but that's just not like him!" By realizing there was no "him," and identifying the really important aspects of the character for the player, solutions that addressed the problem but didn't "break" the player's interest in the character were now possible.

OK, a summary - the game is a Dark Sun (TSR's world of Athas) variant, centered on the destroyed city-state of Yaramuke. If folks are familiar with Dark Sun, I think there is much weirdness here - a module appeared with info on Yaramuke, "official" sources then removed it, etc. etc. What maters for this example is that a specific bit of the world as envisioned by this GM/group is the center of play, and that the issues we saw/created around and about that location were an agreed focus of play.

All the PCs have some tie to Yaramuke. There was an initial set of three players, then some months later I joined the game, and then a little later the 5th player joined. Our 5th guy had a tie to Yaramuke that looked like it was good enough at first, but as time went on, it became clear that it wasn't. He kept pulling focus out into other areas of Dark Sun (both geographically and thematically), all in a way that was entirely reasonable given his character construction, but which the other players - and #5 himself! - saw as inappropriate to the desired direction of play. The GM would advance various world-based reasons why it was unwise for the character to pursue these other directions - too much danger, overwhelming opposition, unacceptable consequences - but when player #5 thought about it from a character perspective, it always left him wanting to find ways to overcome those obstacles. OOC conversations about the issue weren't really helping either. I mean, this group communicates pretty well, and #5 was fine with considering extreme options like just letting the charcater get killed off and either not participating in this game or trying a different charcater - but we all kinda liked some of what the charcater brought to the game, so we were hoping for a better solution.

There's a fair amount of hidden/mysterious background going on with some of the character's in this game, but #5 was just not like that - more of your simple, up-front kind of guy, kinda exploring the loyal and honorable warrior in the not-always compatible with that context of Athas. In various conversations, the player eventually realized that it was that loyal and honorable thing that really MATTERED about the character, and that, despite the fact that he'd never imagined anything odd going on with the character's past/parentage/etc., it would be totally OK to add some of that if it would help get him on the same page as the rest of the group. In fact, he was able (working with the GM on some bits that aren't fully shared with the rest of the group right now, so I don't know all of 'em) to create a mystery that seems to both highlight his character and the general issues (around the destiny of Yaramuke and even - it looks like - Athas as a whole) the rest of the group has been poking at.

Now, #5 could have decided that his current assumptions about the background of the charcater WERE a key part of what made playing the character interesting to him, and that would (to me) have been a perfectly legitimate preference-based reason to reject the solution. In this case, it took the ability to stop seeing the character as a fixed entity to allow the alteration - the realization that while he'd assumed the character had no mysteries in his past, that "fact" wasn't something imposed on him by an outside force of some kind.

Hope that answers the questions . . .

Gordon

Gordon C. Landis wrote: The GM would advance various world-based reasons why it was unwise for the character to pursue these other directions - too much danger, overwhelming opposition, unacceptable consequences - but when player #5 thought about it from a character perspective, it always left him wanting to find ways to overcome those obstacles.
...
In various conversations, the player eventually realized that it was that loyal and honorable thing that really MATTERED about the character, and that, despite the fact that he'd never imagined anything odd going on with the character's past/parentage/etc., it would be totally OK to add some of that if it would help get him on the same page as the rest of the group. In fact, he was able (working with the GM on some bits that aren't fully shared with the rest of the group right now, so I don't know all of 'em) to create a mystery that seems to both highlight his character and the general issues (around the destiny of Yaramuke and even - it looks like - Athas as a whole) the rest of the group has been poking at.

John -

Actually, the point here is not that there were retroactive changes, but that "fuzzy" background had an overwhelming influence on what was possible going forward - because the player lost track of the fact that if something is fuzzy, he can choose how to clarify it as gameplay continues.

But let's see, in an extreme retroactive situation . . . let's say the player is 100% clear that his father was a metalsmith who died when he was 12. The GM suggests that maybe the character is actually the offspring of a god, and the GM, the player, and the group as a whole sees some interesting possibilities in going there. It would be entirely reasonable for the player to say "yes, but . . . that just feels wrong for this character. Let's not." But for me, an immediate reaction of, say, "Merlin can't be the son of a god!" is ALWAYS worth examining in a little more depth - is that just a momentary outburst, maybe triggered by fear of losing control of "your" character, or a maybe by "channeling" of the CHARACTER's reaction that need not be the player's, or . . . a number of other things?

You might come to the conclusion that no, Merlin God-son just doesn't work for me. But's it's about YOU, not about the character.

On other matters - excellent point about about the negative obstacle vs. positive goal - part of what had this solution work for the player is that there were some very interesting new goals that came along with the deal. The problem in this campaign (which is defined as a long one, in theory once-twice a month for years, and it was so for about a year, but we - sigh - have failed to meet for over three months now) with ONLY the positive goal is we had just finished such a thing - essentially, a plot line all about the new character that played to his already existing strengths - and that was what people were unhappy about.

Gordon

Gordon & Ralph,

Ah ha!

I'm back from the mountains, and trying to catch up on all these threads. So, I don't know if I'm repeating here.

I see what you're talking about now. When I think 'my guy defense' I think power struggle. Where one player wants to run off contrary to the goals of the rest of the group, possibly with no other purpose than to aggravate the other players. Oooh...I hate that.

What you were talking about was people stuck in actor stance.

I've even got a player in my group with this problem. It's been discussed, openly with all players, and it was left as "You decide if you're playing is by dogma or preference; we'll go from there". The player always ends up saying things like "There's nothing to do." when everybody else is doing plenty. The response always being "Then do something." When I first diagnosed the issue I described it as the players having a bubble around their characters. They control everything in that bubble, and they don't want you popping it - stay out. This particular player's bubble is just really small. You have to drop a motivation on the character to get him to react, he won't make his own - that'd be outside the bubble. (The group glazes over if I use jargon too much).

Sounds like the same issue. This player also has a real problem with visualizing environment. I think it's a related issue on account of environment being outside his control bubble. I don't have a solid theory about it yet though.

Anyway, now that I think I know what you mean I can agree with the problem existing and also being connected to the myth of reality. I think I'd phrase the issue a little different, but, eh, whatever works for you.

Pete's got a nice long list of what 'My character would' could mean. If we can agree that 'my character would' could be functional or dysfunctional, and different forms of function or dysfunction, then I'm a happy camper (being in the mountains makes you say things like that, really, not my fault). Don't really see that being a problem, as it's already been said ;).

Jason,

Yup, that sounds good to me - I'm not sure "actor stance" is really a full description of the place in which I see people get stuck, but any attempt I make to rephrase what I think you said gets me worried I'll confuse things rather than clarify 'em. So I guess I'll leave it at that, at least in this thread. Glad to hear your trip to the montains was fun,

Gordon

EDIT typo on "stuck"