Feed on
Posts
Comments

Roleplay as “Escapism” in the Media

Jul 11th, 2011 by Gestalt Gamer

The myriad forms of role-playing are more popular and accepted than ever. It seems like everywhere you go you can find someone who plays some type of role-play game, whether it be tabletop, online, or a LARP. What I am noticing as gaming gains momentum in popular culture is that certain stereotypes are becoming prominent. Now, many stereotypes dealing with gamers are innocuous and I understand the value of comedy. That having been said, however, I am finding that there is one misconception that persists in almost all depictions of RPG players.

I am referring to the stereotype that gamers use roleplaying to escape from their mundane lives and that the lines between reality and fantasy are blurred in the minds of gamers. Look at mainstream movies such as Role Models or even media produced by the “insiders” of the gaming world and you will see this caricature of the escapist gamer. Many of you out there would say that this is meant as a comedic device and that people know that gamers aren’t like that. Unfortunately, from my time spent in the business and academic spheres I know that many outsiders still view gamers as escapists who flee from their unsuccessful social and professional lives into a delusional fantasy world.

I find this idea personally offensive as it insinuates that gamers only game because we need to escape from the normal world where we are “nerds” and “losers” into a fantasy world where we can find success and acceptance. The implication that we need to escape from anything is insulting, many in my own gaming group have good lives by anyone’s standards and are happy with their social lives. This stereotype also implies that we judge the value of our lives against “normal” people and that our activities are inherently less prestigious socially than more mundane hobbies. Think about it, this stereotype calls gamers losers for using RPGs to find friends and acceptance but that is what every group activity is used for. Youth and adult sports leagues are a perfect example, people join them to find friends and enjoy social interaction with like minded people, same as with gaming.

In my mind, gaming has been and always will be a social activity where well adjusted people do something they enjoy, not an escape from the ruins of our  failed attempts to be “normal”. I guess what I am saying is that roleplaying is no more of an escape than any other hobby, and I do not appreciate the notion that we are delusional and gaming lets us forget how unsuccessful we are.

I would like to call all of my readers to help put this stereotype to bed. Attempt to be more communicative about what roleplaying really is and what it means to you. We don’t have  to justify our choices to others but I feel we should discourage this stereotype in the way we present ourselves. Don’t buy into the stereotype and try not to encourage it in popular media.

But that is just my opinion, let me know what you think of this stereotype and its influence on roleplaying in the comments below.

- Gestalt Gamer (Dan)

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , ,

Posted in RPG, Roleplay | 6 Comments »

Some Thoughts about Combat Ineffective Characters

Jul 7th, 2011 by ladymedieval

In my last post, I described my Urban Arcana character, Eolyn, who is essentially ineffective in combat. Today I’d like to expand on her a little more by talking about the value of choosing to play a character that has little prowess on the battlefield. There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to taking on this kind of character, but I believe that if it’s the right game, and you have a willing DM, characters that cannot fight well can be a great addition to the party.

Disclaimer: Having a combat ineffective character in the party necessitates a creative DM and a game with a storyline.

If you’re playing in a game that centers itself on combat, then playing a character that is not combat effective may mean that you will be disappointed. Before Urban Arcana, the only other characters I played were really great in combat, so when my UA character would not do anything useful in an entire encounter, I would feel a little frustrated.

It took me some time to get into the groove of playing a combat ineffective character, because I had to begin to think out of the box. I had to come up with ways that my character could be of use to the party outside of combat. Ultimately though, I like the ability to be creative about how I use my skills and so playing Eolyn is very rewarding for me.

Eolyn is about as combat effective as these kitties, who are also apparently Ninjas???.

Even if they aren’t combat effective, your character can have a variety of skills and non-combat related feats that are beneficial to out of combat parts of the campaign. For example, in our Urbana Arcana, I took Windfall (which provides a player with tons of money) twice when I made my character, that then helped make things happen when our party had to get in places or we needed to pay for one of our party members to be healed by a voodoo doctor. It also enabled me to buy expensive, but really useful items that the party relies on.

