I place a LOT of emphasis on my own character's internal motivations.
My biggest difficulty lies precisely in conveying them outward. I usually fail to do so properly, which probably explains why I frequently resort to writing AP reports from the first person. Gives me a chance to explore my character's mind and let's me share that with other players and GM.
It's after the fact, but after a couple of these, everyone at the table knows where my character is coming from and what they're thinking.
For example, while playing The News this weekend and holding the Least of The Show, there was a moment of character disagreement. Where The News and The Show were about to clash. If we clashed, i could wind up losing the Leash.
I distinctly remember feeling the desire to continue holding onto the leash. To act in a way that was out of whack with my own wishes, because holding onto the leash was powerful.
That conflict between internal desires wasn't told, but was probably pretty obvious.
I do a lot of "inside" roleplaying, so building up ideas of who my character is and how they view the world is one of the more rewarding parts of the game for me.
Eva Schiffer can you tell me more about what you mean by inside role-playing? I'm not familiar with the term, though i an maybe familiar with the act.
You probably aren't familiar with it because I made it up. I do a lot of my roleplaying inside my mindspace rather than emoting a great deal externally. It is not the same as method acting, but it's related.
I find things like considering my characters views or morals or motivations and building up a little model of how I think the character sees the world very satisfying. I am not trying to really be them in order to make bleed happen or be more dramatic, just understand them.
I tend to be a relatively understated roleplayer externally, but that is mostly for unrelated social anxiety reasons.
William Nichols: It's not that I want them not to know my character's motivation. I just really don't much care. I don't dress up for them.. I do it for me.
Though, to be fair, sometimes other players help make a human connection between our characters, and that can emerge from them understanding the things unsaid. I do like that. But you never catch that rabbit by chasing it harder.
I come to RPGs from a background of reading novels. Character development and inhabiting your character's mind is important to me. Sometimes, if I am unable to express what's going on in my mind at the time (at the table) my words or actions may seem strange, if the thought process behind them isn't clear. Sometimes I succeed in getting this across, sometimes it doesn't.
Writing the AP lays it all out.
The reason it's important for others to know is that I don't believe in secrets at the table. If we're telling the story together, everyone needs to know what's going on, and that way they can contribute to the development of the character. Otherwise, it's like I'm playing this solo game in my head that has little to do with what's actually going on at the table.
As for bleed? I dunno. I like to inhabit the character, but I don't get upset when they're hurt or put in danger. I like to put my characters at risk. To face adversity and see how they come through it.
I build a pretty extensive mental model of the character I am playing. They all want things, believe in things, invest in things, and generally not in in casual ways. The investing and reinvesting stokes the emotional space of the character and turns the volume of the game up really high for me.
Examples are hard to relate! The games I remember playing with you are Apportionment and Keeping the Candles Lit. It's hard all this time later to really describe the very complex space of my Apportionment character - though funny enough I was thinking about her this weekend when I played Jason Morningstar 's new game set in the same world.
She was motivated by truth and tradition, and believed very very strongly in the plan she was building. Every decision I made in that game was cumulative and morally consistent: evaluating her ideas across ethnicity, religion, locality, progress, civil rights, autonomy, and sovereignty and through the negotiations emerged a very cohesive world view in which self-sovereignty and self-sufficiency were the lodestones of Sarai's survival.
Through that lens, over the course of the game she very deeply resented the Combine, and churned with an overwhelming need to help others understand the path of loss we were on in the negotiation. Over and over again, as the factions fractured based on demographic infighting, she redoubled in the responsibility, and it became overwhelmed in a feeling of terrible failing and sense of terrible impending loss. The final decision was a lie, and was infuriating. It made for some intense and very angry bleed.
(ETA: the bleed is related because the emotional volume is turned up high, and I letting it inhabit me as fully as I can. In this case, and IME where you get bleed (by which I mean you can't shake the emotion, vs just feeling it strongly) is affected a lot by your resilience with the emotion, your experience with the space and the proximity to situation. Where you don't want to let it go, it's too close to home to let it go, or the emotion is one you have lower resiliance or coping to as a person, it's harder for it to disperse. So that character and that ending, and that specific emotion led to the bleed.)
