SF and Gaming Blog

Perverse Access Memory: WISH 34: Non-Standard Characters

Do you prefer to build a character with a unique concept, or do you prefer a simple or more standard concept to start with? Do you find that your preference correlates with a preference for elaborate initial backgrounds or with background development in play? If you’re a GM, do you find unique-concept characters easy or hard to GM for? What about playing alongside them?

I tend to steer clear of games where the PCs fit into strong archetypes; I haven’t played a DnD campaign for years! None of my three current on-line PCs really fit into traditional archetypes, but they’re not really far-out concepts either.

Ivor Tregonning is my character in STD, a game based on Stephen King’s The Stand, a book I’ve never actually read. The original request-for-players asked for people to play characters strongly based on themselves; but after the first few submissions arrived the GM (David Edelstein) decided he had received enough IT geeks. So I wrote up a train driver with a hobby of studying Cornish history and mythology.

Karl Tolhurst of Ümläüt has been mentioned before; lead guitarist of a goth-metal band, he probably does conform to an archetype, if not a typical gaming one. The original version was for a Call of Cthulhu game in which the band had murderously self-destructed when the singer reached zero SAN and then some; Karl was a tragic figure who’s life had disintegrated before his eyes. I’ve resurrected him to a pre-tragedy version in a quite different game, but this one doesn’t quite have the emotional depth.

Quibbp is very archetypal, a stubborn, otherworldly mad scientist. He just happens to be an octopus, part of exploration term of undersea dwellers exploring the surface world.

From the GM perspective, I’ve had a real mix of player character types; some have quite detailed back-stories despite being fairly conventional concepts; others have been, well, different. I’ve got a agent of the secretive technology guild who’s also a powerful psionic acting as an undercover agent disguised as a beggar. I’ve had a spoilt rich noble acting as a clueless bimbo. The most far out one (which too a lot of effort to integrate into the campaign) was Kalnyr, who’d lost his memory and was occasionally possessed by a ‘demon’ that turned him into a berserk killing machine. He was entertaining at times, but very difficult to integrate into a party with any other PCs. I ended up with him in thread of his own much of the time, only meeting with other PCs occasionally, and then sometimes as an adversary.

I’ve created a new blog for the Kalyr PBeM Archives. At the moment, it’s a bit experimental; it’s more or less got the default Moveable Type templates. I’m using category archives for each ‘thread’, and numbering the categories so I can sort them into alphabetical order. I’ve uploaded about a dozen recent posts so far; I’ll work through the archives when I have time.

Rock Scissors Blog has an interesting analogy between radio vs. TV and pencil and paper RPGs vs online computer gaming. In both cases the traditional form which demands more from the imagination has declined in favour of a new medium with pretty pictures, but which makes fewer demands on it’s audience.

For a variety of reasons, I’ve got very behind on GAME WISH responses. WISH 30 asks this question:

Are PBeM (Play-by-email) games actually roleplaying? Why or why not? How does PBeM differ from or approximate roleplaying face-to-face, or other activities that you feel it is similar to?

One thing that surprised me when I first started on-line roleplaying (using the message boards of the late-lamented CompuServe RPGAMES forum) was that I was actually roleplaying much more intensely. My previous experiences in a long-running AD&D campaign had focussed much more on tactical combat; although there was a plotline the actual gameplay focussed more on the wargaming side of things that really getting inside the head of the character. On-line things were different, without the distractions of dice and minatures I actually began focussing on how my characters felt. In one game I described my character’s dreams in detail; I couldn’t imagine doing that in any of my face-to-face games up to that point.

On that basis, I have to say that email and message board gaming is most definitely roleplaying.

I can see how some people don’t take to this for of gaming due to lack of immediacy; in some ways it’s like reading a novel as opposed to watching a film or TV programme, and may not suit those who’s forté is improvised acting. On the other hand, those of us that can express ourselves better in writing than in speech find the email medium a better format for pure roleplaying.

This week’s Game WISH is about Campaign Styles

Do you prefer campaigns to be limited-plot, with a definite ending, or open-ended, so that they can continue indefinitely? What about things like “convention campaigns” where people meet irregularly to pick up old characters and game together? What are the pros and cons of each sort of game? Which is more common in your gaming experience?

I see three forms of game structure:

Over the years I’ve had experiences of all three; there was the long-running AD&D Spelljammer “Vikings in Space” which fizzled out before any final conclusion, my equally long-running GURPS Kalyr game which did reach a final conclusion after 5 years, and an largely episodic Runequest game. Since then much of my off-line gaming has been convention-style one-shots.

I have some experience of “convention campaign” games; so far I’ve played three day-long sessions of an interdimensional Fudge-based game called “Guardians of Dimension”, and expect to play a fourth this Easter. On-line games are different again; most have been of the ‘open-ended’ format, even though a typical long-running PBeM or message board game only gets though as much actual plot as a convention one-shot. So far I’ve only ever played in a single on-line game that’s run to a conclusion, all others have either fizzled out or are still continuing, although many ran for two or three years before folding.

My preferences are for games that come to some sort of conclusion, either one-shots or short, focussed campaigns. If I want something long-term I’ll go for an episodic format, but I do find one of the big advantages of one-shots is that they give the opportunity to play in a lot of different genres.

Noted game designer Greg Costikyan has a brand-new weblog focusing, naturally, on game design.