The Black Campbell

Berin Kinsman has a short post on the importance of character.  Like him, I’ve been a gamer for three decades — and while I can’t remember every character I’ve played — there are some that stand out, as well as some NPCs that stand out in a barrage of bit background players.  Stats, powers, whatever…none of them defined the characters (but bounded them within the confines of the mechanics).  The one’s I remember were living breathing people — at least in my mind; other players and friends’ characters that stand out do so for the same reason.

You don’t always have to have a fully fleshed out background to have a fully fleshed out character.  Look to TV characters for this:  Captain Kirk was a fully-rendered person, despite the fact we don’t know much about his background other than he was from Iowa, a bookworm at the academy, and had some family that seemed unnecessary, unimportant to him…his family was his crew.  Thomas Magnum…was in the Navy and served in Vietnam.  We don’t really know much more than that, save what was necessary for an episode plot (his wife from the ‘Nam, for instance…)  We know almost nothing about Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly, but his personality is so well fleshed-up, out responses and actions — even when surprising — always make sense in terms of what you’ve seen before.

The web series I Hit It With My Axe…

Sasha Grey as Tiefling?  Duh..!

After posting a piece on porting over a rules set from d20 Babylon 5 2nd edition, I read this missive from UncleBear on mechanics vs. style of play.

He’s right:  you don’t necessarily need mechanics to make a game fit the genre you’re in, but if they aid the GM and players, or enhance the fun (did my influence test succeed all the way?  Or am I going to get a nasty little surprise later?)  The fleet level combat rules I posted some time ago for Battlestar Galactica (look in the Roleplaying Game Resources section of this blog) were based on fleet rules from the original Babylon 5RPG from Chameleon Eclectic (a strange set of mechanics, but one I actually prefer to the d20.)

If it helps play, or enhances the fun, house rules or borrowed bits from other systems are always a good idea.

Berin Kinsman has an excellent piece on the importance of writing and acting skills for good roleplaying here.  His last paragraph ties into some of the pieces I have posted here, in my “Setting the Scene” posts (search function!)

In those posts, I often suggest watching movies to get an idea of how to handle pacing and atmosphere for the GM.  Understanding how to frame the story in ways that address the genre you are playing in is an important technique for GMs and players, alike.  Designing a character for a Chthulu game that is the wise-cracking sidekick (mostly likely, nearly inevitably, played by the latest hip black comedian, were this a movie) might work, if the feel of the game is to be light-hearted, comedic horror (say in the vein of Shaun of the Dead), but it doesn’t work if you’re going for a more action-oriented campaign (say, the Resident Evil style of horror/thriller.)  It really doesn’t work with something that might evoke real terror…comedy in the midst of terror might be realistic, but a jokey sidekick that is unphased by what’s happening around him will destroy the beat and flavor of the game.

Acting skill isn’t necessarily essential for a roleplayer, but it is to good roleplay — if only to provide your character with realistic, and consistent, motivations and responses to the story unfolding.  For instance, my wife is playing a politician and lawyer in our Battlestar Galactica RPG.  Her character is interested in the well-being of the survivors under her care, but she is just as interested in her own power and standing amongst the remaining humans.  This leads her into conflict on a regular basis with the commanding officers of the military vessels protecting them.  As a GM, it helps me plot events because I have a fairly good idea of how she will react to situations — I can throw things at the character that test her mettle, that make her choose actions that can drive the story one way or another.

Good roleplay doesn’t necessarily mean your players need to be able to do accents, or throw out clever quips or windy soliloquies — it is enough to give a quick description of what they are trying to impart (this is especially the case with romantic scenes, I find…)   They can give a general idea of what they are doing and roll a test off of their skills or attributes, but a good speech, a good plan — these things improve the experience.

One of my suggestions in an early post was to really flesh out characters:  give them families and friends — things they care about and use them.  People rarely exist in a vacuum — they have friends and family, they have places they frequent, items that define them, from the books or videos on their shelves, to the kind of art they hang on their walls (if at all), to how they dress.

An example of how minutiae can define character is Berin Kinsman’s character of Carlos Milian in my James Bond campaign:  he is Cuban-American, and that defines some of his tastes in music and food, but he has a collection of family and friends (including a criminal cousin that will be providing me a plot line soonish.)  He doesn’t wear ties, but he wears fancy shirts with real cuff-links.  He drives a nice Chrysler 300 as his “business car”, yet bangs around in a pickup for trips t the bodega…what does that say about him?  He’s careful about planning and comes at missions with an analyst’s eye, rather than an operative — how does that effect the way he conducts himself in the field?  And how does that lead to success or failure in a mission?

Little things can give a character a realism that no only helps the player get into characters (how many actors in commentaries talk about how getting into costume aids their perfromance?), but allows the other players and the GM to latch onto character aspects they can play off of.

This is, in essence, a long-winded way of saying “Damn!  You beat me to it!”