Character failings
So, last night, over dinner* a conversation started about characters. Specifically, in this case, about moustache twirling villains, and how they are, in some ways, oddly bad for the game. Because no one in real life actually walks into a room and says 'hey! I'm going to be evil'.
And then on the car on the way home**, Neill and I got talking about the converse problem, which is players who don't seem to think that their characters have any flaws. I'm not even talking the blatant Mary Sues. I'm talking about characters who are perfectly normal, don't have purple eyes and pet unicorns*** but who's players are maybe a leetle bit too prone to not seeing their flaws. You know what I mean, and I think we've all, at some point, found ourselves slipping into that place where we know, on some level, that maybe it wasn't reasonable to shiv up that eight year old, but if it comes up in conversation we just feel the urge to explain, over and over again, how in Billy the Brujah's mind he was right right right.
And so, as a kind of antidote to this, I have decided that everyone should share with me some of their character failings. As I should with you. It's a bit like AA for larpers. Character Apologists Anonymous.
So. Give me...
1) A proper character flaw for your PCs. And not job interview flaws! Real flaws, that makes them not-good people.
2) A situation in background, or with NPCs, in which your character has behaved badly.
3) A situation with other PCs in which your character has behaved badly.
4) An uncharitable, but entirely true description of your character - how they could be described by someone who knew them very well, but didn't like them at all.
5) A redeeming feature about your character.
And I add that last one on because all good PCs should be both good and bad.
I'll add my characters in comments.
Now, let's hear it from all of you. I am also pondering trying to integrate this into my writing_shadows June challenge, actually, and writing a series of little snippets of prose in which my PCs are the villains, or at least, petty, misguided, unpleasant and generally obnoxious. God knows that I write enough prose explaining why everything they have done is for the best of reasons, really.
* which was, as a note, very nice. I went out for dinner at the Harvester near the Essex game with pierot, adze, andyrebranded, bringeroflight, akonken, slick_mink" and bakela666, and it was lovely. There was even pimms which made both Allison and Jeremiah extremely happy.
**which was a long and horrible drive due to traffic. What is normally a 45 minute drive became 3 hours and nearly killed me.
*** Michael Stands Ready, I'm talking about you there.
And then on the car on the way home**, Neill and I got talking about the converse problem, which is players who don't seem to think that their characters have any flaws. I'm not even talking the blatant Mary Sues. I'm talking about characters who are perfectly normal, don't have purple eyes and pet unicorns*** but who's players are maybe a leetle bit too prone to not seeing their flaws. You know what I mean, and I think we've all, at some point, found ourselves slipping into that place where we know, on some level, that maybe it wasn't reasonable to shiv up that eight year old, but if it comes up in conversation we just feel the urge to explain, over and over again, how in Billy the Brujah's mind he was right right right.
And so, as a kind of antidote to this, I have decided that everyone should share with me some of their character failings. As I should with you. It's a bit like AA for larpers. Character Apologists Anonymous.
So. Give me...
1) A proper character flaw for your PCs. And not job interview flaws! Real flaws, that makes them not-good people.
2) A situation in background, or with NPCs, in which your character has behaved badly.
3) A situation with other PCs in which your character has behaved badly.
4) An uncharitable, but entirely true description of your character - how they could be described by someone who knew them very well, but didn't like them at all.
5) A redeeming feature about your character.
And I add that last one on because all good PCs should be both good and bad.
I'll add my characters in comments.
Now, let's hear it from all of you. I am also pondering trying to integrate this into my writing_shadows June challenge, actually, and writing a series of little snippets of prose in which my PCs are the villains, or at least, petty, misguided, unpleasant and generally obnoxious. God knows that I write enough prose explaining why everything they have done is for the best of reasons, really.
* which was, as a note, very nice. I went out for dinner at the Harvester near the Essex game with pierot, adze, andyrebranded, bringeroflight, akonken, slick_mink" and bakela666, and it was lovely. There was even pimms which made both Allison and Jeremiah extremely happy.
**which was a long and horrible drive due to traffic. What is normally a 45 minute drive became 3 hours and nearly killed me.
*** Michael Stands Ready, I'm talking about you there.