My character’s most important skills are Bluff and Diplomacy. I poured my points into specific skills which related to the levels of Glamourist (a UA advanced class) that I took when I first made her. This meant that she is very successful at interpersonal relations; she is highly skilled at charming people into telling her things and helping her out.

Her function in the game, at least in its beginning arc, was to use her smooth-talking skills to get the party information and make connections with important people in the world. My DM does not hand it to me though; as a player, even when I roll well, I am expected to roleplay my charismatic character as well as I possibly can. This is very challenging and fun for me. Additionally, when I flub and say something ridiculous, it is usually a moment of humor for everyone else, and those moments become the inside jokes we keep going back to several months later in the game.

One word of advice: if you are thinking about playing a charismatic character who is not a strong fighter, I urge you to considering taking levels of multiple classes when you create your character. (For example, I took a level of Fast Hero in addition to my UA advanced class when I made my character)

Make sure that she has some sort of weapons proficiency even if it’s simple. This way, you have flexibility when you level so you can mold your character even further. I did this on the advice of my DM and now that we are level 10 my character is poised to start doing actual damage in combat, in addition to her skills, which makes her more well rounded which is appropriate for the level we are at.

Playing a character that is combat ineffective does not mean that character is going to be useless; in fact quite the opposite. Your character can have the skills and assets that can keep the storyline moving and give the party access to information and people that they would otherwise not be able to get their hands on. It’s challenging and fun to play this kind of character because it forces you to be creative, which is my favorite thing about gaming.

~Lady Medieval

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , ,

Posted in Characters, RPG, Roleplay, Urbana Arcana | 2 Comments »

From Back-stories to Bar Stories 1

Jul 5th, 2011 by Gestalt Gamer

I hate writing backstories. While I believe myself capable of playing a variety of different characters in different ways, it’s difficult for me to think of too many interesting things that could happen to a character before early adulthood. While my current group doesn’t mind, I’ve RPed with people who would demand pages of character backstory about characters who were supposed to be around the age of 15. The biggest problem with backgrounds that begin early is that everybody seems to want to be Batman. If a character’s parents didn’t die, chances are that they were bad enough to make him run away. Regardless, there’s about a 30% chance that they’re royalty. Don’t get me wrong: these tropes work. I just don’t like contributing to them, so I almost always say that my character was 100% average until they went to their class’s training school in their late teens, at the earliest.

“But Nirkit!” You cry. “Being without a backstory robs a player of their connection to the character, and leaves them without a reference for future character interactions!” And you’re absolutely right. But they needn’t be from the distant past, or in the biographical form of a backstory. They can just be stories. Hell, regular stories can be more useful than backstories: the time you almost got raped when you were 18 probably informs your decisions in a more noticeable way than the time you walked in on your parents having sex at age 7. What players need are at least a couple life- or paradigm-changing events in their character’s life. What’s important is their knowledge of how those events impact the character in the present.

The first event I choose is usually the easiest: sex. Losing one’s virginity is an important time in one’s life. How it’s lost (and to whom) can often tell you a lot about a person or where they come from, and can also inform their current dealings with the opposite sex. For example: if a male character’s dad buys him a prostitute to lose his virginity to he could potentially see women as greater equals since he has a place for sex, pays for it, and doesn’t feel the need to impress anyone. He could also come to see women and their affections as objects to be bought and sold. On the other hand, it might just be normal where he comes from, and not be terribly noteworthy.

The second thing I usually do is create a class-related story. A thief might know the story of their first picked pocket, their first botched job, or the first time they talked their way out of a tight spot just like a fighter remembers their first win/loss, their first severe injury, or certain fights over the honors of certain ladies. Once again, the point is to know how the event affects the character now: A botched-job thief might vow to plan for every job thoroughly, or they may become more comfortable with winging it, confident in their ability to escape.

