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Message no. 1
From: Simon and Fiona sfuller@******.com.au
Subject: Independant Characters
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 14:55:23 +1100
-----Original Message-----
From: Nexx <nexx@********.net>
To: ShadowRN <ShadowRN@*********.com>; Fading Suns
<Fading_Suns_Games@*******.com>; Ars Magica <ars-magica@****.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Monday, October 02, 2000 3:37 PM
Subject: Independant Characters


>Has anyone else had this happen?
>
>You're going along, a fairly normal gaming session. You come to a point
>where you say "Oh, no problem, my character will just do this" and your
>character suddenly says "No, I'm going to do this." This has been
happening
>to me more and more recently.
>
We have a special name for when this happens, we call them "Game Sessions".
Basically I say think quick on your feet, and the world becomes more
interesting, less formulaic. If the players constntly do stupid things, let
them suffer the consequenses. Even better, if players deliberately sidetrack
the game for personal gratification, bore them back onto the straight and
narrow, tell them nothing is happening to them, thwart every
attention-seeking plan, and let the rest of the players get on with the
game. It works unusually well.
Message no. 2
From: Nexx nexx@********.net
Subject: Independant Characters
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 23:30:40 -0500
Has anyone else had this happen?

You're going along, a fairly normal gaming session. You come to a point
where you say "Oh, no problem, my character will just do this" and your
character suddenly says "No, I'm going to do this." This has been happening
to me more and more recently.

I don't understand why. A couple weeks ago, a character of mine purposely
drew fire, even though she wasn't armored, and the enemy in question could
quite easily blow her to tiny little chunks (and he did. R.I.P. Morgan).
The next week, her replacement turned in his boss for issuing a highly
illegal order. Just now, my little starting character in a PBP game picked
a fight with the biggest guy around, simply because the big guy stopped him
from torturing a prisoner (who he happens to be involved in a long-standing
blood-feud with).

How does anyone else deal with this? Really, it's making things _very_
difficult on my GM, because he has to come up with alternate ways to deal
with the problems, results of my actions, ways to bring in replacements,
etc. I can't really convince myself that I should override the character's
wishes, and sitting down to talk with the character just chills me in an odd
way...

I think I'm just losing my mind.

***
Nexx
a.k.a. Mark Hall
***
"If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no
light. If I lose paper and ink I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I
will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them
to you."
-Henry Rollins
***
http://www-personal.interkan.net/~nexx/index.html
Updated September 30th, 2000
Message no. 3
From: Sinabian@***.com Sinabian@***.com
Subject: Independant Characters
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 00:41:46 EDT
<snippity snippity>

Rather than annoying I always preferred when characters did their own things
and went their own way. Yeah it was kind of hard to deal with if you didn't
take your time, but well worth it because the players actually roleplay their
characters instead of them being sheets with lots of numbers and stuff.
Message no. 4
From: Jkmiland@***.com Jkmiland@***.com
Subject: Independant Characters
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 02:17:40 EDT
In a message dated 10/1/00 9:53:41 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
sfuller@******.com.au writes:

> >You're going along, a fairly normal gaming session. You come to a point
> >where you say "Oh, no problem, my character will just do this" and
your
> >character suddenly says "No, I'm going to do this." This has been
> happening
> >to me more and more recently.
> >
> We have a special name for when this happens, we call them "Game
Sessions".
> Basically I say think quick on your feet, and the world becomes more
> interesting, less formulaic. If the players constntly do stupid things, let
> them suffer the consequenses. Even better, if players deliberately
sidetrack
> the game for personal gratification, bore them back onto the straight and
> narrow, tell them nothing is happening to them, thwart every
> attention-seeking plan, and let the rest of the players get on with the
> game. It works unusually well.

