Typecasting or Character players. Yet another limit on the possibilities of roleplaying


When reading PC integrity something struck me.

In acting there's a phenomenom called "character actor." This means the actor tends to play the same kind of character regardless of the role. Also, the actor who plays the part effects the role.

The Devil's Own was a pet project of Brad Pitt for a while, but casting Harrison Ford changed the movie. In the scene when the IRA was in the house threatening Ford's character's family. In the script, he was supposed to cower. Ford fought back. Why? Because based on the type of characters Ford plays, no would believe he would just cower when his family was in danger.

This sort of thing has happened at my game table. I usually play a jokey type of chartacter. I had tried stretching myself to do other type but it never worked out. Everyone excepted me to play a jokey character, so a serious charcter didn't work. Also, I found myself slipping back into the same type of character role because it was comfortable.

Anyone have thoughts or comments?

A couple of things. First, a nitpick:

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: In acting there's a phenomenom called "character actor." This means the actor tends to play the same kind of character regardless of the role. Also, the actor who plays the part effects the role.

This sort of thing has happened at my game table. I usually play a jokey type of chartacter. I had tried stretching myself to do other type but it never worked out. Everyone excepted me to play a jokey character, so a serious charcter didn't work. Also, I found myself slipping back into the same type of character role because it was comfortable.

Mike Holmes wrote: First, a nitpick:

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: In acting there's a phenomenom called "character actor." This means the actor tends to play the same kind of character regardless of the role. Also, the actor who plays the part effects the role.

Character Actors, as I understand it are actors who are selected for their quality of being able to act a particular part well. This may just be how the actor is, or not, but they play that part over and over. Guys like Powers Booth, and Michael Ironside are my favorite examples of actors who end up in the same roll over and over because of this. Yes, they are typecast.

Just to throw in yet another definition, my understanding of "character actor" is someone who is a good actor, but isn't a leading man/leading lady "type". I.e., someone who isn't considered good-looking or "charismatic" enough to be a "star", but is nonetheless a good actor.

Well, with all these different definitions, I decided to hit Google and see what I could find. WordNet gives this definition:

character actor: an actor who specializes in playing supporting roles.

--Travis

Hmmmm... okay, first a few things. A Personality Actor is basically somebody as described before; they play themselves. Raw charisma carries the day. You can drop Clint Eastwood and John Wayne both into this category (and this is why, incidentally, John Wayne as Ghengis Khan didn't go over so well). A character actor is an actor who specializes in playing eccentric or unusual people rather than unusual roles (that's straight from the Oxford, incidentally). A good example would indeed be Dustin Hoffman; if you want to delve into the past a bit more, your character actors are the faces you recognize often in movies, in surprising and diverse roles. Typecasting is what tends to happen to people like Christopher Walken, who definitely has a very difficult time getting away from playing the bad guy. No wonder, he does it so well. These three categories can overlap. Take it from a movie buff.

What we're really talking about here is blend of self-typecasting and personality acting. It happens. I've had players who, no matter what, always return to what they are. This is irregardless of whether what they are has some innate charisma or not; they really cannot play beyond who they are, and attempts to do so fail miserably. Sometimes this is not bad. You know your leaders, your followers... your warriors, your casters, your cut-ups. There are degrees of this. Some can play a diversity of characters, but certain traits always show through. Now, when people expect you to play something, that's outside type-casting, and that's a very possible occurence too, as Mr. Spencer shows. Can this be limiting? It really can. Somebody else might call it knowing your limitations, though I personally urge players to explore new sides of themselves in roleplay. ::shrugs:: I think it is a factor to at least be aware of.

I am disappointed that this thread has degenerated into mostly nitpicky debate over the definition of character actor.

Hey Jack,

Maybe a restatement of the question at hand that you're looking to address will help folks get back on track?

-Tim

Wasn't my intent to derail the thread. In any case, both Windthin and I have posted on the main topic at hand. If you could respond to that, Jack, perhaps you could get it back on track.

Or did Windy and I miss the point entirely?

Mike

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: This sort of thing has happened at my game table. I usually play a jokey type of chartacter. I had tried stretching myself to do other type but it never worked out. Everyone excepted me to play a jokey character, so a serious charcter didn't work. Also, I found myself slipping back into the same type of character role because it was comfortable.

Anyone have thoughts or comments?

Mike Holmes wrote: Wasn't my intent to derail the thread. In any case, both Windthin and I have posted on the main topic at hand. If you could respond to that, Jack, perhaps you could get it back on track.

Or did Windy and I miss the point entirely?

