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Author Topic: Analysing My Playstyle: Character-Centred Gaming  (Read 570 times)

Warthur

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Analysing My Playstyle: Character-Centred Gaming
« on: July 25, 2007, 08:46:01 AM »
Pretty much the only element of RPG theory which gamers can agree on - whether we're talking about the threefold models formulated by rec.games.frp.advocacy or Ron Edwards, or the ideas put forward in Robin's Laws of Gamemastering - is that different people want different things from games. From there people diverge - Ron Edwards takes a separatist approach, positing that game designers should not attempt to cater to differing tastes in the games they design, while Robin Laws and JimBobOz passionately argue that we can never have satisfying games unless we learn to compromise to account for each other's tastes. I believe the latter is the case.

With that in mind, it's worth looking at our own tastes in gaming and trying to describe them: hence this screed. I have realised that the reason that Forge theory does not work for me is because it doesn't address what I truly enjoy in games. The thing which is most important to me in an RPG is something which is only peripherally mentioned in the two versions of the threefold model, and yet constantly hovers at the edges: that thing is your friend and mine, the humble player character.

Where the player character arises in Forge theory, it is only as a means to an end. In Gamism it is the playing token the player manipulates in order to overcome game mechanical challenges. In Simulationism your PC is the avatar through which you get to explore the gameworld. In Narrativism/Dramatism it is your primary means of crafting and advancing the story. Never, in Forge theory, is it even contemplated that some people might like playing a character for the sheer enjoyment of playing that character.

Here, then, is my description of character-centred play, as I call it: the closest thing I've got yet to a full description of my playstyle.

It's the Escapism, Stupid.

Hello, my name is Arthur and I'm a character-centred roleplayer. When I play a game, I like to leave my everyday life behind and spend some hours pretending to be somebody almost entirely unlike myself. When I GM, I like to run adventures which give the PCs a chance to really show what they're made of - and give players a chance to "discover" or define aspects of their character they hadn't thought about it.

I love Burning Wheel's system of Beliefs, Instincts and Traits not because I consider them a means to craft stories of literary merit, but because they are fabulous ways of getting a handle on a player's character. (Beliefs, in particular, are brilliant on this score - the GM is explicitly encouraged to engage with - and challenge - PCs' Beliefs, because the Beliefs are a means of the player saying "This is the sort of thing I would like my character to engage with and be challenged by.") I appreciate the ability to fine-tune my character to fit the concept I want to play in systems like BRP and D&D 3.X, but at the same time I can enjoy a class-based system like Rules Cyclopedia D&D because I know what to expect from the classes.

What I don't like are games where the system, GM, or other players get to interfere with my interpretation of my character. My Life With Master's system makes it downright impossible for your character to take certain courses of action, for example, if your stats aren't high enough. (Which isn't to say I don't like personality mechanics - just not prescriptive personality mechanics.) Happily, most game systems I've encountered can support character-centred playstyles - after all, character generation is often the thickest chapter in the rulebook! So long as the rules give players sovereignty over the portrayal of their player character, they can potentially support character-centred play.

What It Isn't: Thespianism, Spotlight-Hogging, Always Wanting My Character To Win.

Please don't confuse this with high-thespian act-out-all-your-conversations roleplaying. I'm not vain enough to imagine that I or my fellow roleplayers are great actors and I'm not elitist enough to demand grand performances from players who simply aren't interested in providing them. Actions, often, speak louder than words: I can easily imaigne situations where I learn more about your character from a five-minute summary of a half-hour negotiation than I would if you actually roleplayed the negotiation out. That said, I do prefer to act out especially important conversations - especially if all the PCs are involved - because abstracting them out feels too much like fast-forwarding over an important scene.

Also, just because I like character-centred play doesn't mean I am a spotlight hog. I'm interested in all the player characters, not just mine: if anything, I get uncomfortable if other players aren't exploiting their spotlight time as much as I am: I take it as a sign that either the GM isn't giving them enough, or they simply don't have an interesting character! In fact, possibly my major flaw is that - as player or GM - I find it off-putting if a player's character seems dull and uninspired.

