11-28-2017, 02:24 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dobbstown Sane Asylum
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Acting vs Performance for RPGs
This is an archive of a tangent that I moved out of a thread it was derailing. After reading it, if you want to discuss it, there's a new thread at http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=153666
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12-08-2017, 12:01 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Acting vs Performance for RPGs
Roleplaying is more comparable to method acting than traditional acting. As I’d be more inclined to give a method actor Acting rather than Performance (although good method actors have both), I’d say Kromm’s suggestions of a specialization of Acting is the most appropriate.
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12-08-2017, 01:27 PM | #3 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
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Re: What will you not allow?
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12-09-2017, 08:10 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: What will you not allow?
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12-09-2017, 08:37 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: What will you not allow?
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Performance is for taking rehearsed lines/actions/etc and making them look convincing. Acting is about convincingly behaving the way the character you are portraying would act when confronted with an unscripted situation. The latter lends itself better to both outright lying and improvisation than does the former, but the former is typically easier. The Roleplaying specialty of Acting sort of takes the lying part out of it, and makes it more casual, which in turn makes it easier.
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12-10-2017, 06:09 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: What will you not allow?
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As I understand "role-play," it is not about Acting or Performance; it is simply taking on a character inside an imaginary environment. There is no requirement speak as a different character; you might just be playing yourself in the fictional world. In terms of a role-playing game, "Uh, I poke the pile of bones with my ten-foot pole" is just as much role-playing as "Forsooth, I know not whence come those whitened appendages. Prithee, test them with thy far-searcher." So it comes as a bit of a surprise to hear that entertaining the other players with one's "role-play" is supposedly a goal of the activity. That sounds exactly like Performance. I've always had trouble understanding why people go on about "role-play, not roll-play," and this may answer that: you're trying to Perform, and no one is entertained by your making tactical decisions and rolling dice to see how they turn out. Given the way they "role-played" when the term first emerged, I doubt they had Performance in mind... |
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12-10-2017, 09:00 AM | #7 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: What will you not allow?
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12-10-2017, 09:54 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: What will you not allow?
It's not how I'd run it.
For a lot of arts, there's a skill of making up the thing to perform, and a skill of presenting it. Musical Composition and Singing or Musical Instrument; Poetry and Singing or Public Speaking; Writing and Public Speaking. But what if you don't write your speech, but come up with it while speaking? I'd still call that a Public Speaking roll, I think. And in the same way, I'd call coming up with a dramatic skit a Performance roll. I might even allow a straight Musical Instrument roll to improvise a tune on your instrument, though I'd ask for Musical Composition to come up with a work for three instruments in counterpoint!
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12-10-2017, 10:01 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
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Re: What will you not allow?
I know Kromm is the Chief GURPS Guru...but like whswhs, that isn't how I'd run it either.
Acting has long been established as the skill to use to make being thing you are someone you are not in real life over time. Spies need Acting, Grifters need Acting. Acting isn't about understanding blocking or gesturing with your upstage hand or hitting your mark when on a set or doing what audiences like to see on stage or screen. It is about having people really, really believe your lie. Performance if for that performed skill. And no one at the table believes I'm really Gianni when I role-play Gianni. They might think I'm doing a good performance, but they don't think I'm really him. Because I'm performing not acting. And all those improv actors who are improving in the moment? No one really thinks they are who they are acting on the stage...they know they are performing. |
12-10-2017, 10:09 AM | #10 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: What will you not allow?
Yeah that's why am asking, because while there might be some overlap, I don't think that many of the techniques you learn from taking Upright Citizen Brigade classes or doing Renaissance Faire workshops are directly applicable to running long cons, (and this is from a guy who plays a coney-catcher at Faire these days).
For one thing, if the the police ask you if you are committing fraud "Yes, and" isn't typically helpful. :) |
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