Daniel Ream: Whatever people do for a living, they want the exact opposite in RPGs

Sommerjon · July 27, 2016, 05:45:14 PM

Quote from: CRKrueger;910056Unfortunately, stating a falsehood doesn't make it a truth.

S'okay. I didn't state a falsehood.

crkrueger · July 27, 2016, 05:59:55 PM

S'okay. That time again for a while. We understand.

AaronBrown99 · July 27, 2016, 06:45:48 PM

QuoteThe point of role playing is escapism by immersion into a character and/or a world that is outside and beyond that of day to day experiences.

This passes the truthiness test. I'm confined (mostly) to a wheelchair, and so I like driving fast and roleplaying agile, running, wire-fu-action characters!

And I naturally dislike slow drivers in the passing lane. :cool:

DavetheLost · July 27, 2016, 06:57:54 PM

I have a negative innate musical ability. I have noticed that I often play characters with skills or abilities based on music.

I tend to GM more than I play. I suppose playing the role of an Omnipotent Deity is about as far from me as I can get

Gronan of Simmerya · July 27, 2016, 07:43:28 PM

The point of roleplaying is to have fun with friends.

Baulderstone · July 27, 2016, 07:43:47 PM

Quote from: CRKrueger;910039How did the knowledge of this truism ever get lost? That's what roleplaying is about - not being you. Even a doctor who is playing a healer is probably going to want to have things be different, have their character do things they cannot. Your entire life you're you - except when you're roleplaying. When games are just you, doing something else, like engaging in collaborative storytelling, or engaging in a tactical miniatures game, then by definition, being you doing those things, you're playing a tabletop game, but you're not really roleplaying are you?

Roleplaying is about playing a role. That role may greatly resemble you, or it may be very different. No matter what, it will be a role, because it can only be so accurate. I can make a character based on myself, statting myself with a subjective opinion of my skills, which will create one possible layer of distortion. Then add in the fact that I really can't be sure how I would act when confronted with the fantastical situations in the game. I'm likely to end up with an idealized version of myself that is only somewhat more accurate to who I am than if I were to play an elf.

Gronan of Simmerya · July 27, 2016, 07:48:04 PM

This notion is either blindingly obvious or "mu." Few of us have exciting lives, so no shit our games will be different from our real lives.

On the other hand, I work as a newspaper reporter. Playing D&D means ipso facto I will be playing not-what-I-do-in-real-life.

IskandarKebab · July 27, 2016, 08:35:37 PM

230 pound muay thai loving law student who moonlights as a research contractor for Legal Service Corporations handling complex consumer finance cases no one else is willing to take. I tend to play stocky hand to hand fighters who are chomping at the bit to take on large banks. I kind of suck at the whole "don't play yourself" bit in roleplaying, as in just about every RPG or computer game I tend to be a stocky diplomat type who always tries to go for the most morally good option. One of the many reasons why I failed so badly at RPing in VTM.

Alderaan Crumbs · July 27, 2016, 09:08:37 PM

EOD tech here and I rarely play. When I have, I never played an ordnance guy or made IEDs or the like. I'm not the "Blow shits up!!!" guy, no matter the setting. Come to think of it, my NPCs are rarely into boom-boom, either.

My super-bestie was a corpsman and he's the same way, but with being the "healer". Even clerics, who he promptly slaps for praying to sky-faeries and touching him with warm, glowy hands.

OK, he doesn't slap clerics but he wants to. I know he wants to...

Personally, I dream of being a cyber-ninja with mind-wammy powers, so that's what I play.

Sommerjon · July 28, 2016, 12:26:06 AM

Quote from: CRKrueger;910083S'okay. That time again for a while. We understand.

Glad you agree that I didn't make a falsehood.

Bedrockbrendan · July 28, 2016, 12:43:14 AM

Quote from: CRKrueger;910059True, you feel comfortable with what you know, but even if someone is "playing to type", a lot of time it's different. The policeman who wants the freedom of a western sheriff, the healer who wants to help others without interference, the religious believer whose god is actually manifest and objectively real, the IT guy who plays the chaotic hacker, the MMA guy might have a wife, 3 kids and a mortgage - his barbarian is all about the Ale and Whores, etc. etc.

All I am saying is the premise 'people want to role play the exact opposite of what they do for a living, seems a little shaky to me. I think a lot of peoples' character choices are not far off from their real life personality. I am not saying it is identical to daily life or as boring.

IskandarKebab · July 28, 2016, 01:49:08 AM

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;910136All I am saying is the premise 'people want to role play the exact opposite of what they do for a living, seems a little shaky to me. I think a lot of peoples' character choices are not far off from their real life personality. I am not saying it is identical to daily life or as boring.

In a weird way, I've found that the best PCs are like the best wrestling characters, it's the performer's real self turned up to 20.

Daztur · July 28, 2016, 01:58:58 AM

Quote from: IskandarKebab;910146In a weird way, I've found that the best PCs are like the best wrestling characters, it's the performer's real self turned up to 20.

Yeah, exactly, my stock RPG character that I always fall back on when I can't think of anything else is a well-meaning oblivious dumbass. I'm a bit of the absent-minded professor in person but that character is just that with all of the brakes thrown out and then built to be hard to kill. Many of my other most successful characters have been like that but more dickish (shading either towards Zap Brannigan or Invader Zim or both).

Omega · July 28, 2016, 02:10:34 AM

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;910052A lot of the people who taught martial arts I've gamed with, played characters who were martial. A lot of professors I've gamed with play scholarly wizards. A lot of musicians I played with, play bards. I think if you have an interest in something it often comes out in the kind of character you play and the games you are drawn to. Not always though. Some people do want to get away from daily stresses as well. I think a lot of jobs involve everyday things that you wouldn't want to make the center of a campaign (or you'd rarely do so). But I don't think that is because people are avoiding what it is they do for a living. I could easily see someone who is a lawyer for example, playing a lawyer PC because they'd feel pretty comfortable with all the details of playing such a character.

I knew a player whos work job was crawling through tunnels and exterminating rats and things. His characters in the sessions I played with him in were all effectively vermin exterminators and all you had to do was have an NPC mention "rat" and off his character would go to commit vermincide. And like you I knew two martial arts practitioners who played martial arts characters whenever they could.

jeff37923 · July 28, 2016, 02:42:57 AM

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;910022Anyway, TL;DR - What is your day job and do you want the opposite in tabletop?

I work for a Fortune 500 company as a Quality Control Robot Operator. I like playing in science fiction/science fantasy genre as a pilot/mechanic of some kind, so not too far from what I do normally.