Keeping the Candles Lit illustrates how this process is a big thing for me even when NPCing/GMing. Vlad's goals in wooing you out of the partisan camp were much simpler and less complex. He wanted you, liked you, might even have loved you and wanted you to be his own. But I steered him there to feel it well enough so that when I committed to his course of action, the conflict would feel real for you in the moment, with the intention of stoking your emotional space and making a strong play experience.
I am all about my characters' own motivations, I love playing inside their heads. I know a game's going to be lacklustre for me if we get to the end of character creation and I don't know or care about what makes them tick.
Aaron Griffin: Do you have a distinction between what you-the-player want the character to achieve in the game, and what the character wants to achieve?
It's the kind of thing that's an obvious "yes" when people are dealing with non-goal motives, but can get trickier when it's all goal-oriented.
Eva Schiffer Ohhhh, this hits on an fascinating related subject, on how being aware of the social space and our comfortableness with it affects our behaviors!
For example, my first game at a con always feels uncomfortable and a big mess. I don't know the local customs and expectations, even if I am mostly gaming with people I know!
This has happened to me at Camp Nerdly and Dreamation, which're both very open and friendly spaces. And yet, every time, my first game I feel like an outsider and my characterization suffers.
Tony Lower-Basch hmm I don't really know how to answer that. Can you give me an example of something that the player wants a character to achieve that the character doesn't want?
Aaron Griffin: Sure! My character, Dr. Death, wants to detonate his Thanatos Bomb, bathing all of Jump City in Necro-Radiation, and paving the way for his reign as Zombie King. But I totally don't want that to happen ... I like Jump City! It's where all our heroes keep all their stuff.
Mo Jave We didn't interact altogether too much during Apportionment, which was too bad. I was too busy being creepily religious, which I find both difficult and ... rewarding.
Vlad, though? Good god.
This: But I steered him there to feel it well enough so that when I committed to his course of action, the conflict would feel real for you in the moment,
Is what I think not only GMs (though, yes, GMs) but also players should altogether often strive for. To model our characters such that it creates a better play for ourselves and other people at the table.
For ex, I remember an AW game where one of the characters spent the session barrikaded and avoiding interaction because guns were everywhere! And while this made sense, I think it made for a weaker experience.
Which is to say, I think the outward is super important and you do it very well.
(Sorry if this sounds pedantic) that sounds more like what the player wants in the game vs what the character wants.
For what the player wants the character to do vs what the character wants to do - Dr Death and Aaron both want to see Dr Death succeed in detonating his bomb. That's what I want for Dr Death but maybe not for the city. In play, though, Dr Death is my responsibility, not the city.
FWIW, it is totally possible (I do it!) for me-the-player to want Dr. Death to come ever so close to success, then be thwarted by intrepid heroes. That's what I want for the character, but it's not what the character wants for himself.
I find myself somewhat of an outlier, both in that it depends on the game and a lot of it I end up constructing post-hoc, if at all. I will often start with a plan but rarely end up playing them as originally imagined. Though it is definitely common for there to be more going in my head than I at least think I'm expressing outwardly.
Patty Kirsch Nah, that's cool. I'll do that a lot. Maybe I start off with Olaf the gunlugger, who has a burning desire to __. In pursuing that, maybe I discover more about Olaf and what she cares about.
I especially like the process of discovery of a character. And it often feels more like discovery to me than invention. Does it for you?
I too like to figure out motivations in play. I find that setting them upfront rarely goes the way I expect it to, often resulting in my changing things around session 2-3.
This is part of why I like the "discover background in play" stuff as opposed to "design everything upfront"
I usually start from a small seed and discover it as I go along, using the same kind of process I use to model other actual humans I'm interested in. They end up occupying a pretty similar space in my head even though they begin as constructs, except I don't go around playing real people (I've used a few real people as cores/seeds, though, but the fair thing to do then is to change them so they're not a clone.)
