Quote from: TonyLBWhat I'm mostly saying is that if you say "Anyone who is acting based on their own desires is in Player stance" then it becomes meaningless.  Everyone is in Player stance all the time.  That's not a real useful term for me, y'know?  Whereas if you limit it to when they're conscious of the fact that their desires are playing a part then it becomes something that could, conceivably, not be true at a given moment.

Ummm...wait a minute...how can that be?

I mean, if I'm in character, if I'm only thinking about things the way my character thinks about them, I'm not in Player mode.  Player mode is defined as utilizing anything outside in-character.

It's better the way John put it - Meta Game/Not Meta Game. I think that's the first and foremost. I just used Character and Player as thay are terms that are

• Used in RPG's all the time (not borrowed from another area)
• Relatively close in meaning to the way they are used in RPG's
• Shorther than Meta-Game/Not Meta-Game.

Quote from: TonyLBAnd I just noticed something, James ... why would you say that you can't be Character and Player?  Can you elaborate on that?

Let's think of it this way, Character is a subset of Player.

In Player, you can consider anything to decide what your character will do - the character's motivations, your motivations, the tension it will bring, the story it will create, cheese.

In Character, you are only using a subset of those - the character's motivations.

Does that explain it?

The only thing I don't like about it is that for most players out there you're always at least partially in Player Mode. I don't know anyone that's ever "only thinking about things the way my character thinks about them."

edit: ack! Cross posted. That's a better explanation.

Quote from: James J SkachI mean, if I'm in character, if I'm only thinking about things the way my character thinks about them, I'm not in Player mode.  Player mode is defined as utilizing anything outside in-character.

And you always, always are.  The character is fictional.  You may well achieve a state in which you do not think of them as fictional, in which you are not conscious of the fact that they exist only as a powerful pattern within your mind, and that you are making up fiction every time you open your mouth.  But that doesn't mean you're not doing so.

Quote from: James McMurrayThe only thing I don't like about it is that for most players out there you're always at least partially in Player Mode. I don't know anyone that's ever "only thinking about things the way my character thinks about them."

edit: ack! Cross posted. That's a better explanation.

Wait Wait Wait what's with the "always" and "ever" stuff.

As someone has pointed out before, I think you take different stances depending on your overall style.  I bet there's games where you are in Character - I've never played one but I bet LARP's are like that.

But this is about things at the atomic level - I make this decision in Character mode, this other one in Player mode.

Quote from: TonyLBAnd you always, always are.  The character is fictional.  You may well achieve a state in which you do not think of them as fictional, in which you are not conscious of the fact that they exist only as a powerful pattern within your mind, and that you are making up fiction every time you open your mouth.  But that doesn't mean you're not doing so.

Wow...WTF?

I mean, I know it's a fictional character. And I know I'm playing a fictional character, so there's always a limitation.  I mean, otherwise I'd graba club and start the whompin', right?

Look - if I'm doing everything I can to separate my out-of-character knowledge/drives from my in-character one, and only acting on the latter, I'm in Character mode.

Are you saying that's not good enough because, well, after all it's only a character and you can never really be only in character mode..

Well, I bet

• there's someone out there (possibly in this thread) who claims they can
• you're missing the point and might as well read a book or do something else.

Like I said, I know of nobody that's ever disregarding all out of character data. You basically said that to be in character there couldn't be a real world input. I had to disagree with that because it goes so far beyond what "in character" has meant up until this thread started.

And also like I said, your other explanation was much better. It allows for someone to experience player input but not let it affect character choices.

Quote from: James McMurrayLike I said, I know of nobody that's ever disregarding all out of character data. You basically said that to be in character there couldn't be a real world input. I had to disagree with that because it goes so far beyond what "in character" has meant up until this thread started.

And also like I said, your other explanation was much better. It allows for someone to experience player input but not let it affect character choices.

I'm confused, Jimmy me boy. If you don't let "player input" (so you mean the player of the character about whom the decision is being made?) affect the character, you're in Character mode.

Like I said - I bet we could find some. Or at least some who claim it (and who are we to argue?).

And real world input is NOT what I'm saying.  It could be in-world input that the player knows and the character doesn't. I'm saying exactly what John said - Meta Game versus Non Meta Game. And I'm not going to hold someone in jail because they do their best to be in Character mode but let something bizarre bleed through - like knowing what an Eagle is or knowing that the speed limit is usually 70 in MI. That's why I like the conscious aspect somebody brought in. You're knowingly considering out-of-character information.

I think me continuing the trend of two paragraphs, one arguing against a definition and another accepting a different definition is confusing us. Let me restate this one, and hopefully the argument about the other one can be dropped.

QuoteAnd also like I said, your other explanation was much better. It allows for someone to experience player input but not let it affect character choices.

Quote from: James McMurrayI think me continuing the trend of two paragraphs, one arguing against a definition and another accepting a different definition is confusing us. Let me restate this one, and hopefully the argument about the other one can be dropped.

OK, I think I get you and I'm pretty sure I agree.

You can be in Character even if you are experiencing out-of-character things.

Which is how I play, actually, come to think of it.

Yeah, that's it.

Quote from: James J SkachLook - if I'm doing everything I can to separate my out-of-character knowledge/drives from my in-character one, and only acting on the latter, I'm in Character mode.

I wasn't even talking about Character mode.  If you're referring to your character motivation like that then yes, of course, you're in Character mode.

But that doesn't mean that you're not in Player mode, right?  Because Player mode is defined as: "You make decisions based not only on what your character would know/has see/would want, but also on what you as a player know/want."

Are you continuing to play because you want to?  There.  Done.  You're in Player mode.  I don't think anyone ever isn't.  They act based on what they know and want.  Like, for instance, wanting to play in-character.