To give a bit more direction here, I think Windthin hits it that this is a phenomenom to be aware of. I started this thread after reading the bit by Paul about creating a character and then finding out he just couldn't get it to work in actual play. I see this sort of thing happen all the time. Hell, I've done it. I've created character concepts which wound up being nothing like the reems of background I had written. This is not quite the same as the GM's plot going awry because you have to expect that at least a little unless you're expecting hardcore illusionism. What I'm talking about here is theroleplay equivelent of attempting one of those fancy gourmet recipies, it turning out wrong, and then whipping up some hot dogs and mac & cheese for dinner instead.

Maybe that analogy is a little tighter than I thought. Skills need to be developed to be able to turn out a gourmet meal. How about we focus on what skills and how to develop them to help break out of typecasting.

Hey Jack,

Just to clarify, are you purely concerned with the individual’s skill at portraying a character in this thread or is the ability of the whole group (and perhaps the game system) to assist the individual player in that regard a viable topic?

-Chris

Hey, Chris

I don't think it's really possible to separate the two too much. In actual play, it will be the player and the group working together. I supposes for the moment we can focus on the indivdual.

Well, like Vincent said over in the Adventures in Improvised System thread, very often when you try to play a character outside your normal personality (range) the attempt comes off as 2-dimensional. The other players can feel the deficit of character and through actual play they often help subtley bend the character back into a more 3-dimensional representation. That leaves you back at "jokey". Or with a whole new character entirely sometimes, like John has pointed out.

Beyond actually studying the behaviors and mannerisms of someone you wish to model your character on and putting them to good use in play, I'm not sure what would be of immediate help in such a situation.

-Chris

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: What I'm talking about here is the roleplay equivelent of attempting one of those fancy gourmet recipies, it turning out wrong, and then whipping up some hot dogs and mac & cheese for dinner instead.

Maybe that analogy is a little tighter than I thought. Skills need to be developed to be able to turn out a gourmet meal. How about we focus on what skills and how to develop them to help break out of typecasting.

John Kim wrote: Hmm. Maybe we are talking about different things here? Your analogy suggests something that is both undesired and inferior. An analogy for what I was talking about would be a chef who always cooks gourmet Szechuan chinese food. She may try branching out to say French cooking, but it comes out wrong and she whips up some reliably-delicious kung pao chicken instead.

One of my friends always plays an elven thief. Even in the circumstances where he's not allowed to play either elf nor thief, he ends up playing something very close to it.

I myself have an affinity for dwarven characters.

I've seen the pattern in a lot of other players too, so the question at hand is real.

I'm at a loss how to take this into consideration though, when making characters, in any other sense than letting the players themselves craft their roles. How to make observations on their personality, and issue characters due to this, is beyond me.

When it comes to matching a group, I prefer to make the framework first, and ask the players to make characters suited to the frame. The frame may be the shared goals of the characters, a mutual background, some group they belong to (being soldiers, a bards group, travelling traders, witches in a covenant, etc.). This is a technique I often use in my design too, making a whole game within the "confines" of such a frame.

Many players are skeptical to such fictional framework. This is often true for traditional players; the old D&D-buggers (many of my RPG-friends are such buggers). However: when play commence they often discovers new ways to play their old archetypes (due to their ability to play it anyhow, in spite of the hindrances), and greatly enjoys it.

The rate of success in such an endeavour, may be due to the qualities of the game. A good game makes it easy to accept new ways. A bad game makes it difficult, and tends to put the player out of character a lot more. So we have to make good games (!). It may be that "good" games in this context is the game that fascilitate the play of a variety of human personalities, in such a way that the players may easily spot and create character profiles corresponding to their chosen archetypes.

That is: my friend the "elfen thief", may create a human character within the "confines" of my game Fabula (no elves, no thiefs), and still play his chosen role (I've seen it happen, and smiled at it). This is due to his preferred archetype not being "elven" or "thief", but something more subtle (don't ask me what it may be), and he instinctively finds it in a quality game.

It may be that players respond with skepticism due to the fact that they want "free choice" in characters, only to choose their favourite type once more. The player like to typecast himself.

And it may be that this archetype is what the player "need" to be in a roleplaying game, to feel good about it, or to make the game a meaningful complement to his own life and personality...

Go watch The Usual Suspects. Again.

I tell my Multiverser players that they start as themselves, but they can make themselves anything they want to be; and I recommend that they watch this movie, because the central villain of the story doesn't exist really as himself--he only exists as the image he projects. He spins his own mythology; he invents himself, and gets people to believe him.

That's what playing a character really is all about: inventing someone and projecting it to others such that they believe it. You are whoever you can get people to believe you are. In the end, we know nothing about the main villain of that film except what he wants us to believe about himself. That's how you create a character.

You can recreate yourself any time you have a new audience. They know nothing about you, and therefore only know what you tell them.

If you start a new character, you should start from the same perspective: no one knows this character, and all anyone will ever know is what I tell them.

--M. J. Young