Finally, it’s important to have something relevant to the story of the game. Hopefully your DM is willing to divulge a little bit about the conflicts going on in the world they’ve created, which a character should have opinions on. In the Urban Arcana game Gestalt’s running, my story-relevant event was when and how my character (a human) first saw an unnatural creature. Some settings don’t lend themselves quite so well to large events. In these instances, remember the importance of collective experience: a single minor bad experience will nudge someone toward an opinion, but it takes a number of repeated experiences for someone to adamantly hold that opinion. So if the world is fighting over an emerging technology, maybe the character knows people who’ve been affected by the conflict or the technology itself. If there’s a race war, the character may have had dealings with one or both sides, influencing their opinion.

In my next post, I’ll show you how I turn these stories into a character that can hopefully be more consistent and fun to play!

- Nirkit (Kurt)

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , ,

Posted in Character interaction, Characters, Roleplay, backstories | 1 Comment »

World Generation: The Results Part 2

Jul 1st, 2011 by Ironclad Penguin

Last time I talked about the results of my group’s experience with the world generation system that I outlined a while ago. As promised, today I’m going to go over the Upheaval that my players decided on and then the social roles that I chose for them based on their decisions.

As I outlined in my post about the world generation system, the Upheaval is a major event that has occurred in the recent past or is happening at present that the activities of the players will be focused on. It is also the only part of the system that should be discussed by all of the players involved so that the game turns into something everyone will enjoy. After much discussion my players decided that the Upheaval would be a meteor that recently struck the planet but landed somewhere in the ocean. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue but for some unknown reason there has been major breakdowns of the desalinization plants starting with the area closest to the estimated landing of the meteor. The players decided on something like this because they specifically wanted something that could have a lot of mystery and while still leaving creative space for the DM to work with.

I chose social roles for the players based on the world and what would be needed to investigate the Upheaval that they chose. I have five players so they got to choose from the following roles: engineer, scientist and ambassador from the Beastkin, the ambassador’s bodyguard, the king of the Warforged, and the king’s advisor/bodyguard. Because of their roles in this particular setting all of the players except for the one who is the engineer is limited in their choice of race according to where they are from. While this is somewhat limiting my players didn’t really mind if it was going to make the story and party dynamic more interesting. I also made sure to divide the party by its country affiliation with the exception of one player. This I thought would be fun because it would encourage ‘clicks’ in the party which would have the potential to make the role playing richer.

Well thats about it. The game is scheduled to start in two weeks by which point I have to have the conflicts for the story firmly in my mind and the rails for the players in place. So far this process has been a lot of fun for my entire group and now all we have to do is start playing.

-Ironclad Penguin.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , ,

Posted in Character interaction, D&D 4th, Dungeon Mastering, Roleplay, world building | No Comments »

Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve

Jun 30th, 2011 by ladymedieval

I was thinking about the last session of the Urban Arcana game  in which I’m currently playing  and it brought to mind something that I have kind of struggled with in my own gaming: making decisions (even in combat) based on what my character would do, not what my character should do.

For example, earlier in the campaign, two members of the party who are employed by an organization that works with supernaturals got a call that there was a monster  infestation (if I remember correctly they were giant lizards) in a powerplant in the city where we were operating . They were all ready to go off to deal with the infestation and they were perfectly okay with leaving our NPC ward locked in her hotel room.

Ummm...I don't think my character would want to break into that castle...let's get a drink instead!"

My character had no interest in working for the organization that employs the other members of the  party; fighting monsters for fun is not her cup of tea. Therefore, she stay back with the ward thus splitting the party. Now, in this case the rest of the party was fine because my character was (until very recent levels) essentially combat useless.

However pretending for a minute that my character was more combat effective, I could have put the rest of the party at a disadvantage if I decided not to go fight, even if it was for purely roleplaying reasons. I did what my character would do, but maybe not what she should have done.

 Let me provide another example.

