From: bkoike@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Bryce Koike)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Newbie System?
Date: 11 Oct 92 23:29:17 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <1992Oct11.171815.8031@news.columbia.edu> jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (John H Kim) writes:
>seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:
>[cc ROLE-playing]
>>	This is different than being an actor in a play. The actor is not
>>expected to do anything other than take a pre-existing character and
>>add a few little quirks of interpretation, while taking that character to
>>a predetermined destination. I have fun doing that too, but it's not 
>>ROLEPLAYING. If it was, you'd never know how the play was going to turn out
>>(which might be fun -- start out in Hamlet with the premade scenario and
>>let people ROLEplay the characters. Maybe someone would actually survive...)
>
>	Hmmm. This is all rather interesting. What you are suggesting here 
>is precisely what you have been arguing would *not* be fun: role-playing 
>pre-made characters. 
>
>	I, too, think it could be quite fun and interesting to be handed 
>the character of Hamlet and to role-play what *I* think he would do based 
>on *my* interpretation of his personality. Even with scripted lines, I think 
>actors often bring alot more to a character from themselves than what is 
>written down. In the same way, a player brings alot of personality to a 
>set of attributes and background that is a pre-made character. 

	Writers have done this in the past.  (Oh, Philip Jose
Farmer's interpretation of Tarzan comes to mind, although that's not
entirely what's being talked about here.  [Farmer's Mark Twain in
Riverworld fits better...])
	I think that Sea Wasp's determination to never play pre-made
characters is more his personal preference than a real belief that
somehow pre-made characters are inferior to ones that a player has
made by himself.  Alone, a GM can create a party custom-designed for
his game.  Some of THE best role-playing I've seen my group do is
through pre-made characters (and they weren't exactly the most fun
characters to run either...most of them had GURPS disadvantages that
us as players had avoided in the past...Combat Paralysis,
Hemophilia, Cowardice, etc.  It was such a radical change of pace
and it was incredibly refreshing.  We were having the time of our
life.  [Not to mention how fun combat was!]).
	I seriously doubt that someone can make a good argument for
pre-made characters either being The Way To Role-Play or The Worst
Way To Role-Play.  There's plusses and minuses to both and a lot
also hinges on the players involved.  I have one friend who loves to
run the generic AD&D Ranger in almost every game he plays in.  When
we slapped him with Gizmo the overweight wonderkid (hey, it was HIS
selection...) he had a great amount of fun, role-played
spectacularly, and it felt great.
	On the other hand, all of our players could have been truly
pissed that we were foisting pre-mades on them and they might have
sulked the entire evening and ruined everything.  They didn't, and
so in this case, things worked out perfectly.
	I'd like to repeat that I don't like using pre-made
characters for campaigns.  For one-shot games (or in some cases,
five-shot...), they're great and almost preferable.  Again, I play
GURPS and the time it takes some of my friends to make characters
seriously cuts into gaming time.  At times like this, pre-mades are
often preferable (and sometimes my friends grumble why I didn't take
the time to write some up) -- especially if it's a one-shot game
that's only supposed to last that evening and no more.

>	One particularly enlightening experience has been role-playing in 
>a series of tournaments year to year run by the same GM's. The scenarios 
>always use the same set of characters, but it is always interesting watching 
>what different people do with the same character. 

	Wow.  Never tried this.  (GREAT idea, though!!!)

>>	The essential point in all of them, though, is that the character
>>was mine from the beginning. No matter how it was created, its creation
>>is part of me. I WANT to play it. On the other hand, a premade character
>>that gets handed to me just may not be what I'm in the mood for. 
>
>	Clearly role-playing pre-made characters is a matter of opinion. 
>Some people may not like it. However, this does not mean that other 
>people cannot enjoy it, or that it is any less a ROLE-playing experience. 
>
>	For several games I have run, I have designed pre-made characters 
>with specific players in mind, and people have often liked it more than 
>designing their own characters. It lets them get started quickly, and they 
>are often intrigued by characters they would not have thought of - rather 
>like being intrigued by an unexpected series of rolls. 

	Agreed.  Also, I never generate characters with the plan of
forcing that character onto a player.  Often I make several more
characters than there are players and I let my friends go through
them and take one that they happen to like.  This usually works fine
(once I thought there was going to be an argument over a characters,
but it was quickly resolved...).
	I think that Sea Wasp's assumption that acting<>role-playing
really isn't totally true.  An actor is, obviously, quite challenged
to BREATHE LIFE into something that's just on a piece of paper.
Worse, they can't even write their own dialogue.  Role-playing a
pre-made character strikes me as being somewhat similar.  You are
forced to breathe life into a character, but the words and actions
are your own.  I feel that really good role-players can work just as
well with pre-made characters as they can with their own, but
perhaps that's just my interpretation.  From my own experience I
know that it works and that in some cases it's preferable to sitting
around waiting for people to develop shallow characters over the
course of 3 hours.  (Far too often my friends are unwilling to
generate a thick character background if the game is a one-shot.  I
have the time and am more than willing to do this and it adds a
considerable amount of flavor to the game.)
	If all acting was was just reading lines off of a script, we
wouldn't need schools for acting.  (Although I think that's all some
actors and actresses do...but they aren't getting awards anyway
unless you count soaps...)

>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>John Kim                    | "Remember, a running man may slit a thousand
>jhk6@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu | throats in a single night."
>Columbia University         |                    - Klingon proverb