Playing Against the Trend: Non-Villainous Anti-PSR, Reactionary etc. Characters

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

What worries me is that even after I explained his motivation, and pointed out that he does not see any group as 'worse', he comes off as a bigot. Even though his non-PSR memeplex is caused by other reasoning, unrelated to bigotry. Not in-play. In a discussion where his less obvious motivations are examined explicitly.

Oh, of I am trying to go for complicated. And I definitely am not planning to play him as a jerk. The question is more about avoiding being slapped with the label anyway - basically, how to make the complicated side of the character visible soon enough, soon enough that others are unlikely to jump to stereotypical conclusions.

You can't control that. It doesn't matter why the character opposes PSR. It doesn't matter if you don't think the character is bigoted. It doesn't matter if he doesn't see any group as "worse"--though you did originally mention that he prefers bio to cyber. What it comes down to is that your character opposes the equal rights for for bioroids/etc. He thinks it is okay to own other "people"--even if he treats his property well, he still thinks that it is okay to have slaves. No matter what your motivation, there are going to be characters who will think your character is a bigot for his viewpoint. And there are going to be characters who thinks he is a jerk. And maybe even worse than some non-bioroid person who holds the same position--they might see him as an Uncle Tom. Others might take pity on him for what they see as his internalized self hatred and want to save him. Others may be Born Human folks who agree with him...but are super creepy and not the types you want as allies. For some characters, it doesn't matter if you don't think bioroids should have equal rights for "bigoted" or "not-bigoted" reasons...they are going to see it as bigotry regardless of motivation. But you can't control any of that. That is what comes with the territory when you play a character who doesn't believe that group X doesn't deserve equal rights for whatever reason. I mean, Gianni didn't hate bioroids...but they don't have souls, so what are you going to do? Doesn't mean bioroid rights folks aren't going to see him as a bigot. And he is. Even if his bigotry doesn't come from hatred.

So, you can't worry about all of that. It is what you are signing up for when you play a character like that. The negative reactions is part of what you are going to have to explore. You are, in essence, playing an ex-slave who thinks slavery is fine as long as you treat your slaves well, and now also owns slaves. There are lots of things going on with that. Some of which you are going to have to deal with.

All you can worry about is making sure that the players know that you, the player vicki, is not a jerk--and that you don't hamper the fun of other players.

As long as the players like you, and you don't mess with their fun, they are going to be more likely to give your self-hating bigoted PC some slack.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

What worries me is that even after I explained his motivation, and pointed out that he does not see any group as 'worse', he comes off as a bigot. Even though his non-PSR memeplex is caused by other reasoning, unrelated to bigotry. Not in-play. In a discussion where his less obvious motivations are examined explicitly.

Well, in the last analysis, you can't count on doing that. trooper6 was taking a chance with the other players—one that largely paid off, but that wasn't guaranteed.

One of the first principles of any creative art (and roleplaying is a creative art!) is that you have to identify the audience a work is meant to reach. In an rpg, you don't have that much choice of audience; your audience is your fellow players. If your fellow players are receptive to nuanced characters, or to conflicted characters, or to characters who have challenging values, then you can't compel them to respond well to such characters.

Bill Stoddard

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Well, in the last analysis, you can't count on doing that. trooper6 was taking a chance with the other players—one that largely paid off, but that wasn't guaranteed.

And one of the reasons why it worked was, I think, because there were no bioroids or AI or uplifted animals in the party. If I knew someone were planning on making a character that would show off his bigotry in a bit more ugly way, I would have rethought the character.

Now, there was a ghost in a bioroid shell character in the initial party, but he was closeted about his bioroid status and my character didn't know about it. But that character ended up leaving the party in order to support some PSR people. Later there was a PSR terrorist who joined the party...but he kept that a secret. So there never was a sustained situation where my character's bigotry was directed towards a fellow PC.

That I also think is very key for if those situations when you don't know the players very well or haven't built up a strong sense of trust with them.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by trooper6

Now, there was a ghost in a bioroid shell character in the initial party, but he was closeted about his bioroid status and my character didn't know about it. But that character ended up leaving the party in order to support some PSR people. Later there was a PSR terrorist who joined the party...but he kept that a secret. So there never was a sustained situation where my character's bigotry was directed towards a fellow PC.

But it's also worth noting that there was overt conflict among PCs. Importantly, there was the clash between Blake and the rest, which turned on Blake's using her Mad Hacker Skilz to watch everything the rest of you did, including having a camera in the shower, because you were her inferiors and she had to take care of you. That one was resolved because the other players didn't take this as "Oh, you awful player, your character is manipulating and spying on us!" but "Your character is doing really weird stuff; how would our characters react?" And that led to Blake's being told that she needed to find a memetic therapist if she wanted to stay in Ares Nakamura, which was an opportunity for Blake's player to roleplay.