Actually, the sense I got from Nexx is that he's having some trouble with his
-own- characters, not those of players in his group. And I have had problems
like that...Where you know precisely what would be perfectly logical and
in-character for your character to do, but you find yourself telling the GM
that you'll do this completely opposite action instead. Which usually gets
you in big trouble (of the lethal variety).
My dwarven sammie keeps protecting people that he /knows/ are going to be a
liability that will hurt him later... But he keeps on doing it. And it never
fails to screw him somehow. Maybe our characters are actually alive and have
decided they don't want to be puppets anymore... kinda scary, neh?
Message no. 5
From: Lady Jestyr jestyr@*********.html.com
Subject: Independant Characters
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 17:48:24 +1000
>How does anyone else deal with this? Really, it's making things _very_
>difficult on my GM, because he has to come up with alternate ways to deal
>with the problems, results of my actions, ways to bring in replacements,
>etc. I can't really convince myself that I should override the character's
>wishes, and sitting down to talk with the character just chills me in an odd
>way...
>
>I think I'm just losing my mind.

Fear not, Nexx, you're not alone - and if you're losing your mind, I'd say
you'll have company on the ride ;)

Suffice to say that my GM has got used to the disgruntled look on my face
when I KNOW my character should do one thing, but she's decided to do
something completely different. It's called the "plot goes this way now!"
face...

Lady Jestyr
~ Hell hath no fury like a geek with a whippersnipper ~

* jestyr@*****.com | URL: http://staff.dumpshock.com/jestyr *
Message no. 6
From: Chipeloi chipeloi@***.nl
Subject: Independant Characters
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 10:17:35 +0200
In the asylum, Nexx whispered in the corridors:

> Has anyone else had this happen?
>
> You're going along, a fairly normal gaming session. You come to a
> point where you say "Oh, no problem, my character will just do this"
> and your character suddenly says "No, I'm going to do this." This has
> been happening to me more and more recently.
>


yes i have had the same thing to

i like some of my caracters a lot so i try to make them come out
real
and try to do things my caracter would do
(example 1 : on the blood run i (the caracter) knocked down the
door with the maglock as player i knew that there was an insect
spirit behind it but that my caracter didn't know that ..and got killed
in one atack )
yes i know this is player information but that to is involved if you
play do you use the informaton or not (and everyone uses it
sometimes)

so yes there are more ppl than you that do things that would be
incredably stupit but in caracter
but at the moment if it looks like i'm goingto/do something stupit (in
the eyes of the other players)

they almost realy jump me to stop me witch i find insulting becose
i'm only trying to play the caracter




--
>If you thought Chipeloi was crazy just wait till you meet me !
Message no. 7
From: NeoJudas neojudas@******************.com
Subject: Independant Characters
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 04:10:52 -0500
From: "Lady Jestyr" <jestyr@*********.html.com>
Subject: Re: Independant Characters


> >How does anyone else deal with this? Really, it's making things _very_
> >difficult on my GM, because he has to come up with alternate ways to deal
> >with the problems, results of my actions, ways to bring in replacements,
> >etc. I can't really convince myself that I should override the
character's
> >wishes, and sitting down to talk with the character just chills me in an
odd
> >way...
> >
> >I think I'm just losing my mind.
>
> Fear not, Nexx, you're not alone - and if you're losing your mind, I'd say
> you'll have company on the ride ;)

Nah, he'd have to have a mind to lose first... ;-)

> Suffice to say that my GM has got used to the disgruntled look on my face
> when I KNOW my character should do one thing, but she's decided to do
> something completely different. It's called the "plot goes this way now!"
> face...