In the same game we were fighting our first boss, who was a fairy like my character. I chose the weapon I would use to fight him based on roleplaying. Even though my character has a gun, she used her sword because she belives that if she has to fight another fey creature, she has to do it with honor, and to her that means using her sword. 

I knew that there was a good chance that she would be seriously injured (and maybe killed) fighting with an archaic weapon, but I still wanted to make decisions based on her personality and values. Making decisions that way is risky and fun, but if I do it all the time I may be setting my party up for problems when we face larger challenges and could use all hands on deck in combat.

There has to be a balance between making decisions based on teamwork ensuring that the party is successful and making decisions that are in line with a character’s personality and values.

My question to you today is where is that balance for you? How much does roleplaying your character well play into your in- combat decisions? Is it okay to split the party temporarily because its what your character would do? When should you sacrifice what your character would do for what your character should do and take one for the team? I’m looking forward to your feedback!

Happy Gaming!

Lady Medieval

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , ,

Posted in Characters, Dungeons and dragons, RPG, Roleplay, Uncategorized, Urbana Arcana | 1 Comment »

No Steering!

Jun 24th, 2011 by Gestalt Gamer

When a new player joins your gaming group it is often a cause for celebration. A breath of fresh air for both the party dynamic and the storytelling. I have noticed, however, that when  inexperienced players join a gaming group that the other players and the DM sometimes interfere with their decision making process.

In the world of sales there is a practice called steering, where you give the options you do not want chosen little or no attention. Steering is common in real estate and is illegal, after reading this post hopefully you will agree that it should be illegal in gaming.

I have found myself and others to be guilty of steering when it comes to new players. It is not malicious, you describe the classes you need them to play in more detail, the other players talk up certain classes or character backgrounds. Unfortunately, even though we do this with the intention of making sure they have  fun, it is stifling to the new player.

When you fit your new player into a vacancy instead of creating a vacancy for who and what they want to play, you are setting a bad precedent. They are starting their gaming career with the notion that they should defer to the suggestions of others or that more experienced players know whats best. Any new player counts on suggestions and and advice but by steering you take away their sense of control over their character. Some people will with time assert themselves, others however, will not and your game will suffer for it.

Another reason to avoid steering is that they may end up with a character that they won’t enjoy or at least not the one they would have enjoyed most. If you try to anticipate what they would like or convince them to play a class because no one else will, you pigeonhole them. Which in turn can lead them to frustration if they don’t like the class that was “best for them”.

I don’t know what your opinions are on steering but I have tried my best in the last few years to avoid it. I try to give a broad overview of my world and with new players I prove a primer that contains a synopsis of how different classes operate and fit into the world.

- Gestalt Gamer (Dan)

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , , , ,

Posted in Character interaction, Characters, D&D 4th, Dungeon Mastering, Pathfinder, Roleplay | No Comments »

All the Table’s A Stage pt 2: Setting the Stage

Jun 23rd, 2011 by ladymedieval

Literature is full of tropes, symbols and devices that create intricate settings for encounters between colorful casts of characters as they adventure through the plot of a story. The art of planning a campaign that is interested in storyline and contains a strong, character-driven plot may require the DM to participate in a certain degree of “setting the scene” as a new location is introduced.

You can pull from the rich literary traditions of symbolism and foreshadowing to help build intrigue for your players  as you guide them in their exploration of the world.  As a director in the theatre, I do much of a similar thing with the items I choose to set on stage. For example, in a production of Macbeth that I recently directed we included creepy abstract pictures on the walls of the set to try to make the audience uncomfortable.

Dancing Skeletons! aka, the Danse Macabre is a form of momento mori (if you want to see a picture of a theatrical momento mori, check out my last post)

In some tragedies, items such as skulls are placed on stage or in the hands of main characters. These items referred to as momento mori (directly translated “remember your mortality’”)  serve as visual reminders of one’s own death; they also foreshadow death in the show and set the tone of a scene.  Another popular trope is the gun on the table. Often in literature or theatre, if there is a gun or other weapon visible on the set or mentioned in the beginning of the book, then it will be used to commit an act of violence later on in the play or story.

