[MUD-Dev] You, the game of philosophy.

[Adam Wiggins]

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock:]
> On Tuesday, December 09, 1997 5:40 PM, coder at ibm.net [SMTP:coder at ibm.net] 
> > On 19/11/97 at 09:49 PM, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user1.inficad.com> said:
> > >If you *replace* their personality with your own, it's not role-playing,
> > >which is (I thought) the whole point.  The idea is that you create a
> > >personality for them and then play that personality to the best of your
> > >abilities.
> >
> > Are we really recreating the whole method acting debate in RP guise?
> > Whether method acting is really acting has been debated futily for years.
> 
> Perhaps we should clarify the words 'your own' as they relate to RP... as I 
> see it, 'my own personality' can be several things, much as 'my own book' 
> can be several things. I can write a book, and that book is my own -- just 
> as the personality reflected in my day to day life is my own personality. I 
> can buy a book, and that book is my own -- just as a personality I create 
> out of whole cloth but do not effect in my day to day life is my own. And I 
> can simply provide the name of a book in response to a question, making it 
> my own book as opposed to someone else's book (assuming multiple people are 
> asked the same question, such as 'what book would you most like to see 
> burned?') even though I may not own it and may not even have read it -- 
> just as a personality I have seen effected by others might be something I 
> choose to play in a game, even though I have neither created it nor 
> effected it myself.

Good point.  I should rephrase the above as, "If you *replace* their
personality with your own personality from day-to-day life.."  That is
to say, the kind of gaming Chris likes - your brain fills the gaping
void in the character's head.  There are no special emotions, beliefs,
predjudices, or anything else provided by the 'character' - it only
provides a body, no personality.  The personality it becomes when
you take on the 'role' (such as it is) is more or less identical to your
own.  The context is only different.

It is, of course, possible for the personality you create for the character
to closely match your own.  But there's a conscious decision on your
part to include or exclude each aspect of the personality.  If it happens
to corespond closely to your own, then fine - it will be that much
easier to play.

> The analogy, I admit, is imperfect. But really, there are at least three 
> meanings to 'my own' -- something of my own practice, something of my own 
> creation, and something of my own choice.

The thread was originally all based off my disagreement with the
phrase, "The character *is* me."  My complaint was with the term 'is',
rather than 'owns'.

> But to bring this into perspective in terms of the discussion, I would say 
> that role playing involves a lot more than just the personality of the 
> character. As an example, were I to play someone of my exact physical, 
> mental, and social characteristics in a game set in a world very much like 
> the modern world, I am probably going to encounter different people. 
> There's a very big game of what-if going on here; I'm probably never going 
> to run into a time traveller or a dragon or a vampire or a passel of 
> bloodthirsty rampaging smurfs in my day to day life, and even if I react to 
> those events in a game *exactly* as I think I would in real life, there's 
> still roleplay involved. I will have opportunities in the course of the 
> game that I won't have in my real world existence, such as the potential to 
> learn how to speak the secret language of the smurfs, which I sincerely 
> doubt will never happen in my real life. As soon as that ability presents 
> itself in one context and not another, the roles diverge; my character will 
> always have a different set of experiences and a different set of social 
> and physical resources to draw on.

Exactly.  That's what I was trying to say above, but I think your
explaination is quite a bit clearer.

> The real question of roleplaying is whether you have a separation kept in 
> mind, I think. If the two personalities are distinct, and you find yourself 
> thinking something like "It would be *best* to cast the lightning bolt 
> here, but Manaphest would probably prefer to throw the fireball even though 
> it will be less effective... after all, it makes a much bigger noise and 
> looks a lot more impressive", then I think there's a definite roleplaying 
> aspect there. The razor I use is what the final effect is; if you 
> deliberately make a choice which has no or negative benefit based on your 
> character's personality, that's definite evidence of roleplay. The question 
> which must be asked is what the player is being faithful to: the game's 
> rules and inner operations, or the character's personal views, goals, and 
> beliefs? Regardless of whether those views, goals, or beliefs are shared by 
> the character *and* the player, if the fantasy takes precedence over the 
> game's machinery it becomes roleplay rather than 'win condition' gaming.

Nods.  I find any situation where there is one 'best' solution to any
given problem/obstacle rather boring.  I suppose this is why I don't
like adventure games much any more.

Note, however, that one might perfectly well play a mage who is interested
in maximizing their power, in which case they would decide on the best
spell.  This isn't necessarily the same as GoP.  However, the kind
of quirks that you mention above are what makes roleplaying fun to
begin with, so I tend to prefer that, if I'm going to bother to roleplay
in the first place.

> You can see this in most tabletop sessions, if you watch for the change in 
> attitude when something looms up to threaten the party. A trek through the 
> wilderness is simple enough, and taken lightly; the party talks and argues 
> and displays their respective personalities, but as soon as the ground 
> shakes with the sound of an approaching giant's footsteps you'll see that 
> character speech ceases almost entirely as the players become immediately 
> concerned with what they've got in hand, and where everyone is, and what 
> the tactical situation will be when the giant gets within attack range. 
> Once the situation is dealt with, the characters return to their funny 
> accents and different speech patterns and go about their roleplay as usual. 

Well, it depends.  I can recall more than a few large (~a dozen players)
P&P sessions with my college buddies where 11 of us were hiding behind
rocks waiting to ambush the party of hill giants, and suddenly the paladin
comes walking out into plain view crying, 'Halt, in the name of Paladine!' :)

[At this point Caliban returns to his favorite topic of, "What's the
matter with you damn GoPers, anyways?", so I'll leave it at this.]