Actually, I don't know. To me, what Nexx is describing isn't quite the same
as the "plot goes this way now" face (which I'm forced to integrate and
cover for all the time). What it sounded to me was more like Nexx was
utterly bored with the style/type of game that he's involved in, and wants
to take his character(s) in directions his GM simply isn't going at that
point.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
J. Keith Henry (Webmaster)
Hoosier Hacker House (www.hoosierhackerhouse.com)
Message no. 8
From: Phil Smith phil_urbanhell@*******.com
Subject: Independant Characters
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 19:10:14 GMT
>From: Lady Jestyr <jestyr@*********.html.com>
> >How does anyone else deal with this? Really, it's making things _very_
> >difficult on my GM, because he has to come up with alternate ways to deal
> >with the problems, results of my actions, ways to bring in replacements,
> >etc. I can't really convince myself that I should override the
>character's
> >wishes, and sitting down to talk with the character just chills me in an
>odd
> >way...
> >
> >I think I'm just losing my mind.
>
>Fear not, Nexx, you're not alone - and if you're losing your mind, I'd say
>you'll have company on the ride ;)
>
>Suffice to say that my GM has got used to the disgruntled look on my face
>when I KNOW my character should do one thing, but she's decided to do
>something completely different. It's called the "plot goes this way now!"
>face...

Being sensible never so much as gets a though with my chaarcters; my cat
shaman has blown a few tens of thousands of nuyen on clothing over the last
few months, my terrorist/author in bug city gets himself into worlds of
dreck becuase it is morally right every game and my paranoia character (a
neo-hippy) once ended up taking LSD mid-firefight. I guess its just the way
we play; the GM has long since learned that whilst we may be fairly rational
people, our characters will almost always pull some stupid stuff.

So I guess that if you guys are going mad I'm already there :)>

Phil

Let us assume we have a can opener.


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Message no. 9
From: Old Man Bethyaga acuteparanoia@*******.com
Subject: Independant Characters
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000 15:47:24 CDT
>From: Lady Jestyr
>
>I can't really convince myself that I should override the
>character's wishes, and sitting down to talk with the character
>just chills me in an odd way...

Don't fret it. Really. I just finished off a post for our PBP game, where
I couldn't get my character to listen to me. He's got 24 hours and a giant
bundle of nuyen to get himself prepared for this run. He made a list of
things to do, and then decided to go to the bar to unwind first. He spent
400+ nuyen just partying, and then overslept. Now he's late and hungover
and hurrying to meet the other characters. He's an idiot.

The whole time I was typing it, I kept looking for ways that I could at
least work in a couple of the things he really needed to do, but he wouldn't
let me. He kept saying, "Oh one more drink--I'll wake up early and do it
before I leave for the meet." Yeah whatever.

You would think that typing it would give me plenty of time to think about
what I'm doing and find a way to get around it or at least compromise. But
noooooo...

>From: "Phil Smith"
>
>...and my paranoia character (a neo-hippy) once ended
>up taking LSD mid-firefight...

Paranoia rocks.
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Message no. 10
From: Bryan Pow powbr323@*******.otago.ac.nz
Subject: Independant characters
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 10:34:44 +1300
>How does anyone else deal with this? Really, it's making things _very_
>difficult on my GM, because he has to come up with alternate ways to deal
>with the problems, results of my actions, ways to bring in replacements,
>etc. I can't really convince myself that I should override the character's
>wishes, and sitting down to talk with the character just chills me in an odd
>way...
>
>I think I'm just losing my mind.

I've seen this happen many times, In a D&D game a character went into the
woods to pee, knowing full well that he would get jumped by some thing
nasty. A character of mine was fleeing from the Lord of Death Himself (lord
Soth) when said Deathknight challenged my characters honor, well I couldn't
take that, I turned right around, went up to the guy as I opened the
players book at Character Creation.
As a GM I prefer players that do what their characters would do as opposed
to what they themselves would do. I usualy let players that do this get
away with murder (literally) since it adds to the fun of the game.
"Look man, if your character confronts the Don we're all Dead!"
"No one threatens Pete the Pick! I am the greatest Mafia Hit-man in history
and no pansy assed accontant-type Don is gonna touch me without feelin the
burn of lucky-number-seven!"

FYI, Pete the Pick is a troll Pick-man, and Lucky-number-seven is a seven
barreled shotgun, of which all the barrels can be fired at once

"Have you been hit by the Uglee Stikk(TM)?"
Uglee Stikk is a trade mark of Bats n Bruises Incrporated

Further Reading

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