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Old 06-24-2018, 04:04 PM   #1
Jim Kane
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Default Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

In all my years of being involved with The Fantasy Trip - a Role Playing Game - I have to say, we really never played any roles. The players would in fact play themsleves, but with the enhanced attributes and talents of the figures which represented the *TFT-version of them*, and not the other way around.

I have seen gaming groups which go so far as to speak in different voices, act out certain things, wear wizardly hats and velvet cloaks at the gaming table, etc; whereas the groups I have been involved with, the game was played more as a tactical wargame were you were represented by your TFT figure, and your figure did and acted they way *you* would in these situations; as opposed to doing and acting the way your chivalrous elf character would do.

So which style do you really do when you play TFT; dramatized "Role Playing" of a different character, or, simply "Character Assumption" of yourself in an alternate reality?

JK
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Old 06-24-2018, 04:42 PM   #2
JLV
 
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Default Re: Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

I have to say that for us it was always pretty much "character-assume" too. Possibly because most of us weren't great actors, and many of us felt somewhat uncomfortable around the kinds of players that went ape over acting and costuming and what not.

That's probably more a feature of the kinds of people I've role-played with in the past, as opposed to preference, though; many of them military, almost all of them professionals in one or more fairly active fields (pilots, engineers, intelligence officers, tank commanders, scientists) -- in short, places where "acting out" isn't particularly encouraged, and calm, cool professionalism is considered the ideal approach. (How do you know you're really in trouble in the air? When the pilot starts talking in the totally deadpan, controlled and unemotional voice... Time to buckle up and tighten down those seat-belts!)

Which is not to say that doing it the other way (acting, costuming, etc.) is wrong, or "badplay," but simply that's not the kind of people I normally hook up with for gaming. In fact, it might be kind of interesting to meet and play with folks like that... ;-)
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Old 06-24-2018, 04:52 PM   #3
Wayne
 
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Default Re: Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

Character-Assume for sure, all my characters have a weird sense of humour and never take anything seriously (same as me).
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Old 06-24-2018, 05:50 PM   #4
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Default Re: Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

Probably a mix of both, depending on the energy of the day.

Many times actually playing someone that might not be a first choice in the "real" world, such as a bad actor, thief, traitor, etc.

So I guess that is role-playing, playing your character doing things that you probably would only intentionally do in a game, where the consequences are much reduced.
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Old 06-24-2018, 06:16 PM   #5
zot
 
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Default Re: Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

I definitely role play, although some parts of me usually show up somewhere in my characters. I usually give my characters personalities that are a bit caricatured to make them easier to play. Examples (from my rpg system where magic is gadget-related):
  • M'Nor, a tiny, 80-year-old black woman machinesmith who's a leader in the local underground movement and specializes in gadgets that are kind of Mary Poppins-like
  • Golden Monkey: A short, 15-year-old, hyperactive kung fu master
  • Giuseppe DiNorri: A merchant-smuggler with a coat full of hidden gadgets who secretly helps the underground
  • Guk Dat: a blue collar machinesmith who works in security and uses an immense, jury-rigged machine (constantly falling apart) to fix and maintain defenses on the properties of rich customers
I started out just basically playing myself but over the years I got more and more interested in games that blended together game mechanics with role playing (i.e. narrative mechanics), Fate and Universalis being two great examples. Anyone unfamiliar with Fate's "aspect" mechanic should check it out: https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/aspects-fate-points. Aspects are not necessarily easy to understand if you've never used them, though, and some groups get it wrong for quite a while until they catch on. Then someone in the group has an ah-hah moment and they post about it...

It's easier to do more immersive role playing in a system that has direct support for it. People do do immersive role playing in D&D but if a game actually has narrative mechanics, deeper role playing just comes naturally to more of the players. I guess it's like training wheels -- at least I didn't start getting into deeper role playing until I played those types of games.

TFT doesn't have narrative mechanics like that, other than reaction rolls. At this point. But I've been lobbying on other threads for a social conflict mechanism that doesn't change anything about the nature of TFT.

I wouldn't go so far as trying to add an aspect-like mechanic to TFT, though. That would just turn TFT into a Fate variant. I like Fate but I don't want every RPG to be Fate.
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Old 06-24-2018, 07:15 PM   #6
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Default Re: Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

Character assume. The groups I played with always got points for the character doing what he or she should do, but we didn’t act at the table or dress up. That’s not bad, just not the way we played. Of course, when we were teenagers it was hard enough to get us to stay on focus without cracking jokes or, well, being teenagers.
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Old 06-24-2018, 07:25 PM   #7
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Default Re: Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

Role play.
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Old 06-24-2018, 09:21 PM   #8
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Default Re: Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

Quote:
Originally Posted by zot View Post
It's easier to do more immersive role playing in a system that has direct support for it. People do do immersive role playing in D&D but if a game actually has narrative mechanics, deeper role playing just comes naturally to more of the players. I guess it's like training wheels -- at least I didn't start getting into deeper role playing until I played those types of games.
In my experience, the very simplicity of TFT is what lets it excel as a support for role playing. Put too many mechanics in and you get roll playing instead of role playing.
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Old 06-24-2018, 09:29 PM   #9
David L Pulver
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Default Re: Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

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Originally Posted by Jim Kane View Post
Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?
I have seen gaming groups which go so far as to speak in different voices, act out certain things, wear wizardly hats and velvet cloaks at the gaming table, etc; JK
One might think that TFT, with its tactical play and hex-grid action, would tend to attract war gamers, but I found that the Talents were an evocative way to encourage people to play particular characters.

Indeed, back in the 1980s TFT was one of the few games that gave me a "moment of awesome" when after reading it I realized I could finally create characters that resembled the sort of characters who populated fantasy books, rather than having to deal with complex level-up schemes and class restrictions (D&D, C&S) or randomized experience/learning mechanics (RQ).

I think many players tend to vary between the two: they create a character with a role in mind, often inspired by fiction, but often revert to playing themselves at times. For my 3 longest running TFT characters I was definitely trying to create specific personas: a religious fanatic wizard, a brutish lizardman barbarian, and a bard character inspired by one of the protagonists in the novel Riddlemaster of Hed. Other players only "play themselves" or an idealized or ego-driven version.

My first group initially mostly played optimized adventurers, but over time branched out with second or third characters aimed at more roleplaying, e.g., male players choosing female characters, one person trying a "like Harry Potter but evil" child wizard, etc.

That said, the only time I have EVER encountered any gamers who wore costumes or spoke in different voices outside of convention demo games (some of Forgotten Realms grognards seem fond of this) were a few Vampire the Masquerade players, and I think they were possibly playing the LARP version anyway.)
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Last edited by David L Pulver; 06-24-2018 at 09:38 PM.
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Old 06-24-2018, 09:37 PM   #10
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Default Re: Do you really Role-Play, or do you Character-Assume?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shostak View Post
In my experience, the very simplicity of TFT is what lets it excel as a support for role playing. Put too many mechanics in and you get roll playing instead of role playing.
We're in agreement on that, I don't want roll playing instead of role playing, either.
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