(I always remember the scene when I had the memetic therapist tell Blake, "Okay, you're coming for therapy because your partners want you to. So we could arrange for you to connect with me twice a week, and spend an hour playing games, while I consolidate my notes, and I'll bill your firm for two hours of therapy." And Blake turned that down, and formulated what she herself wanted from therapy, which was to learn how to deal with people who believe in equality and mutual consent without having everything blow up. I was quite prepared, had Blake gone the other way, to have the therapist send her away, because she wouldn't have actually been looking for therapy. "The light bulb really has to want to change," as the old joke goes.)

I think part of this is that you all were willing to have drama, and not just physical action or investigation, in the campaign. So when Blake went off the deep end that wasn't a waste of time, but an opportunity. And I took advantage of it by bring in Stacy to roleplay the team building consultant your group hired and mess with all your minds a bit. But that really requires having players who like interpersonal drama and the testing of ideologies and motivations. So I would say that Molokh needs to find a way to assess how much his player group is receptive to that. Maybe something as simple as sitting down with the GM and saying, "Here's my character concept; is this going to work or is it going to derail the campaign?" Trying to decide those things in isolation doesn't work as well as collaborative creation, in my experience.

Bill Stoddard

[Flyndaran]

I've played with people that use "that's what my character would do" just to be disruptive and greedy. Oddly, they're the ones that cry foul when it's done back to them legitimately.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I've played with people that use "that's what my character would do" just to be disruptive and greedy. Oddly, they're the ones that cry foul when it's done back to them legitimately.

Any of my players who did that would be at risk of being voted off the island.

Bill Stoddard

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by trooper6

You can't control that. It doesn't matter why the character opposes PSR. It doesn't matter if you don't think the character is bigoted. It doesn't matter if he doesn't see any group as "worse"--though you did originally mention that he prefers bio to cyber.

For the record, when I mentioned the bio/cyber angle, I meant that he would rather wear a bioshell, and all things being equal, would rather deal with a biosophont or a bioshell than with someone in a cybershell. I'm not sure that qualifies as bigotry any more than having a Kinsey scale other than 3 does.

Originally Posted by trooper6

What it comes down to is that your character opposes the equal rights for for bioroids/etc. He thinks it is okay to own other "people"--even if he treats his property well, he still thinks that it is okay to have slaves.

It seems that there's something in my wording that turns the latter into the former. Where did I fail?

He doesn't oppose equal rights for bioroids and infomorphs, he opposes the ban against owning sapient property. I'm fully expecting to get hit by fire and brimstone from many people for the latter (after all, that's pretty creepy), but I'd like to make it pretty clear that the former isn't part of the equation.

Or is the idea of such a reversal of the usual reactionary meme so unusual that it takes too much effort to make it visible/understandable?

Originally Posted by trooper6

No matter what your motivation, there are going to be characters who will think your character is a bigot for his viewpoint. And there are going to be characters who thinks he is a jerk. And maybe even worse than some non-bioroid person who holds the same position--they might see him as an Uncle Tom.

I haven't read Uncle Tom's Cabin, so I need a bit of a help understanding that one. Is it some sort of 'traitor to his race' meme? If anyone is willing to elaborate, I'd be grateful.

Originally Posted by trooper6

Others might take pity on him for what they see as his internalized self hatred and want to save him.

This is definitely the sort of misconception that I want to explore, and why I pointed out to the GM that upon further examination he turns out to be psychologically healthy. I just want to make sure that 'he is broken inside' is not the only possible reaction from sympathetic folks.
Frankly, at this point I wonder if I'm trying to go for more complexity than it is reasonable to expect being able to pull off.

Originally Posted by trooper6

Others may be Born Human folks who agree with him...but are super creepy and not the types you want as allies.

Oh, I'm actually envisioning a bit of a fridge horror once any Born Human allies realise that (a) he's a Ghost by now (b) he was 'born' a bioroid and (3) he's just as accepting of owning humans.

Originally Posted by trooper6

For some characters, it doesn't matter if you don't think bioroids should have equal rights for "bigoted" or "not-bigoted" reasons...they are going to see it as bigotry regardless of motivation. But you can't control any of that. That is what comes with the territory when you play a character who doesn't believe that group X doesn't deserve equal rights for whatever reason. I mean, Gianni didn't hate bioroids...but they don't have souls, so what are you going to do? Doesn't mean bioroid rights folks aren't going to see him as a bigot. And he is. Even if his bigotry doesn't come from hatred.

