[Captain Joy]

#3 TT vs MA: Accomplishing party objectives trumps role-playing opportunities.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

An improvement, certainly. Kind of telegraphs the answers, but that's hard to avoid.

Then that’s what we’ll go with Doing what is tactically sound trumps role-playing opportunities.

#5. MA vs BK: My characters need a fully-realized, personal, in-game motivation to fight.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Maybe something along the lines of "Fighting is fun for its own sake, even when the character has no real motive"? This one's tough to distinguish, because a BK is probably going to design a character that does in-game enjoy fighting, so the difference between the player liking to fight and the character liking to fight is minimal -- which also means any good MA would pursue also the fights, if for a different player motivation.

There is already a BK vs MA questions where affirmative inclinations give points to your BK score (and MA can’t accumulate). What we’re looking for here is an MA vs BK questions whereby affirmative inclinations will boost your MA score (and your BK score won’t change). I'm going to change this one to:

My characters engage—or don't engage—in combat out of inner, personal, motivation.

12. SP vs BK: All my characters approach combat situations in the same way.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Maybe something like "I'll happily change my character concept to most effectively use the combat system for each new game”?

A Specialist “favors a particular character type, which he plays in every campaign and in every setting”. Maybe you were thinking of a BK vs SP questions instead of an SP vs BK question? At this point, I can’t think of a way to improve the current form of the question.

25. CG vs MA: My characters are pretty much just me, but with special abilities.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Hm. What if the question played on the "often the mellow, moderating type" and "doesn't want to come up with a plot hook" bits of CG? Something like "I'll create characters with strong motivations to act even when they might cause friction with the other characters”?

Again, you’ve come up with an MA vs CG questions; we need a CG vs MA question. I’m going to change it to:

I forget/don't bother properly role-playing my character if it annoys another player.

38. TT vs SP: I’m willing to play any character that is integral to achieving the campaigns goals.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Pretty good. Maybe lower the ego content of "most integral" a bit so as not to scare away respondents. "My characters are designed to efficiently overcome the main obstacles in the game, whatever character concept that may require"? (This one's also pretty telegraphic.)

I like it. I’m changing this question to:

My characters are uniquely designed to effectively overcome the in-game obstacles.

40. SP vs TT: Since I play the same type of character, everyone knows what to expect from me.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The hard part hear is getting the disagrees to point at TT, rather than any non-SP type. "Always play the same type of character" is squarely anchored to SP, but I think most types will object to the "always the same" characterization. The previous question is the same thing, just with the positive response pointing the other way around. I suppose it's not bad to have some questions apply weights toward multiple types (assuming the underlying engine supports that rather than just binary counts). Does something like "I'd rather play my favorite character in a new system at best it fits than change the concept just to make it more effective at solving problems" work? MA doesn't care about "favorite", but is going to be pushed away from "change the concept just to make it effective". BK's as much of a "no" as is TT. So this question still isn't sharply focused. But it's good for distinguishing a couple of groups, if that's helpful in the scoring.

(As you’re probably surmised, the quiz doesn’t even support “binary counts”. On the player-type for which an affirmative answer supports—the “XX” in the “XX vs YY” scheme—gets its score built up for that question.)

I’m changing this one to:

I play my favorite character concept even when it means I'll be less effective.

41. ST vs MA: My satisfaction comes from my character's involvement within the larger story.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Nice improvement; hard for MA's to answer "yes". Maybe "my character's role" rather than "story arc", as MA is presumably happy even with supporting roles as long as they're rich enough. But it's nice for the question to be all about story, and "role" might attract too many TTs or BKs. (My role is overcoming the challengings / kicking butt!, whereas neither stereotype would care about story per se. "Role" has multiple meanings to the different mindsets, as does "performance" -- dramatic or objective statistical effectiveness?)

Then let’s go with:

My satisfaction comes from the larger story, not my character’s personal story.

As always, I welcome feedback, especially any will reduce bias in the questions.