What is Roleplay? Episode Six

About character…

When I’m running a Dungeons & Dragons session, I encourage players to flesh out their statistics and weapons by adding four personality traits to their character sheet. In many ways these traits will inform the gaming experience to a greater extent than their +3 Vorpal Swords or whatever hardware they are carrying.

What makes a great Warcraft character is not the ability to spew huge chunks of rhetoric and mythos, but the ability to play a consistent and interesting character.

One the notable characters in the history of our server is Benevolent. Grand Marshal Benevolent led a great many pre-made battle-parties during the golden age of battleground warfare. I was aware of his back-story and he acknowledged the back-story of others. His character's achievements weren’t invented, he had actually accomplished all this stuff. Notably he was a consistent personality. Let’s try and create a character trait list for this person:

Generous
Decisive
Vainglorious
Ambitious

Interestingly, I never saw Ben hanging around in Goldshire chatting about the World Tree or walking slowly around the capital cities with a stick up his rear. Yet for me this character became as much a part of the Warcraft mythology as any notable NPC.

Keith Johnstone, an innovator in the field of Theatresports, provided some valuable advice in creating character in his book Impro for Storytellers.

‘Knowing the characters’ purpose isn’t enough – what really matters is how your character tries to achieve this purpose.’

Try creating a list of personality characteristics to inform how your character goes about their objectives. It’s likely, if you’ve been experiencing your character for a while, that you can already identify key character traits that may differ from your own. Many who consider themselves “non role-players” may be surprised to learn that they’ve been in character for quite some time.

Feel free to write your characters traits in the Comments box if you want to share them.

Because it’s my blog and I may as well indulge myself, here the traits I aspire to when being Fey:

Dignified
Kind
Heroic
Vindictive

Appendix:

The following lists are suggestions for actors on portraying personalities. They are slightly different from character traits, but useful in honing appropriate behaviours for the attitude you want your avatar to convey.

(From Impro for Storytellers)

To be Thought a Hero:
Talk about your thrilling adventures, Start a fight, Guard and defend your honour, have a beloved, issue dares.

To be Thought Intelligent:
Correct people, know everything, use long words, analyse everything.

To be Thought a Jerk:
Brag, point out people’s defects, make pointless jokes, pass blame onto other people.

To be the Life and Soul of a Party:
Be positive, be generous, know fascinating gossip, compliment/flatter.

To be High Status:
Take or fight for control, be more relaxed and stiller than your partner, talk in complete sentences, often use people’s names.

(Many other lists are possible).

What is Roleplay? Episode Three

Stories within stories…

Warcraft has a considerable back-story and mythology informing it. Quests have purpose. You’re collecting twenty vehicle parts because some lazy gnome needs them to build his new invention. Real rivalries exist, as anyone who has been ganked more than once by the same enemy will realise.

Camaraderie is genuine and unforced. Bringing down a raid boss with your guild, or fighting for long months in a pre-made battleground or arena team will demonstrate this feeling.

Arch villains haunt the world with their schemes, and servers have their own legendary heroes and villains.

So why then feel the need to ‘go and do some role-play’?

To me this is akin to a group of Dungeons & Dragons characters, playing in a richly imagined campaign world, deciding that they will sit down and… play some Dungeons & Dragons! Thus creating a fiction within the fiction, but one that is contrived by the players instead of the Dungeon Master.

Now some innovation can indeed add depth to the WoW experience. On our server a guild called Theatre of Blood decided to put on an afternoon’s entertainment by staging a theatrical play in Duskwood. Other’s have organised parties or opened shops in Stormwind. These are natural developments within the existing structure.

However, contriving stories within the game or sitting in the tavern creating made-up material shows a lack of understanding that we are the players and that Blizzard are the DM’s!

Does it matter? Is this not a legitimate form of proactive creativity within the game?

It matters because those who ‘take time out to role-play’ are missing the point that role-play should not be distinct from any other part of the game.