As a DM, you can take advantage of things such as this to help you paint a picture or foreshadow events or even give clues  to your players. Yes, maybe many of your players will see a gun laying on the table and immediately want to take it for their own arsenal but, they are less likely to collect skulls, occult symbols or creepy paintings (all of which when described well, can add an eerie tone to an encounter which can put your players on edge).

These elements can set the mood of a place and then, when your party meets the inhabitants, they may be more on their guard…especially if he has a shrunken head collection.
What I am trying to encourage you to do is to get creative as a DM in describing locations in your world. If your players are working hard to create well rounded, rich characters, then as a DM you should work to create a rich and developed world for them to play in. Therefore, much as a director or designer spends time creating the setting for the story that they will tell, as a DM, you have the opportunity to be a storyteller as well, and to enrich your players’ experiences.

Your players will appreciate the effort you put in to setting the scene: the way you describe an encounter can heighten its importance in the campaign or provide and opportunity for humor and character interaction as your players react to what they see in the location.

So, like a director or designer, stretch that imagination muscle! Take advantage of existing symbols and tropes or create your own. Take the time to describe your world to the players in your game and watch them interact more successfully with each other and your NPCs.

Happy Gaming,
Lady Medieval

  • Share/Bookmark

Posted in Character interaction, Dungeon Mastering, RPG, Roleplay, Tropes, locations, storytelling, world building | 1 Comment »

All the Table’s a Stage pt.1

Jun 17th, 2011 by ladymedieval

One of my great passions is the theatre and I love seeing how theatre and gaming interact in really exciting ways. This is the first in a series of posts I plan on writing about those interactions and how to use theatre tricks to improve your gaming. When I am directing a show, I usually like to do a lot of what we thespians call “character work”. It’s a great way to get people to think about the characters they are playing in a new way.

I like to encourage my actors not only to think about how their characters would interact on stage, but how they would interact with the real world. Some of the same questions that I use with them could also be helpful to you and your players while developing your character’s personalities.
One game I like to use with my actors is the “current event arguments game” (I know, such fancy titles).

Stem Cell Research?!? I'm glad things were less complicated when I was Prince...wait...

To play, they all sit in a circle and I ask them to argue about a controversial topic while staying in character. They are expected not only to express the views their character would have, but to express those views in the way that their character would, i.e. using the voice and mannerisms that their character would use if arguing about this at his or her local bar.

This exercise gets my actors to think out of the box and out of their character’s typical context. Yes, Hamlet may never have to argue with anyone about stem cell research, but this gets the actor to think about the different values and experiences that formulate opinions. Then the actor has to work to formulate what is hypothetically Hamlet’s opinion which helps him to deconstruct his character so he can really begin to understand Hamlet and then create his version of Hamlet for our production.
Now I’m not necessarily saying that before you game every week, your party should sit down and do character building games (though you may be surprised with how fun they are). I am imploring you to think about these issues on your own time.

When I am by myself on the elliptical, sometimes amongst my other musings, I think about how one of my characters may react to something I see on the news, or how they would argue for or against something they believe in. Unlike  an actor who must deconstruct an already existing character in order to play him, as a gamer, you have the opportunity to construct a new character;that process includes examining all the beliefs and values that form the backbone of his views and opinions.

Thinking about current events such as those we discuss in my theatre game can help you to think more deeply about the nuances, experiences and values that make up your character, and how you can use them in game to have better roleplay.

Happy Gaming!
~Lady Medieval

  • Share/Bookmark

Posted in Characters, RPG, Roleplay | 3 Comments »

World Generation: The Results Are In!

Jun 15th, 2011 by Ironclad Penguin

I finally got a chance last weekend to get my players together to create a world for my new D&D 4e game using the group world generation system that I outlined a couple weeks ago. As promised here are the results:

The genre of the game is near-future science fiction with a technology level similar to what can be seen in Stargate SG-1(yes, the player actually specified that, something that in the end helped the other players visualize what he meant). Because of this magic takes the form of genetic mutations that are absent in most people. This means that any arcane character would have gone through extensive gene therapy in order to obtain his/her powers.