Finally, just because the player characters are, to me, the most important element of a game on an OOC basis, doesn't mean they should be the most important on an IC level. Nor should they necessarily get everything they want delivered on a platter. What it does mean is that the hopes and dreams and ambitions of the player characters should, ususually, be important elements of the game; if I say "My character wants to overthrow the evil Empire," that's me saying "I'd like the rebellion against the evil Empire to be a major element of the game." I don't want my character to automatically win at everything he turns his hand to, but at the same time I will identify closely with my character's goals, and if one of those goals is going to be completely impossible on an IC level I'd appreciate being warned about it OOC: while I do sometimes enjoy playing characters who are on a doomed, hopeless quest, that's only if I deliberately choose to play a character on a doomed, hopeless quest: I don't want to create someone that I see as a hard-nosed realist only to find that in the campaign world he's actually a naive idealist. As a GM, I'm more likely to bend my world and planned campaign events to engage with the player characters, rather than expect the players to bend their characters out of shape to engage with the world and events.

What It Is.

Character-centred play is play which considers the player characters to be the defining and most important element of the game, with worldbuilding/exploring, GM-inspired events and stories, and thematic elements playing second fiddle to the PCs. It recognises that in the vast majority of traditional RPGs - and in a hell of a lot of avante-garde experimental games - the humble PC is the primary means through which players can impact the course of an RPG, through their decisions during play and during character generation. This being the case, character-driven play attempts to make sure that the decisions the players make about their characters - in character gen and in play - shapes the events and setting of the game, as opposed to the events and setting of the game shaping the player characters.

What This Means For Me As A GM: Respecting the Players' Input, Keeping the PCs Relevant, and Letting the Players Decide What's Important.

How does this affect my GMing? For starters, it means that I do my best to respect the players' input, as expressed through their decisions relating to their PCs - both in character generation and uptime. I tend not to go into games with a particular story or series of events in mind: instead, I look at the PCs' hopes, dreams, backgrounds and beliefs and make those the important strands of the campaign. This being the case, I find it extremely helpful to have a group character creation so that the PCs' can a) be established as a group, to help ensure compatability and b) be established before play begins so I have time to prepare something based on the character designs.

During the game, also, I make sure that the player's input - as expressed through the decisions and actions of the PCs - is respected. This translates to an attitude that no major action of the player characters should have no effect. Failure should have consequences, and success should bring rewards, but the situation should never remain static in response to PC actions. If the characters try to break into the Royal Palace and fail, at the very least the Royal Guards should tighten security and start breaking heads in the capital to try and track down the culprits: if they just carry on like it's business as usual, the players haven't even gotten a reaction out of them, which would just be frustrating.

I also try hard to keep the PCs relevant. They must never be allowed to become passive observers of events, at least in uptime: if there's going to be a period where they're not going to be able to do much, I'll just give them downtime and skip over it. Similarly, I won't allow a PC to spend more than a session in a crippled or compromised state, since if a PC's important skills are negated their ability to affect the action is severely hampered. If, for example, a character gets severely injured, I'll devote the rest of the session to the other PCs' desperate efforts to get the injured character out of danger and then give them a chunk of downtime - or let the player of the injured PC play another character for a while, if it wouldn't be appropriate to have downtime happen at that juncture.

Lastly, I don't go into campaigns with strong preconceptions about what's going to be important in the campaign; instead, I let the interests, hopes, dreams and fears of the PCs (as expressed in their background and during uptime) become the important themes/events/stories of the game. For example, if I were running a game and happened to mention in the background material that tensions were high between the Kingdom of Ecks and the Duchy of Wye, and the players decided to take a great interest in that tension (either by investigating during uptime, or by tying their PC backgrounds into it), then the Ecks/Wye conflict is going to be a major part of the game; conversely, if they don't show any interest in it, I'm not going to make it an important part of the game - it won't necessarily disappear, but the tensions won't inflame to the point where they start interfering with the PCs' interests.

What This Means for Me As a Player: Investment In My Character's Goals, A Dislike of Surprises, Wanting To Be Relevant and Wanting to Be There.

As a player this attitude has several effects on my playstyle. For starters, I tend to be invested in my character's goals - whether or not he succeeds or fails at them, I do at least want them to be addressed, and I usually prefer that the possibility of success exists; while I do occasionally like playing a hopeless idealist, I only enjoy it when I've chosen to play a hopeless idealist. I very much appreciate it if GMs warn me that certain goals of my character are unlikely to be achieved.

In fact, in general I tend to dislike big surprises in campaigns. Oh, I don't mind plot twists and sudden revelations and so forth, that's par for the course, but what I don't like is going into a campaign expecting it to be about X and then finding out it's about Y: I often find that the PC I designed is too focused on X and isn't really suited to Y. The classic "bait-and-switch" campaign premise ("I'll tell the players that we're going to play a gritty noir detective game, and then I'll teleport the PCs to the Forgotten Realms! Genius!") is an especially egregious example of this, but more subtle versions of it exist. For example, I once played in an SF game which I assumed was going to be about backstabbing power-politics and interstellar warfare: in fact, it was about everyone banding together and co-operating to prevent the destruction of the universe. Hmph.

