A debate on OUR characters, and how we relate to them.

[Vindekarr]

This is a very broad discussion, and it's just that, a discussion.

 

I've been given reason recently to think about how people react to diferent sorts of characters.

 

Some obviously make a lot of people feel uncomfortable; if you've ever played a character of difering gender-or shock horror, sexuality, to your real self, you'll know the sort of negative attention that almost always seems to get.

 

For my part, I always create a character as a literary being then try to build that person in a game. I take the game's lore, then build my own character into it. It becomes my carnival mask, rather than a direct avatar.

 

In COV, I always created the sort of villains I thought would make for a great comic book. Disgruntled ex service people. Patriotic former public servants that were used, dumped, and forgotten by their government. Those bestowed with power they simply didnt have the moral strength to control. Those so driven to do good that they become evil in the process. Fallen heroes stretched to breaking point by decades and centuries of service to good, but so damaged by the experience that they have turned to evil.

 

The characters that fit into those and other archetypes were many and varied. Men, women, straight, gay, of every signle colour, religion, political affiliation, and every nationality. And, almost all of them left some demographic of gamers, as a Canadian friend of mine in COV once said, "rabidly PO'ed" Mostly it was gaybashing. You wouldnt believe how many "upstanding citizens" go beserk when they hear a man is playing as a women. I think half of it was the context, I've never been anything less than antisocial, I played COV for the gameplay, but I think most people see MMO as more of a social experience. But I think it was also that my characters, always seemed to step away from stereotypes.

 

I'm a straight man. let's just get that out of the way. I've full respect for the homosexual community, frankly I'd much rather be friends with gay people than homophobic people, but I'm not a member of that community. However, since I didnt have a single scantily clad female character, and that my first, main character was a female, I was often branded a gaybo and the butt of a lot of abuse. And I mean a lot, like, kicked out of 6 SGs, reported more than a dozen times, had my mailbox filled with flamerants and spam more than I can count, and in one case, was hacked. All because they couldnt accept that it's possible to have a character diferent to your real self.

 

For me, a character is like a carnival mask. It's you under the mask, but while you're wearing it, you can pretend for a while, you're somebody entirely diferent. I've never, not once, had a single character that was a direct avatar based on my real self.

 

Anyway, if you braved the tsunami of text, I salute you, discuss!

[Trapiki]

I think it's great the way that you play your characters. Just because you're a guy that plays a female and doesn't dress her like a stripper doesn't make him a homosexual, it shows a man that shows respect and a sensibility seldom seen. I mean what kind of woman runs around in the icy mountain tops in nothing but a bikini?

I'd call that character abuse.

 

I always play a female character, I feel quite uncomfortable cross-gendering myself, I guess I feel that I can't relate.

 

I never come up with a solid background story for my characters, they always end up as a comfortable extension of myself that I can drive around and explore with. They're the Procrastinators that never do quests, instead running around the world and exploring (and collecting books!). Sometimes we will do something on a whim and go dashing off madly with a bow in hand and a spell at the ready, only to come screaming back away from the rather nasty creature we've just found.

 

My characters never wear armor, I think it's a waste of good carrying weight and if you get hit you deserve to die. I always dress them in things that I would want to wear myself, I'd hate to think that my character is uncomfortable while adventuring. I guess I put more of myself into my characters than I think I do since most of them wield a bow, which is something that I've wanted to do since I read Robin Hood as a child, or a longsword or rapier. I have never used a mace, hammer or axe as a weapon, I just feel they are such graceless weapons that hold no special place in my heart.

 

So yes, I would say that my characters are, thought not directly, a loose avatar of myself.

 

I really think this is a great thread, I find it fascinating how people relate to their character and how they may or may not put themselves into the game.

[Staghound]

I frequently play female characters (usually bards) on NWN role-play servers. I never make any secret of the fact that I am an elderly straight male (with several grandchildren). And I have to say that I have never been privately or publicly insulted for playing cross-gender. I believe that this is because, though I say so myself, I am quite good at role-playing, and so other players see my characters, not me, when we inter-act. And that I think is the key : if you are playing in a true role-play environment, people should react to your character, not to you. (And if it is not a true role-play environment, there's little point in playing cross-gender, or as anything other than yourself).

[Tertisentar]

For me, my characters are usually just a medium through which I enjoy the experience of the game world itself. I don't really care how they look, sometimes I pick a male, sometimes a female, I used to do it based on the statistics for Elder Scroll games, and it's a coinflip for my fallout games. It doesn't really matter all that much to me :$

 

Except on one occasion. Here I played Pat O'connell, a bitter 44 year old IRA operative in charge of drug smuggling, and tasting as he himself puts it. The last thing he remembers was reading the newspaper of February 13th 1996 before he woke up in the Post-nuclear Capital wasteland as a 19 year old afro-american woman with pigtails.

 

I modded my game with better living through chems (no overdosing) and an alternative radio station which I filled with irish songs such as the dubliners and go on home. The insanity that ensued after hearing that last song, fast travelling to the mall, having taken multiple doses of heroine, psycho, morphine, whisky, methamphetamine and phencyclidine and then blasting through there with a business suit and a minigun was breathtaking.