The dominant races in this world are as follows: the Children of the Titans(specifically Humans, Dwarves, Goliaths, and Mul), a militant

Vast deserts will cover much of the world that the players created.

totalitarianism society who make their home in an enormous continent-spanning canyon; the Beastkin(Dragonborn, Shifters, and Minotaurs), a society styled after the ancient Roman Republic that calls the massive deserts of this world their home; and the Warforged, a newly formed monarchy that freed themselves from the Children of the Titans in a war in the not-too-distant-past who now also reside in the deserts. Non-dominant races on this planet are actually quite plentiful but they are all repressed and forced to live in social ghettos and reservations by the dominant societies who control the desalinization plants that serve as their main source of water.

Across the various societies magic is viewed simply as a means to an end. If you need magic to do something(and you can afford the gene therapy) then you get it, no big deal, though there still exist some fringe groups who clamor about the evils of magic. Because gene therapy is the source of magic, technology and magic are used in tandem with each other. Religion across the land is loosing strength as large scale wars and natural disasters force religious groups underground while the people seek guidance and security from secular powers instead.

In this world there are eight gods, real gods, who often walk amongst the people of the world but who cannot generally be bothered to interfere in the peoples lives. Evil gods are not worshiped, at least not openly, and if they exist they are so unheard of that they are not likely to gain a significant following in the near future.

Well there you have it. Thats pretty much all of what the group came up with using this system. In my opinion it turned out rather well with an awful lot of moments in the reveal where someone would shout: “Oh man, that works really well with what I wrote down!”. Tune in next week where I’ll outline the Upheaval that the players and I agreed on along with what social roles they got to chose from for the upcoming game.

-Ironclad Penguin.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , ,

Posted in D&D 4th, Dungeon Mastering, world building | No Comments »

The Dire-Rat of a Different Color

Jun 10th, 2011 by Ironclad Penguin

Last week I did a post about a fun little method a friend and I came up with for random world generation in preparation for a new 4e game that I want to run. While I still haven’t had the chance to get my players together to actually use the system to create our next game (I’ll make sure to post the results when I do) I did think of a potentially interesting complication involved in using this method: monsters. The monsters included in the D&D 4e system are made to be balanced against the players but they generally fit into a fantasy setting. Since I consider myself to be quite the low-prep DM I don’t want to have to custom create every creature or adversary that the players will come across in their home-brewed world. So I decided that I need to be prepared to re-skin whatever monster I need to fit into the setting of my new game.

Re-skinning a creature is really quite a simple process and most DMs have probably already done it to one extent or another. Back when I was co-running a sandbox Dark Sun game I ran into a series of encounters where I needed a large variety of half-giant enemies. Since the number of those are

You can even re-skin a horse to be purple! Or something...

somewhat limited across the monster manuals I took human enemies with abilities that I wanted, added the half-giant racial power, and changed whatever stats were necessary. This allowed me to have the number of enemies I needed without spending too much time building them from the ground up. This same process can be used to tailor any creature to whatever setting I may be faced with in any game. For example, if I needed a Laser Shark, which I hope I will, I could simply take a War Shark, shift it’s level as necessary, give it a Magic Missile attack that I’ll call a laser and let it loose against my players.

Doing this has allowed me to have as many different types of monsters as I like in all of my games and I admit that I’ve gone so far as to actually make the stats for a monster up as I was DMing because I needed something I didn’t have. This concept can also be used for characters by just re-imagining what the powers do in the fiction of the game without needing to tinker with the mechanics of the system; another thing I’m sure I’ll need to do in my upcoming game.

-Ironclad Penguin.

  • Share/Bookmark

Tags: , , ,

Posted in D&D 4th, Dungeon Mastering, Houserules, world building | No Comments »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »