Gwylifar2005-08-08 14:16:30
I can play someone with nothing in common with me, and have it not rub off on me; but I don't, except in short-term games, because I just don't enjoy it. So I put certain key things from myself into my long-term characters just because I know I will enjoy it more that way, and on everything else, I tend to be intentionally unlike myself and whatever my last character was like, just for the variety.
About the only thing from my characters that tends to rub off on me is speech mannerisms; all my characters tend to have some signature in the way they talk that's usually fairly subtle (not like an in-your-face accent) and that often rubs off on me. For instance, Gwylifar had a habit of using unusual contractions. Like "I've to do something else first" -- "I've" is of course a perfectly valid contraction of "I have" but very few people would say it that way normally and it makes people stop and think to figure out what he's saying. I've found myself doing that a little in realspace.
But otherwise, no, I don't find anything flowing from character to player, only the other way and then by choice.
Incidentally, the word "roleplaying" originated in psychology. MUDs got it from pen-and-paper RPGs who got it from psychology back in the 70s, so the connection has always been there, and lots of psychologists use it explicitly.
About the only thing from my characters that tends to rub off on me is speech mannerisms; all my characters tend to have some signature in the way they talk that's usually fairly subtle (not like an in-your-face accent) and that often rubs off on me. For instance, Gwylifar had a habit of using unusual contractions. Like "I've to do something else first" -- "I've" is of course a perfectly valid contraction of "I have" but very few people would say it that way normally and it makes people stop and think to figure out what he's saying. I've found myself doing that a little in realspace.
But otherwise, no, I don't find anything flowing from character to player, only the other way and then by choice.
Incidentally, the word "roleplaying" originated in psychology. MUDs got it from pen-and-paper RPGs who got it from psychology back in the 70s, so the connection has always been there, and lots of psychologists use it explicitly.
Exarius2005-08-09 18:40:38
We all learn from playing our characters, and take a part of them back to RL. Psychologists may have coined the term role-play, but children were doing it for aeons before the term psychology itself was ever coined.
Role-play is an adaptation common to mammals, where the young practice real life skills within a safe environment before getting dropped into do-or-die situations. Did you ever sit and watch kittens tumble and pounce and stalk each other? They're role-playing being hunters.
Role-play is the most powerful learning tool ever invented.
When it comes right down to it, though, there is no "my character" and "me" dichotemy. Your character is just another contextual mask you adopt for yourself, to define how you're allowed to behave within a given social situation.
Perhaps you're one of those many people who curses a blue streak around his friends, but knows better than to swear around his boss. That doesn't entitle your "office politics character" to claim he never curses, or your "hangin' out character" to claim he never censors his language. These are all aspects of you, which exist within you, and your MUD character is no different.
So guess what? If you feel a heady rush from pretending you're slicing some poor innocent victim open and eating his entrails, that's YOU who's getting a buzz, so don't go blaming it on your character having a mind of his own.
And like it or not, believe it or not, just as your "office politics character" is always in danger of letting the mask slip and cursing out loud in front of the wrong person when under stress, if you spend long hours pretending to be a sociopathic sadist, you're going to get more and more used to feeding off the emotional distress of others. It just happens. Tell yourself you're immune if you like, but you are not.
I'd already been role-playing for years before most of you who'll read this were even born. For close on to three decades, I've been in the trenches, watching exactly what role-play does to people in a variety of contexts and a variety of mediums. Sometimes I've done it as a hobby, sometimes professionally. I've seen it build people up to great heights, helping them through the most challenging struggles... and I've seen it drag people down into wretched little insular worlds where no sane person would dare to join them.
Of course make-believe doesn't translate directly to real life. My Exarius persona is a totally hedonistic, totally unapologetic womanizer. And while that does indeed reflect an aspect of my real life (c.f.: Giacomo's Gal-ery), that particular expression of it ends the moment I step away from the RPGs. Offline I'm so monogamous I don't even feel comfortable with the thought of a back rub from a professional massage therapist, despite my wife suggesting several times it might do me some good.