Sometimes I don't know or understand someone's internal state very well, because they're opaque to me. If I'm in flow that's no impediment to playing them, oddly enough. Or I might know them pretty well but then they react in a way that surprises me. Obviously since they're constructed it's a gimmick; I'm tricking myself somehow to make them feel more naturalistic to me.
Regarding bleed, I have pretty active mirror neurons, and when I've built a solid model and am engaged with it, I feel similarly, though less strongly, than I feel around live humans. So I experience similar kinds of bleed to what I do around people feeling strong emotions. I can do a thing to detach and tone that down, which functions the same way on people and on characters.
Interestingly bleed does nest; my characters can feel about other characters differently than I do, because the model of those other characters is filtered through their model, and the ones who connect to people emotionally can also feel bleed (But many don't function emotionally/socially the way I do, so have different patterns.)
I place a LOT of emphasis on my own character's internal motivations.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest difficulty lies precisely in conveying them outward. I usually fail to do so properly, which probably explains why I frequently resort to writing AP reports from the first person. Gives me a chance to explore my character's mind and let's me share that with other players and GM.
It's after the fact, but after a couple of these, everyone at the table knows where my character is coming from and what they're thinking.
For example, while playing The News this weekend and holding the Least of The Show, there was a moment of character disagreement. Where The News and The Show were about to clash. If we clashed, i could wind up losing the Leash.
ReplyDeleteI distinctly remember feeling the desire to continue holding onto the leash. To act in a way that was out of whack with my own wishes, because holding onto the leash was powerful.
That conflict between internal desires wasn't told, but was probably pretty obvious.
I make up some internal motivations for my own characters. And then I convey far, far less than what I make up.
ReplyDeleteI cannot imagine then wanting to write up those motivations in first person. Why would I want to tell anyone?
EDIT: I suppose I could have fun writing up what they would write (as opposed to the internal truth), though.
Works for me, Tony Lower-Basch , but YMMV. :)
ReplyDeleteIntensely and intricately, inwardly and outwardly.
ReplyDeleteI do a lot of "inside" roleplaying, so building up ideas of who my character is and how they view the world is one of the more rewarding parts of the game for me.
ReplyDeleteEloy Cintron why do you want the other people at the table to know your character motivations?
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch why do you not want other players to know your characters motivations?
ReplyDeleteMo Jave can you give an example? For my own ego, maybe even in a game we played together
ReplyDeleteEva Schiffer can you tell me more about what you mean by inside role-playing? I'm not familiar with the term, though i an maybe familiar with the act.
ReplyDeleteAnd for everyone, how (if at all) does this relate to bleed?
ReplyDeleteYou probably aren't familiar with it because I made it up. I do a lot of my roleplaying inside my mindspace rather than emoting a great deal externally. It is not the same as method acting, but it's related.
ReplyDeleteI find things like considering my characters views or morals or motivations and building up a little model of how I think the character sees the world very satisfying. I am not trying to really be them in order to make bleed happen or be more dramatic, just understand them.
I tend to be a relatively understated roleplayer externally, but that is mostly for unrelated social anxiety reasons.
William Nichols: It's not that I want them not to know my character's motivation. I just really don't much care. I don't dress up for them.. I do it for me.
ReplyDeleteThough, to be fair, sometimes other players help make a human connection between our characters, and that can emerge from them understanding the things unsaid. I do like that. But you never catch that rabbit by chasing it harder.
I come to RPGs from a background of reading novels. Character development and inhabiting your character's mind is important to me.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, if I am unable to express what's going on in my mind at the time (at the table) my words or actions may seem strange, if the thought process behind them isn't clear. Sometimes I succeed in getting this across, sometimes it doesn't.
Writing the AP lays it all out.
The reason it's important for others to know is that I don't believe in secrets at the table. If we're telling the story together, everyone needs to know what's going on, and that way they can contribute to the development of the character. Otherwise, it's like I'm playing this solo game in my head that has little to do with what's actually going on at the table.
