Compare and contrast...

[annwfyn]

Today I am pondering role playing.

Specifically, I'm pondering the extent to which role playing is reflective of reality and to what extent it is purely reflective of a cinematic or epic reality. When we role play characters are we actually role playing real people or are we role playing creatures which can only exist within the context of a game?

I'm writing this having played in two games over the last couple of nights. Thursday night pierot and I played a Dathomir Witch and an alien cat in vilenspotens's Star Wars game - twas a catch up session prior to the main game. Friday night pierot ST'd and ksirafai and I played ourselves in jez's occasional 'play yourself' game.

On Thursday night T'Venn (my witch) and Bobask (the cat) found themselves stranded on Corellia as all hell broke loose around them. Bobask conned a major criminal syndicate out of several million credits, T'Venn terrified the lot of them with a combination of telekinesis and a pet rancor, and we wound up in epic light sabre combat with Luke Skywalker.

On Friday night Ginnie and Sally found themselves stranded on a strange alternate world. They managed to cash a cheque, possibly defrauding a bank somewhere, and found a youth hostel to sleep while they tried to find out where they were, work out what was going on and panicked quite a bit.

T'Venn and Bobask had a wide range of skills. Bobask has a pair of vibro axes, amazing willpower and is close to invulnerable when hit by other combatents. T'Venn can unleash lightning from her fingertips and make people fall over and die with the power of her mind.

Sally and Ginnie...erm...well...we had a cheque book. We managed to think on our feet and get a Lonely Planet equivelent to work out some basic facts about this world. If we got into a fight we'd fall over and die. I can drive a car. Ginnie can't. Let's not talk about any other form of transport.

In Lee's game our role playing characters got most of the way across the universe while battling enemies. In jez's 'play yourself game' Ginnie and I bimbled about a bit and got a bit lost.

Why is there such a major difference? Is it that in role playing games we chose to play the exceptional, the spectacular, the adventurous? Are there people in this world who would respond as quickly and as dramatically as rpg characters do? Is it that most role playing characters are, after all, interacting with their own world and if Ginnie and I had had hell unleash around us in our world we'd have reacted much more competently? Is it that we don't actually role playing realistic people in games? Would we want to?

Why is there such a dramatic difference between two girls in their twenties getting into an incredible situation in a game firmly based in reality (it was me and Ginnie playing ourselves) and the other people I've played and I've been getting into incredible situation in games?

Opinions?

Comments

[taimatsu]

The thing is for me that, even in Cam, I play me. Clare is, in short, me. With a couple of wazzy powers, sure, but really not many considering how long she's been in play. I think she *is* a fairly realistic person; she has a job and a (fairly) normal life which she mostly prefers to the Weird Shit going on around her. The biggest reason she gets pissed off is when people intrude on her bubble of normality. That said, because of the nature of her paradigm (as a Chorister) she does recognise she has a responsiblity to do something with these talents she turns out to have, and she also has a sense of loyalty to the people who have supported and helped her out of her various troubles and confusions. So those things are what lead her outside her bubble and into the scary world of Weird Shit. Clare is not one of those characters who saves the universe, steals a space-ship, assassinates sixteen Technocrats in a week and solves the latest supernatural murder in her spare time. She is the kind of girl who, dumped on a strange alternate world, would bimble about a bit, panic, and possibly use a couple of Mind and Correspondance rotes to try to ascertain what was going on (actually this sounds very like the Seeking Sarah ran for me...). Thassit.

My changeling, Rowan, works less well in that she has fewer reasons to go and do unusual stuff. The personal-loyalties angle is one; the fact that she's an insanely curious Boggan is another; a third is that she's very kind-hearted and wants to help people in trouble. Other than that she's quite isolated, and content in her small world of fabric.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

"Are there people in this world who would respond as quickly and as dramatically as rpg characters do?"

Depends entirely on the game. But yes, there are people out there who have truly exceptional skills.

However, it sounds like this is less about skills, and more about world modelling. The fact is, in the real world, no matter how good you are, fraud is very hard, and crime syndicates are *extremely* deadly, even if you're the best fraudster or gunfighter on the planet. The level to which this is reflected in the game determines, to a great extent, the realism of the game.

Call of Cthulhu, for example, is usually a very high-realism game. That's why my players at one point did virtually nothing for three weeks but change hotels, talk a lot, and *very* cautiously learn about one (totally innocent) suspect.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

I certainly find I remove the sense of caution from a lot of my characters. I've had a few characters (Angelique in Cam immediately springs to mind, but there are others) where I've tried to replicate what I think a real person would do, but in general that equates to "stay the hell out of trouble" many times, and frankly that's quite boring to play.