[RZ1029]

In the few mainstream games where role playing still exists (I do not classify WoW in this, even on RP servers, it's nearly non-existent.) I tend to create characters similar to myself, because it's just who I am. I am a straight guy, but sometimes I play female characters, even in non-RP games. My simplest excuse for that is usually that I'd rather look at something quasi-attractive instead of the usual fairly bland designs that are offered for males. Even then, it's pretty well-known I'm a guy among anyone I frequently play with, like say, in a guild/clan/what-have-you.

 

On the exact opposite of the spectrum, though, when I write I've got a million and two different, and unique, characters of all ages, genders, sexualities, disabilities, etc. I always found it important to have a diversity in a story, because it makes it easier to relate and engage individuals. You may not be able to relate to the CIA assassin, but his partially deaf wife who thought he was a businessman who traveled all over the world might be someone you could relate to. (Not an actual plot in anything I've written, I find the CIA assassin cliche in and of itself.)

 

I think that characters are what we make them, and what we let them become. On the other hand, I think there's a good need for distinction between reality and games, which people too often blur. In the past few years, I've read too many things in the paper about taking games too far. From that Chinese kid who was almost killed for hacking in Counter-Strike to the South Korean parents who left their 4 year old daughter to play video games. I'm not anti-video games, obviously, but I am very pro-responsibility and rationale. Both of which seem to be lacking lately.

 

And holy cow, derailment of topic, my bad...

[Vindekarr]

No, that's just the sort of discussion I'd been hoping for RZ.

 

Uncle T, I can totaly sympathise, I've gone on benders like that myself in Oblivion. One of my many Oblivion characters is a Dwarf called Greg. Now, Greg is a WarHammer sort of Dwarf, and the most key thing about those is their love of beer, and gold. They take any excuse possible to aqquire gold, and every excuse possible to get drunk. The getting drunk part is considered almost as important as the taste, so Dwarf beer, like Bugman's XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX-strength (XXX can knock a strong fat man to his knees, number of X denotes power) if so strong that you can get drunk off the fumes unless you're one of those little monsters.

 

Greg is my comic relief/de-stress character. A total mercenary, Greg just liks to get drunk and fight things and steal their stuff. As such, i always get him nice and soused before a dungeon raid, it adds a new sort of dificulty when your screen is so blurry and wobbly from booze that you can hardly see where your axe is going.

 

He's almost as fun to play as my more serious characters like Vin Whitemane (witchhunter) or Eoin Grey (necromancer)

 

You can't role play the serious ones all the time, that for me is half the fun of stepping out of your real self. I would get drunk off the fumes of Bugman's, whereas Greg always drinks a keg and a half before each raid, likewise I dont think even I'm enough of a darwinist to be one of real life's Whitemane's, or dead enough to emulate Eoin.

Edited December 17, 2010 by Vindekarr

[Azrael120782]

I never got to finish TES3:( But sometimes I play as a guy sometimes a girl,my current character is:

 

John "Ghost" Wilson,hes a Spec Ops mercenary who works for the highest bidder,Tends to favor the NCR,but the Legion fears and hates him.Well known for being the walking bush with the silenced M200 Intervention and silenced UMP/M4/USP.Has a habit of loving explosives

 

I tend to build my actor to who I am,i.e my personality and often my looks,

 

But now and then Ill make a fem just so I can get some eye candy and see the different dialog choices

[secksegai]

The game tends to dictate what character I play in the story. While actually a male in RL, I've got no issue playing a female character thanks to games like Metroid, Tomb Raider and the like teaching me "girls don't have cooties". More often than not, deciding between male and female is a matter of what looks aesthetically better in game, all the while keeping in mind I'll probably be staring at a backside for hours upon hours.

 

Never got heavy into RP, but I'd say a bit of myself exists in all my "characters". I'd say just about all of them have the same moral constraints, and while the thought of taking a life in real life is one I can't fully grasp, in games I don't give it a second thought, letting the moral compass be the guide. Hell, even killing fiends can give me pause once they've become "friendly".

 

As someone mentioned before me, one of the keys to RP is actually doing it well. When someone truly can get into character in the game world, their real life counterpart matters not. I hate lying, so acting just isn't for me - not to say actors are lying bastards, I just have trouble faking things whether it be for personal gain or entertainment purposes. But in my gaming experience, every once in a while, you do run across the RPer that totally gets into character, and like the Queen's Guard, attempts to break their stride failed as they held their ground. But, for the most part, everyone's off doing their own thing or grinding to bother with serious RP.

 

Then again there's always Leeroy!

[JimboUK]

I've never been much into the whole role playing thing, characters for me are separate entities that I follow through the story. I tend to decide what type of person the character is going to be before I start and then take decisions during the game based on what I believe someone like that do, those decisions can be very different to what I would have chosen for myself.

[Swordfish42]

I agree with all that you said OP. Although, some times I feel bad about what my character does...for example, there is a spell in midas magic mod which allows you to "absorb" a corpse to make you stronger. While it would be suited to one of my chars, I feel bad about using it.