It is important to me that my PC is relevant to the action. I've talked a lot about PCs being "relevant", so I suppose I should clarify what I mean by that. Personally, I feel that my PC has been relevant if I can identify at least one way in which is contribution has changed the course of a game session. If I can look at the action of a game session and say "You know, if my PC simply hadn't shown up we'd be in pretty much the same situation", I've been irrelevant for a session, and that's just lame.

Speaking of not showing up: if I can't make it to the game session, I prefer it if my PC can just fade into the background/stay at the party's HQ/whatever: I don't want anyone else to make decisions for my character, and I certainly don't want my character to do anything important while I'm not there. I can name at least one campaign where the most important thing my PC did happened while I was away, and that just sucks.

Why I Like This Playstyle

My attachment to this playstyle isn't (I hope) an irrational one: I do have arguments as to why it's the best playstyle for my purposes. The four most compelling ones are as follows:

- It is an approach which is suited to the nature of the game. By default, in an RPG we're going to be spending just about all of our time following the PCs anyway. Gameworld, story, and theme can all fade into the background at times, despite the best efforts of GM and system, but the PCs are always, always there.

- It's a player's-eye-view of the RPG. Yes, as GM you're master of the setting and the gameworld events and (if you're that kind of GM) probably even have a story planned out and so forth. And perhaps if you're playing a Forge-inspired games there's all sorts of thematic elements hardwired into the system. But players don't experience games from a top-down view: they experience the game through their PCs. (OK, they experience it through your descriptions - but those are based on the current situation of the PCs). As a player, your PC and the other PCs are naturally going to be your primary concern - why shouldn't it be the same if you are the GM?

- It's easier for the GM. Think of it this way: if your gameworld is more important to you than the PCs are, you're going to try and get the PCs to change to fit the gameworld. If you're prioritising story or theme or plot, you're going to try and nudge them into following those things. And yet, after character gen, you're no longer in charge of the PCs: the players are, and as a GM you have a responsibility to fairly engage with any PC design which you approve for the campaign. Conversely, if you consider the PCs (or rather, the players' portrayal of their PCs) inviolate, and are willing to bend world, story, and theme to fit them, then that task only requires you to manipulate those parts of the game which you actually have power over in the first place.

- It's inherently crowd-pleasing. When the minor mysteries that players X, Y and Z established at character gen turn out to be core elements of the major events of the campaign, players love it. Similarly, if the GM isn't especially attached to any particular aspect of the campaign, and is willing to focus on those things the PCs choose to take an interest in, it avoids resentment on the GM's part ("Rotten PCs, having to be dragged kicking and screaming to my precious, precious plot..."), and a happy GM tends to lead to happy players.

Compatability: When I'm Playing.

Obviously, when I'm playing I'm most compatible with GMs who have a similar playstyle, but that's not always possible, so here's some thoughts on how various types of GMs and I could see eye to eye.

- Challenge-Oriented GMing/"Gamism". GMs who like to throw carefully balanced challenges at the players will probably be able to accomodate me quite well: after all, they're used to tweaking adventures to suit the skills and talents of the PCs. All I ask is a willingness to tweak them to suit my/our backgrounds and interests, as well: if my character's interested in liberating the oppressed serfs from the Baron's rule, don't expect me to get jazzed about an adventure that'll take us halfway across the world to find some pirate gold - or at the very least, come up with some pretext as to why I need the gold to free the serfs. Make sure the benefits to my PC of tackling your adventures are clear, and I'll make sure he goes after them to the best of his ability.

- World-Oriented GMing/"Simulationism." You'd think we'd be a perfect match, right? You provide the detailed, lovingly-crafted world, I concern myself with my PC, we're both happy, right? Well, usually, yes, but occasionally there can be problems. In particular, world-oriented GMs can occasionally spring events on the PCs that happen due to the internal logic of the gameworld and which have a big impact on the PCs' lives, and yet weren't things the PCs were likely to be able to affect and (worse) weren't even things which the PCs were interested in. Going back to the example of the war between Ecks and Wye, if the PCs have never shown an interest in the tension between the two nations, but we get swept up in the war anyway because the internal logic of the gameworld demanded it, that's just lame.

On the other hand, it should be reasonably easy to avoid these things. If your world is reasonably detailed, there's going to be plenty of things for us to take an interested in, and chances are the playing group has tied itself in with a bunch of stuff through character backgrounds and in-game decisions. Make sure the focus stays on that stuff and downplay the things the group weren't interested in and we'll all have a blast.

