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Live roleplaying's greatest cheerleader...
 
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Now here’s the big question what is roleplaying? Why do I ask? Because I’ve only realised recently that many people think of roleplaying as a different thing. I wont tell you all what I think roleplaying is (mainly because I’m not sure)….so what do you think roleplaying is? Is it just pretending to be someone else. Is it portraying a role? Is it playing a role in a story? Or something else?
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RL: Mr Sofar
Curved core weaponry and bespoke stuff.
ShelfordFX
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Initiate
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For me it's being someone else. And that's subtly different to "pretending to be someone else". It's about having a character's motives and background in mind and doing what they would do, even when (especially when?) you wouldn't do the same thing. It's about rounding that character off, about taking on everything they experience and using it to grow them.
Sure, if you dissect it then really it is "pretending", but pretending isn't something that's generally seen as immersive.
When I play a character I find I can forget about my own life for a while in a way that other hobbies don't give me. When I'm anchored in the real world I'm thinking about my attempts to sell my house, my job, my family and so on. When I am at a larp event then there will be occasional reminders but for the most part I'm much more concerned about the game world and how that's affecting my character. By "being" the character for long enough I get used to what their reactions are and I don't have to think or to pretend, I just do what they would.
I'm not an accomplished writer, but I dabble, and my written characters have some of the same thing going on, but it's not as easy to get drawn into writing for hours as it is with playing something out in real time.
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Live roleplaying's greatest cheerleader...
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Max do you react on the characters instincts by being the character without thinking 'now what would my character do now?'.
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RL: Mr Sofar
Curved core weaponry and bespoke stuff.
ShelfordFX
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Prodigal
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In the context of LARP (and this board), I'd go for a definition like 'roleplaying constitutes the processes whereby you portray the character you are currently representing in the game world'.
Obviously 'roleplaying' in a wider context covers a lot more than that - if you're not physically representing one particular character but running a stable of characters that you swap around between players and some players have some authority over bits of the environment as well it all gets more complicated.
People 'roleplay' (first definition) in lots of different ways. People spend a lot of time splitting these up into categories.
'Being' a character is only one of the ways that people roleplay. Some people stand at one remove and treat their character as someone entirely seperate from themselves who they just happen to be representing (i.e. explicitly thinking "what would my character do now"). There are probably other ways of doing it I haven't thought of. Both of these ways of playing a character might be used for a wide variety of aims.
The player might be aiming to accurately simulate how a character like their character would react in a situation like the situation they find themselves in, possibly just for its own sake, possibly in order to explore parts of human nature or experience an alien mindset.
The player might be aiming to get into situations that they want to be in. Maybe they want to be in situations where they will get into a fight because they enjoy LARP combat as a sport. Maybe they want to be in situations where they can show off and look good. Maybe they want to be in situations where they can experience certain emotions (fear and angst are very popular choices).
The player might be trying to fulfil a certain 'win condition' that they set themselves (or possibly even that the game sets them - common in 'linear' adventures and similar games), maybe because they think it would make an interesting OOC challenge. Maybe they want to see if they can become rich or popular or in charge.
As far as I can tell most people have a mix of many of these aims and methods when they LARP. To improve someone's roleplay might be to match the style that they are trying to play in to the event they are trying to play (or find them a new event if they don't enjoy a style appropriate to that event), or to help them find tools to achieve their desired aims (like finding ways to help people forget OOC things and drop into character if they want to play immersed but can't quite manage it yet, or to help them hold themselves at one remove from their character if they keep getting immersed but actually want to have a bit more distance from a character so they can achieve their aims more readily or avoid becoming upset).
Maelstrom: Jessily the Wemic, previously Tourmaline of Weaver
CUTT: Kerriville the Ninth, previously Ref 07/08
EOS: Study the Venin
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Live roleplaying's greatest cheerleader...
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Interesting stuff. Do you think some folks mix and match their style of RP? Sometimes oplaying to win, sometimes playing the character automatically, sometimes thinking 'what would my character do now?'. Or do folks stick to just one style?
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RL: Mr Sofar
Curved core weaponry and bespoke stuff.
ShelfordFX
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Prodigal
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I think people often mix and match their style of RP - especially between events, or when 'crewing' instead of 'playing'. I pretty much always go for 'immersion' instead of 'animation' if I can manage it, but my motivations change quite a bit - when I'm crewing especially I might be 'trying to make a good story' and 'trying to give a good fight', whereas when I'm playing I'm more likely to be 'trying to get into an emotionally charged situation' and 'exploring an alien mindset'.
Different events encourage different styles. At some events you're pretty much expected to be trying to 'achieve a win condition' and other players will get unhappy with you if you compromise the party's effectiveness by pursuing one of the other aims. At other events 'achieving a win condition' is seen to be an inferior style of play and other players will get unhappy with you if you compromise goals like 'simulate my character's behaviour 'realistically'' for it. The same goes for other goals which sometimes find themselves in conflict, like 'create a good story' and 'simulate my character's behaviour 'realistically''.
Maelstrom: Jessily the Wemic, previously Tourmaline of Weaver
CUTT: Kerriville the Ninth, previously Ref 07/08
EOS: Study the Venin
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Prodigal
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| People play roles in the literal sense all the time, dependent on where they are and who else is there. The role you play at work is different to the role you play around your parents. A good example is the infamous stanford prison experiments, where students were assigned the roles of prisoner or guard, and began to behave according to their role. 'Roleplaying' in this context however means something beyond it. It's a more conscious assumption of a given role. A actor on stage takes on a deliberately defined role. There are obvious comparisions to ritual activity / sacred spaces / shamanic practice. There are different ways of doing this (and different acting schools). One of these (the method) seeks to immerse in the role. One professional actor (who also larps) my other half met said that if you have to think what your character would do, you aren't roleplaying (which is a pretty extreme stance to take). What I think chessypig is referring to is what the americans called 'creative agenda' - someone's underly motative for doing roleplaying, which colours how they go about it.
------ <insert really amusing sig here>
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Live roleplaying's greatest cheerleader...
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It's a pity about the professional actor Nath. I don't really think we can say that there's any right or wrong way although , as Chessypig suggested, players using different methods might not work well together.
How about the 'role' in roleplaying meaning portraying a role in a story? I'm not just trying to be clever here but twisting words. Have we forgotten an intended origin of roleplaying? Are we concentrating on ourselves and not the shared experience? Should we be focussing on our characters role in constructing a story? Or is this kind of roleplaying not related to LRP?
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RL: Mr Sofar
Curved core weaponry and bespoke stuff.
ShelfordFX
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