At this point, I wonder if I somehow mis-learned the meaning of Bigot.

If someone says that it should be legal to shoot an Ork for displaying disrespect, he's a bigot, because he advocates (racial) inequality. If someone says that it should be legal to shoot anyone for displaying disrespect, regardless of race, sex, rank, status, orientation or religion, he's a ProudWarriorRaceGuy of the REH sort.
. . . Right?
I mean, bigotry is always about discriminating against some group, e.g. by species (the usual case in PSR disputes)?
Or is it something else?

Originally Posted by trooper6

So, you can't worry about all of that. It is what you are signing up for when you play a character like that. The negative reactions is part of what you are going to have to explore. You are, in essence, playing an ex-slave who thinks slavery is fine as long as you treat your slaves well, and now also owns slaves. There are lots of things going on with that. Some of which you are going to have to deal with.

Just to make things clear, I'm not trying to present the character as all fuzzy-goody. I'm expecting difficulties from the chosen character type (and I think by now I spent over 50 points out of 200 to either subvert some expectations and/or make sure that the nastier difficulties don't make the character eventually unplayable).

Also, there's also the other side of the coin: I think he's unlikely to be fully supported by, e.g., Martian Triads, because he sees ownership of anything as a responsibility, with rather sharp limits regarding what is and isn't permissible to do.

As the joke goes:
So, you bought a smartphone, and you own it. Well, now it is your duty to regularly feed it electricity, entertain it with updates, and take it to the smartphone doctor if you hurt it.

Originally Posted by trooper6

All you can worry about is making sure that the players know that you, the player vicki, is not a jerk--and that you don't hamper the fun of other players.

As long as the players like you, and you don't mess with their fun, they are going to be more likely to give your self-hating bigoted PC some slack.

Definitely not planning to ruin anybody's fun. No idea about liking/disliking, as I'm entering a totally unfamiliar party.

In fact, I'm asking for so much advice partly because I'm going into Here Be Dragons in most senses. (Though I do know the GM for perhaps 40-50 game sessions, and I do like him as a player.)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by whswhs

One of the first principles of any creative art (and roleplaying is a creative art!) is that you have to identify the audience a work is meant to reach. In an rpg, you don't have that much choice of audience; your audience is your fellow players. If your fellow players are receptive to nuanced characters, or to conflicted characters, or to characters who have challenging values, then you can't compel them to respond well to such characters.

Oh, not trying/expecting to compel anyone. If I present the character as too 'flat' compared to the 'complicated internal world' that is part of the concept, that's my fault, and mine only. So in order to avoid as many mistakes as possible in the presentation, I'm asking for advice and discussion.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by whswhs

[ . . . ]

So I would say that Molokh needs to find a way to assess how much his player group is receptive to that. Maybe something as simple as sitting down with the GM and saying, "Here's my character concept; is this going to work or is it going to derail the campaign?" Trying to decide those things in isolation doesn't work as well as collaborative creation, in my experience.

Bill Stoddard

The concept was discussed in depth with the GM (though, somewhat ironically, the amount of actually documented text dedicated to the psyche of the minion exceeds that of the character at least fivefold). He likes the ambiguity that the concept is about to bring into the party (he predicts that two will react negatively to the character's memeplex, but that's just a guess). I suppose the fact that the game is meant to be rather sandboxy is a bit alien to you (whswhs), and would be more at home with someone like Peter Knutsen.

But from what I know of him as a player, he's rather open to finely-tailored stuff like on-on-one sessions and internal dialogue (i.e. telling thoughts and emotions to the GM). So I'm not expecting any outright trouble on the OOC side.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I haven't read Uncle Tom's Cabin, so I need a bit of a help understanding that one. Is it some sort of 'traitor to his race' meme? If anyone is willing to elaborate, I'd be grateful.

The current meaning of "Uncle Tom" has very little to do with the novel by now. The phrase is widely used by people who have never read the novel, and quite possibly by people who have never heard that there is a novel.

An "Uncle Tom," prototypically, is a slave who does not aspire to freedom, but wants to be a good slave. He probably hopes that being a good slave will earn him good treatment; but even if he gets unfairly bad treatment, he will accept it as something that has to be endured patiently, rather than thinking he has a right to demand better. He doesn't seek to change or overthrow the system that denies him freedom, or even to gain freedom for himself by breaking its rules.

By extension, the phrase includes anyone who accepts legal subordination or inferior rights of any kind. Characteristically it's used specifically for black men, but there have been coinages inspired by it for black women and for some other ethnic minorities.

Think of it as a study in the relative autonomy of memes.

Bill Stoddard