So, no: no one can just glance out of context at what you're role-playing at a given moment and predict what effect it will have on you, anymore than a meteorlogist can look at a single, still photo and say that a storm brewing in the Gulf of Mexico will slam into the Louisian coast just west of New Orleans. Louisiana's still more likely to get slammed with a hurricane when there's a storm brewing than if the entire gulf is calm and sunny.
I guess that in the end what I'm saying is that role-play is a force of nature. Use it responsibly, or one day you just might find your real life at the mercy of habits you were sure would never leave the anonymity of the internet.
Role-play is an adaptation common to mammals, where the young practice real life skills within a safe environment before getting dropped into do-or-die situations. Did you ever sit and watch kittens tumble and pounce and stalk each other? They're role-playing being hunters.
Role-play is the most powerful learning tool ever invented.
When it comes right down to it, though, there is no "my character" and "me" dichotemy. Your character is just another contextual mask you adopt for yourself, to define how you're allowed to behave within a given social situation.
Perhaps you're one of those many people who curses a blue streak around his friends, but knows better than to swear around his boss. That doesn't entitle your "office politics character" to claim he never curses, or your "hangin' out character" to claim he never censors his language. These are all aspects of you, which exist within you, and your MUD character is no different.
So guess what? If you feel a heady rush from pretending you're slicing some poor innocent victim open and eating his entrails, that's YOU who's getting a buzz, so don't go blaming it on your character having a mind of his own.
And like it or not, believe it or not, just as your "office politics character" is always in danger of letting the mask slip and cursing out loud in front of the wrong person when under stress, if you spend long hours pretending to be a sociopathic sadist, you're going to get more and more used to feeding off the emotional distress of others. It just happens. Tell yourself you're immune if you like, but you are not.
I'd already been role-playing for years before most of you who'll read this were even born. For close on to three decades, I've been in the trenches, watching exactly what role-play does to people in a variety of contexts and a variety of mediums. Sometimes I've done it as a hobby, sometimes professionally. I've seen it build people up to great heights, helping them through the most challenging struggles... and I've seen it drag people down into wretched little insular worlds where no sane person would dare to join them.
Of course make-believe doesn't translate directly to real life. My Exarius persona is a totally hedonistic, totally unapologetic womanizer. And while that does indeed reflect an aspect of my real life (c.f.: Giacomo's Gal-ery), that particular expression of it ends the moment I step away from the RPGs. Offline I'm so monogamous I don't even feel comfortable with the thought of a back rub from a professional massage therapist, despite my wife suggesting several times it might do me some good.
So, no: no one can just glance out of context at what you're role-playing at a given moment and predict what effect it will have on you, anymore than a meteorlogist can look at a single, still photo and say that a storm brewing in the Gulf of Mexico will slam into the Louisian coast just west of New Orleans. Louisiana's still more likely to get slammed with a hurricane when there's a storm brewing than if the entire gulf is calm and sunny.
I guess that in the end what I'm saying is that role-play is a force of nature. Use it responsibly, or one day you just might find your real life at the mercy of habits you were sure would never leave the anonymity of the internet.
Gwylifar2005-08-09 20:27:28
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/#Empiricism
That argument didn't even hold water in the 18th century, even in places where it was relevant. Sure, what we imagine is formed from what we perceive.... and? Every author who ever wrote a murder mystery is capable of being both murderer and detective, too. Every actor in Hollywood could be a world-shattering villain, a seductive salesman, and an insecure, neurotic comedian. That may shed a small light on who they are, but it does not tell you who they are.
That argument didn't even hold water in the 18th century, even in places where it was relevant. Sure, what we imagine is formed from what we perceive.... and? Every author who ever wrote a murder mystery is capable of being both murderer and detective, too. Every actor in Hollywood could be a world-shattering villain, a seductive salesman, and an insecure, neurotic comedian. That may shed a small light on who they are, but it does not tell you who they are.
Unknown2005-08-09 22:01:18
Elaria's certainly rubbing off on me... she's usually nicer than me and is more tolerant.... traits that I've been picking up a great deal of through playing her. Can't always keep this up of course and sometimes she snaps. 
Elaria and I both rub off a little on each other to that extent. Seems strange that
Elaria and I both rub off a little on each other to that extent. Seems strange that