As for bleed? I dunno. I like to inhabit the character, but I don't get upset when they're hurt or put in danger. I like to put my characters at risk. To face adversity and see how they come through it.
The game will lack much meaning for me if I can't explore my characters motivations.
ReplyDeleteI build a pretty extensive mental model of the character I am playing. They all want things, believe in things, invest in things, and generally not in in casual ways. The investing and reinvesting stokes the emotional space of the character and turns the volume of the game up really high for me.
ReplyDeleteExamples are hard to relate! The games I remember playing with you are Apportionment and Keeping the Candles Lit. It's hard all this time later to really describe the very complex space of my Apportionment character - though funny enough I was thinking about her this weekend when I played Jason Morningstar 's new game set in the same world.
She was motivated by truth and tradition, and believed very very strongly in the plan she was building. Every decision I made in that game was cumulative and morally consistent: evaluating her ideas across ethnicity, religion, locality, progress, civil rights, autonomy, and sovereignty and through the negotiations emerged a very cohesive world view in which self-sovereignty and self-sufficiency were the lodestones of Sarai's survival.
Through that lens, over the course of the game she very deeply resented the Combine, and churned with an overwhelming need to help others understand the path of loss we were on in the negotiation. Over and over again, as the factions fractured based on demographic infighting, she redoubled in the responsibility, and it became overwhelmed in a feeling of terrible failing and sense of terrible impending loss. The final decision was a lie, and was infuriating. It made for some intense and very angry bleed.
(ETA: the bleed is related because the emotional volume is turned up high, and I letting it inhabit me as fully as I can. In this case, and IME where you get bleed (by which I mean you can't shake the emotion, vs just feeling it strongly) is affected a lot by your resilience with the emotion, your experience with the space and the proximity to situation. Where you don't want to let it go, it's too close to home to let it go, or the emotion is one you have lower resiliance or coping to as a person, it's harder for it to disperse. So that character and that ending, and that specific emotion led to the bleed.)
Keeping the Candles Lit illustrates how this process is a big thing for me even when NPCing/GMing. Vlad's goals in wooing you out of the partisan camp were much simpler and less complex. He wanted you, liked you, might even have loved you and wanted you to be his own. But I steered him there to feel it well enough so that when I committed to his course of action, the conflict would feel real for you in the moment, with the intention of stoking your emotional space and making a strong play experience.
I am all about my characters' own motivations, I love playing inside their heads. I know a game's going to be lacklustre for me if we get to the end of character creation and I don't know or care about what makes them tick.
ReplyDeleteSee, I'm a bit of an odd ball here. Motivations only work for me if they are concrete and achievable goals.
ReplyDeleteIn real life, I don't function based on creeds or faith or philosophy, I do it because of some result I'd like to see.
And that's what I like in my characters - pointing them at results and outcomes instead of pointing them at ideas and methods.
Aaron Griffin: Do you have a distinction between what you-the-player want the character to achieve in the game, and what the character wants to achieve?
ReplyDeleteIt's the kind of thing that's an obvious "yes" when people are dealing with non-goal motives, but can get trickier when it's all goal-oriented.
Eva Schiffer Ohhhh, this hits on an fascinating related subject, on how being aware of the social space and our comfortableness with it affects our behaviors!
ReplyDeleteFor example, my first game at a con always feels uncomfortable and a big mess. I don't know the local customs and expectations, even if I am mostly gaming with people I know!
This has happened to me at Camp Nerdly and Dreamation, which're both very open and friendly spaces. And yet, every time, my first game I feel like an outsider and my characterization suffers.
Jay Treat Does exploring them in your head work well?
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch hmm I don't really know how to answer that. Can you give me an example of something that the player wants a character to achieve that the character doesn't want?
