This is Relevant to My Interests
A couple of things that are really just one thing but I’ll mention them separately. Strangelands has a sort of “Design an MMO” thing going on. This week is a topic about mixing genres, which, in case you didn’t realize, is a great idea.
Cuppy had something else to say though. I’ll quote the piece that interests me for the purpose of this post:
When I start a character, I devise stories for them. I come up with where they’ve been and where they want to go. While I play the game, I’m constantly immersing myself in the world and really create a connection between my game character and the environment I’m playing in. I feel that on a roleplaying level, it would be extremely difficult for me to take my high fantasy characters and plop them in the middle of World War II. My little fairy druid would really be out of place in a steam punk environment. So that’s my take.
Now, first off, I understand where she’s coming from. And, I also mean no offense by what I am about to say, but here it is. If you enjoy role-playing, or even if you don’t and you just enjoy the story of the game and come up with a character’s story that you never use, that comment still has a major flaw that you may be able to spot. It assumes that setting makes character. This is a flaw in the way you’ve created your character. A character should transcend the setting he or she is placed in. Don’t get me wrong, moving a character from one setting to another will no doubt cause that character to get some details changed here and there, but the core of the character needs to supersede where that character is. If you cannot simply place your character in another context than your character is not “real” enough to be role-playing with. Character creates story (plot), creates setting. That’s the flow. Anything less than that and the character is not strong enough to stand on it’s own.
I’m sure others will disagree with me or tell me that I’ve been doing it wrong that way, but that’s just my take on it. As for the original Strangelands article…I’m getting to that next.
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