Just a quick philosophical note, while thinking about my games and my gaming.
You character is cool because of what you do in play, not because of what your character is.
Some people try to craft a character that's special, and expect special in play to follow. Some people design characters who, perversely, are special in the way that they don't do things - loner types, the guy who holds back information, the guy with the special gear he won't deploy, etc.
My philosophy is that your character is special because of actions, not design and description.
Your character can be unique, special, and interesting. But what makes that unique, special, interesting character cool, memorable, and enjoyable to everyone at the table is what you do.
That's the philosophy I keep in mind and generally try to encourage in my games. Don't tell me about your character, tell me what you're going to attempt, we resolve it, and that is where cool will emerge from.
This is damned good advice. The trap -and I've fallen into it so many times-- is to create a character who is awesome primarily because of their backstory, or awesome primarily because it would be fun to be them for a day, or awesome primarily because they would make a really great character in a work of narrative fiction. All of these things are good, but if this is all you've got, then what results is sometimes a character who is awesome *in principle**, rather than in practice, during play.
ReplyDeleteIf you just focus on what kinds of things you're going to *do*, on the other hand...
It's more than the potential to do things, you have to do them. Generally if they emerge a little organically and aren't just a trick you're betting your utility on, they work better. No one cares that you have a well-designed character but that your character is actually effective.
DeleteI used to craft characters with complex back story. It's dumb. You CAN do it in literature or tv because in that media it's a storytelling device. You can have flash backs or accounts, but we don't generally have that in RPGs.
ReplyDeleteYou can do flashbacks. I'd love to have a game that jumped around in time.
You can do accounts. If everytime your PC fast talks he relates a personal anecdote especially if it's over the top that's cool.
For me, in GURPS, Backstory is just the Why explaining my characteristics, not much more.
DeleteI am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
ReplyDeleteYour character is a dick because of who he is. He might still be a dick for what he does, but the odds go way down.
ReplyDeleteI don't generally have this issue with character design. With the post I'm generally addressing people who invest a lot of effort into making a character cool and interesting, and miss the fact that they're putting their effort into entirely the wrong spot to get the result they want in my games.
DeleteThis is a general, important life lesson too. Some people demand to be "made special." They want the world to swirl around their character, and some GMs even specialize in it. Prophecies speak of them, Destiny calls them, people fall in love with them, the world falls at their feet.
ReplyDeleteBut you can make the case that in games, as well as in life, it's not what the world does for you that matters, but what you do with what the world gives you. This sort of game is more "roguelike," and most of your coolest stories actually come out of this, how the dice came up just right for this cool event, or how everything seemed stacked against the players, when they suddenly come up with the one, perfect solution that fixed it.
The first sort of game is what my friend calls "escapist," and he doesn't necessarily condemn it, but he was struggling with understanding how not all games are "escapist" in this way, what sets what he wants to see in a game, or often sees in mine, apart from these sorts of games. It's this latter, this way of encouraging the players to adapt to the world, to master it, rather than giving it to them on a golden plate, that makes this key difference.
I'm a writer, I make characters for play the same way I do for stories. They do things in my head. Originally Mo had all these weird quirks but none of them came out in play, so I just changed them to what came out in play. He changed once he needed Attractive Appearance for Beefcake Protection (he wasn't a lothario beforehand). But as a player, I am impulsive and overconfident and curious, so he eventually got the quirk "pokes things to see what happens" which means he's always the guy who touches the evil six fingered hand painted on the wall, and only avoided pushing a giant button with a spiked pit below it because the party said "hey, we're near that altar that says only touch it once." Then he ran off toward that without a word.
ReplyDeleteThis might not work in non-DF campaign where roleplaying is more central, but I find it difficult to design a character without some play involved, just like how characters fill out on the page, not in my head.
And yeah, in games like this action is what defines character, not what's on your sheet.