The Blog of Roon

Part of Claire Bickell’s response to this week’s Game WISH:

This ties into an idea I feel quite strongly about. I get frustrated when people create characters as ‘popular’ or something. Popular is not a character description; it’s a description of the relationship between the character and the rest of the universe. Now, it’s a subtle distinction and easy to overlook, but I think it can cause problems if the player expects to have that sort of relationship with the universe simply because they described the character that way.

I could not have said it any better myself. Characters respond to their experience of other characters, not to character sheets. If you want a particular reaction, you need to figure out how to get it in-character. Do not wave a character sheet around yelling “But my character’s a sweet, easy-going chap!” when he’s just instigated an unnecessary catfight with the rest of the group. That dog so won’t hunt.

Your character has to take responsibility for his/her actions just as you do. A character sheet isn’t a shield or a get-out-of-doghouse-free card.

Er. Yes, this has been an issue now and then in my current gaming group. How could you tell?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 5th, 2002 at 9:36 am and is filed under Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.