It's a meaningless definition because everyone always fulfills it.  That has nothing to do with Character mode (and a good thing, too!) but it does make the Player-mode definition less usable.

What I was saying was that if you change the definition to read "You consciously make decisions based on what you as a player know and want" then you get into territory where the definition is actually saying something.

Then, people who are playing deep immersion would not be in Player mode.  People who are playing a meta-game heavy Amber throne war would be in Player mode.  See, with that modification the term is saying something.

Quote from: TonyLBAnd you always, always are.  The character is fictional.  You may well achieve a state in which you do not think of them as fictional, in which you are not conscious of the fact that they exist only as a powerful pattern within your mind, and that you are making up fiction every time you open your mouth.  But that doesn't mean you're not doing so.

Tony, this is where I get to tell you that you are making assumptions about the way I think when I role-play.

Do you believe that multiple personality disorder is real and that people can maintain multiple personalites in a single brain?  That's sort of what it's like, only more controlled.

When I'm thinking in character, I'm not "making up fiction every time I open my mouth".  I'm speaking from the thoughts of an independent personality I develop within my head.  To a degree, you can argue that it's not an entirely independent personality because it shares certain traits and limits with me out of necessity (it's using the same wetware and lacks sufficient history to have a full education and history) and I'd agree with you.  However, this sub-personality has it's own thoughts, own emotions, own voice, and has sometimes even developed it's own independent subconscious for me.  I don't think about what my character would do.  I access the characters thoughts as they think about what's going on and they just do what they do, just like I do in the real world.  My characters do things I don't plan.  Other players also experience this, as do authors.  The characters "take on a life of their own", so to speak.

If it makes more sense to think of it this way, I create a "distributed agent" that is a sort of second consciousness for my character.  I can also liken it to a virtual machine, an operating system running inside of an operating system.  

Now, you can fight me about how fictional the character is and whether it's really conscious or not, much as I fought you about whether your thinking is really holistic or simply beyond your understanding, but just as you experience what you do as a holistic thing, I experience thinking in character as a distinct consciousness that has a voice of its own.  The characters think thoughts and do things that I don't consciously plan as a player and see things in ways that I wouldn't personally see them, even if I were carefully planning for my characters by thinking about them.  

When a character I am playing by thinking in character dies, I don't get upset or angry.  I generally feel nothing, especially immediately after the death no matter how emotionally intense the scene leading up to the death was.  Why?  Because the consciousness through which I was thinking about the game and feeling the game ends and I lack a connection to the game.  The "distributed agent" that was my character ceases running.  I've heard other players express similar experiences.

If you want a really good illustration of the distinct personality of the character in action, read this old message by Mary Kuhner:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.frp.advocacy/msg/5aab1b8e54e24cd7?dmode=source

Mary talks about daydreaming in character in a theater.  She gets caught up enough in it that not only does it change her behavior (she behaves in a way that Mary normally wouldn't) but her husband instantly recognizes the character she's thinking as because of her body language.  He knows he's not just looking at his wife.

Quote from: John MorrowTony, this is where I get to tell you that you are making assumptions about the way I think when I role-play.

Do you believe that multiple personality disorder is real and that people can maintain multiple personalites in a single brain?  That's sort of what it's like, only more controlled.

I'm fine with all of that.  My question is much simpler:

Is that personality a part of you?  Are its wants and knowledge parts of you?

Quote from: TonyLBI'm fine with all of that.  My question is much simpler:

Is that personality a part of you?  Are its wants and knowledge parts of you?

What do you mean by "part of you"?

I can say that its wants and knowledge are not always a part of me, to the extent that they are not always accessible to me except in the way that a patient's wants and knowledge are accessible to a psychologist that probes them.  I've had character feel emotions and do things that I didn't understand until I tossed the character on the proverbial couch and psychoanalyzed them.  I often can't just access their thoughts and memories directly and know what's going on.

One example was the character who got paranoid when his memory was erased.  I was actually pretty amazed at how my directive to sequester certain memories from the consciousness of my character changed the way my character looked at the other PC and my character's NPC girlfriend.  I didn't figure that out until I spend hours digging into the character to figure out where the emotions he was experiencing were coming from.  

I've also had epiphanies in character and have gone insane in character.  In one case, I ran a character modeled on a friend and got some valuable insight into why he acted the way he did, but then didn't enjoy playing the character all that much that way because I didn't really like what I was seeing or where the character was going.  The bigotry that my character in the D&D game that I mentioned elsewhere feels for elves is entirely in character.  I could just as easily play a character working for those elves or even an elf in that setting.  But the bigotry of that character is something I can feel in the character when thinking in character.  

Is there some overlap between the character and me?  I'm sure there is just as there is overlap in people with multiple personality disorders between the personalities.  After all, I haven't lived a complete life in character so I have to fill in somehow.  I'm also sure that my characters are limited in some ways to thinking the way I think and so forth and they probably share some of my preferences and biases.  But they are in many other ways quite distinct from me and it's not just me playing myself as my character.

Are they real people?  I'd say they aren't any more than a second personality is.  But in all the ways that matter, they are quite distinct from me and do seem to have their own consciousness in that can think independently of me as the player (I can watch my character thinking at times).  For all intents and purposes, the character is a distinct mind that can think it's own thoughts and feel it's own feelings, even if they have only a fraction of the mind that a real person has.  And the experience that I have is very much that the character thinks independently of me as a player.

ADDED:  FYI, I often don't get a full feel for the character until a few sessions into a campaign.  This is why you'll find the "DAS" (Develop At Start) and "DIP" (Develop In Play) names in the r.g.f.a FAQ as a distinction.  A lot of people who play deeply in character need a few sessions to really flesh out the character because during that time, they are building the internal character model that they think in.