- Story-Oriented GMing/"Storytelling." This is problematic. Chances are, you've got a story you want to tell before the game even begins. The difficulty with this is that you have a choice: either you tweak things so that the same story occurs regardless of what the PCs choose, in which case you're either railroading us or simply ignoring the PCs' backgrounds and choices (and you're probably doing both), or you try your damnedest to make sure we make PCs who fit your story (which, in practice, would mean turning down plenty of mechanically viable characters who'd fit in fine with the PC group, because the character's priorities don't necessarily fit the priorities).

The solution here is to either give up your preconceptions about the direction the story will go in, or open up to us a little and tip your hand a bit. If you tell me "OK, this Vampire chronicle is going to be about a bunch of vampires who discover an ancient conspiracy and try to take it down, hunted all the while by the Prince of their city", I'll make sure I make a character suitable for that. If you keep your cards close to your chest because you want to "preserve the surprise", chances are I'll end up making an unsuitable character, or won't actually be interested in your plotline once it's actually revealed.

- Thematic GMing/"Narrativism." This really depends on the system you're using. If it's a mainly-traditional system with Narrativist influences, like Shadow of Yesterday or Burning Wheel, we can probably make things work: you can look at my character's Beliefs/Instincts/Traits/Keys whatever as being themes, I can look at them as being elements of his priorities and personality, and we can get on fine.

On the other hand, if you're going with a more experimental system, chances are you're going to lose me - especially if it involves muddying the GM/player distinction, and especially if it has mechanical limitations on how PCs can affect things. For example, My Life With Master is set up so that I can't do certain things if the system thinks my character's emotional makeup won't let him.

The big thing is that you shouldn't expect me to treat the game as a Balloon Debate (see my earlier thread about this sort of thing for a definition of that). In some games, like Burning Wheel, we could probably get away with that. (TBH, I kind of question BW's Narrativist credentials.) In other games, like Dogs In the Vineyard, I'll probably end up breaking things.

Now for some more general advice, not geared towards specific GMing styles:

- If you want something to be important in the game, mention it when you're pitching the game. If you want to run a game about the war between Ecks and Wye, just say "This game is going to be about the war between Ecks and Wye". Don't lure me in with vague statements and then spring the war on me: give me a decent chance of making a character who'll actually want to get involved in the war.

- Cram your campaign world with more stuff than you expect to use. You don't have to fully detail it until we encounter it, of course, but the more hooks there are in your initial campaign set up the more stuff there is to attach my character's background to or to engage my character's interest.

- Kill me or spare me, but don't cripple me. Don't expect me to keep playing a character if he's become permanently irrelvant.

- I will do my best to make it clear what my PC is interested in. Assume that that's what I, OOC, am interested in too and we'll do fine.

- Be willing to shape the game to fit the characters, as opposed to vice versa. Don't treat the PCs as lumps of clay to be mashed and smashed into shape.

As far as advice to other players go, I don't have much: I generally tend not to have playstyle clashes with other PCs. I can guarantee that I will show an interest in your PC in-game. I can't guarantee that my PCs' priorities will always be compatible with yours, but I will make an honest attempt to reconcile them through IC discussions/arguments so that we can progress.

Compatability: When I'm GMing.

Lastly, some thoughts on what this playstyle means for people playing in my games.

- Either be proactive in uptime, or give me a rich background. Preferably both - I need to know what you and your characters are interested in. I generally prefer proactivity to rich backgrounds - giving me a full character background is useful for letting me know what aspects of the game you were interested in exploring at game start, but being proactive in uptime tells me what you're interested in now.

- Get your teeth into something and really have a go at it. If the PCs swan around the setting dabbling in this and that and not really committing to anything it makes it difficult for me to tell what you're interested in. If you're not interested in anything, tell me and I'll try to fix that. If you're interested in a whole heap of things, and can't decide what to prioritise, feel free to drop OOC and ask me for advice if you have to.

- Don't be afraid of big IC discussions/arguments/conflicts/fights between the PCs. I love watching PCs interact with one another, so long as something's being accomplished. I'll step in if you begin to go around in circles, or if one or more of you seem bored, but otherwise I'll let your characters hammer out their differences without interference.
I am no longer posting here or reading this forum because Pundit has regularly claimed credit for keeping this community active. I am sick of his bullshit for reasons I explain here and I don't want to contribute to anything he considers to be a personal success on his part.

I recommend The RPG Pub as a friendly place where RPGs can be discussed and where the guiding principles of moderation are "be kind to each other" and "no politics". It's pretty chill so far.