I do feel I gravitate to risk taking characters (Miranda in Nightfall and Freya Stormhammer in a Warhammer campaign being the most extreme examples) because they're fun to play, because you can take risks you never would in "real life". I know I'm no hero. If I saw a stranger getting beaten up, I'm afraid I'd just go round the corner and call the police. I know I'm no hero, but I think one of the things that role-playing can allow is for people who aren't heroes to *be* heroes.

[ksirafai.livejournal.com]

...and panicked quite a bit.

I feel quite Slighted. Mainly, I laughed. Then again, discovering that alterna-you is married to unifex does that to a girl. :P

On the other hand, I think as much as anything else it's the resources as the disposal of characters that's different to those available to ...well, me. If Ginnie-in-real-life could (f'rinstance) shoot lightning and fly and talk to beasties, I think I'd be able to get around a lot easier and would feel slightly less hapless. But I don't; all I have is a cheque book and the ability to create NPC kit out of anything that comes to hand. So I defraud alterna-me and look vaguely like I fit in.

The major difference between a RP character and a Real Person (and say what you will, but there is a difference) is a level of power and understanding of the world. Whatever you do, on one level you're aware that you're playing a game, and as such, killing isn't so bad, stealing is not a problem, running away from or into life-threatening situations doesn't stress you nearly as much as if you had to deal with this in the Real World. And, you don't have to do it 24/7. No offence, but I suspect if we were actually in Jez' game in reality, we'd be far les comfortable around one another after four days straight of having no other company we can trust or rely on...

In games, you don't think about social ramifications; you don't think about changes of clothes or where to get a shower next. You don't worry when you accidentally teleport into a locked room, because it doesn't _matter_. It's a fake world. You can do whatever you like. There are no comebacks.

...So, yeah. My slightly incoherent ramble at twenty to eleven on a Sunday morning. Hope it makes sense.

[bringeroflight.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on the game. For example, 7th Sea basically says "Not much realism here, please buckle your swash and go heroic" while Call of Cthulu goes "this is relatively realistic, and you are fighting horrible odds. This means you'll probably die. Tough. That's what happens when normal people fight horrible odds..."

Roleplay can be either. It is quite often more into the less realistic because people enjoy the escapism.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

It's diufference in world, I think, like bringeroflight said. In Star Wars you are aware there are certain rules to the universe, it's heroic action. A Star Wars session could not maintain two characters checking into hotel rooms, having long slow conversations and some slight fraud, it would just choke the universe. There are different "world laws" governing how reality works and you respind to them

The weird thing is when you play a game with real world norms and then heroic action, it's really scary. I played a game where we played normal uni students for six months, and then when the magic started happening and the weirdness kicked in, it was really scary.

[ksirafai.livejournal.com]

A Star Wars session could not maintain two characters checking into hotel rooms, having long slow conversations and some slight fraud, it would just choke the universe.

...I feel slightly abashed. I recall several sessions of Lee's game in whch this was Pretty Much the action...

To _be_ fair, the 'fraud' was a planetary-wide lift of a single credit from every account in the banking system, the hotel was on a fragile asteroid ecosystem and the long slow talks were about whether or not we should find out about the doomed masochistic monks on the rocks below or if it's better to let them live their potentially dangerous lives out without our interference in Force Wazzy ways, but the basics were there... :)

I'm still thinking it's partly the powerz rules and partly the 24/7 thing and partly the not-my-responsiblity gameworld. Though I have decided that I don't _actually_ want to be any of my characters. Too much like hard work. :)

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

I did realise shortly after posting that one of the most successful sessions of my Star Wars game involved almost exactly that, including a rather long description of one character starting out of a Nar Shadaa hotel window contemplating her problems.

I do think it's partially the world rules... I know if I suddenly gained the wazzy force powers of a Jedi, I probably would just go on as normal with the slight smugness of being uber-powerful rather than righting the world's wrongs.

It's probably a whole combo of things, the knowledge you can't actually die, the not-my-responsibility, the world rules and the fact that most player characters can kill you with their brain.

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

Couple t'ings.

Firstly, we play RPGs for escapism. We don't play bank managers doing bank managery things. Sometimes, sure, games can become bizarrely soap-operay, and that's fine, but fundamentally they're out of the ordinary.

Secondly, no matter how good your GM is, the sense of consequence will always be lacking. If you or I had such amazing powers, I don't think we'd run around zapping people etc. The characters of you and Ginnie did normal things because they're more rooted in your consequence-shaped model of the world. And, yeah, your skillbase is likely quite different.