ReplyDeleteAaron Griffin: Sure! My character, Dr. Death, wants to detonate his Thanatos Bomb, bathing all of Jump City in Necro-Radiation, and paving the way for his reign as Zombie King. But I totally don't want that to happen ... I like Jump City! It's where all our heroes keep all their stuff.
ReplyDeleteMo Jave We didn't interact altogether too much during Apportionment, which was too bad. I was too busy being creepily religious, which I find both difficult and ... rewarding.
ReplyDeleteVlad, though? Good god.
This: But I steered him there to feel it well enough so that when I committed to his course of action, the conflict would feel real for you in the moment,
Is what I think not only GMs (though, yes, GMs) but also players should altogether often strive for. To model our characters such that it creates a better play for ourselves and other people at the table.
For ex, I remember an AW game where one of the characters spent the session barrikaded and avoiding interaction because guns were everywhere! And while this made sense, I think it made for a weaker experience.
Which is to say, I think the outward is super important and you do it very well.
(Sorry if this sounds pedantic) that sounds more like what the player wants in the game vs what the character wants.
ReplyDeleteFor what the player wants the character to do vs what the character wants to do - Dr Death and Aaron both want to see Dr Death succeed in detonating his bomb. That's what I want for Dr Death but maybe not for the city. In play, though, Dr Death is my responsibility, not the city.
Okay, that answers my question! No distinction.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, it is totally possible (I do it!) for me-the-player to want Dr. Death to come ever so close to success, then be thwarted by intrepid heroes. That's what I want for the character, but it's not what the character wants for himself.
But difference is awesome!
Thank you! :)
ReplyDeleteI find myself somewhat of an outlier, both in that it depends on the game and a lot of it I end up constructing post-hoc, if at all. I will often start with a plan but rarely end up playing them as originally imagined. Though it is definitely common for there to be more going in my head than I at least think I'm expressing outwardly.
ReplyDeletePatty Kirsch Like, some stuff happens in game and then you decide what the reasons were after the game? That sort of thing?
ReplyDeleteYeah, though though more gradual, building up over the course of the game.
ReplyDeletePatty Kirsch Nah, that's cool. I'll do that a lot. Maybe I start off with Olaf the gunlugger, who has a burning desire to __. In pursuing that, maybe I discover more about Olaf and what she cares about.
ReplyDeleteI especially like the process of discovery of a character. And it often feels more like discovery to me than invention. Does it for you?
I too like to figure out motivations in play. I find that setting them upfront rarely goes the way I expect it to, often resulting in my changing things around session 2-3.
ReplyDeleteThis is part of why I like the "discover background in play" stuff as opposed to "design everything upfront"
Yeah discovery sounds like a good word.
ReplyDeleteI usually start from a small seed and discover it as I go along, using the same kind of process I use to model other actual humans I'm interested in. They end up occupying a pretty similar space in my head even though they begin as constructs, except I don't go around playing real people (I've used a few real people as cores/seeds, though, but the fair thing to do then is to change them so they're not a clone.)
ReplyDeleteSometimes I don't know or understand someone's internal state very well, because they're opaque to me. If I'm in flow that's no impediment to playing them, oddly enough. Or I might know them pretty well but then they react in a way that surprises me. Obviously since they're constructed it's a gimmick; I'm tricking myself somehow to make them feel more naturalistic to me.
ReplyDeleteWhat I convey depends on the character's style. Some are highly reticent, some right out there.
ReplyDeleteRegarding bleed, I have pretty active mirror neurons, and when I've built a solid model and am engaged with it, I feel similarly, though less strongly, than I feel around live humans. So I experience similar kinds of bleed to what I do around people feeling strong emotions. I can do a thing to detach and tone that down, which functions the same way on people and on characters.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly bleed does nest; my characters can feel about other characters differently than I do, because the model of those other characters is filtered through their model, and the ones who connect to people emotionally can also feel bleed (But many don't function emotionally/socially the way I do, so have different patterns.)
Tony Lower-Basch It's can be super fun writing letters or diaries, because what the character leaves out is as interesting as what they say.
ReplyDelete