Storyboard: The reflection lies

When I was younger, I got very excited at the thought that therapists would ask people to roleplay. In my mind, this was a great idea. After all, if Joe and Jane go to see a marriage counselor, they could walk out of the session realizing that each of them always has the other's back, especially when facing down an ancient red dragon as a cleric and a fighter. Plus, it's something for the couple to do together. It wasn't until I was older that I found out that the roleplaying under discussion was something different.

At least, it's theoretically different.

I've talked many times about how roleplaying is many things to many different people, but one of the big potential pitfalls comes when you're roleplaying with people you know because some people play characters that are still, fundamentally, part of the player. And if you're plaing alongside someone whose characters are more personal than yours, it can cause some very odd disconnects that you might not even recognize until after the fact.

The obvious rejoinder, of course, is that your character isn't supposed to be you. He or she is supposed to be a totally separate entity, not related to you in any way, in order to create a sense of complete separation between player and character.

And to that I say balderdash. (OK, that's not what I say, but this is a family-friendly site. It starts with the same letter.)

When you write, you invest yourself in your characters. They become part of you, they interact with your psyche in strange ways, and you can't help but externalize some of your issues into them. Pretending that your characters are in no way connected to you-the-player is just ridiculous. And by the same token, most good roleplayers who do wind up investing themselves from the word go still recognize the difference between characters and players. Your buddy Phil is playing Felicity in the game, and he recognizes that Felicity's interaction with your character Johann are not part of your relationship with Phil.

But perhaps Phil created Felicity, in part, because he wanted to externalize his need for intimacy. Maybe you based Johann off of your own feelings that you need to be in control of a situation. It doesn't mean that either character isn't necessarily fleshed-out and developed, just that the seed behind the character was a personal issue brought to the forefront. The important thing is that split in thinking, whether you consider Felicity to be part of Phil or a completely separate creature.

It doesn't sound like an issue until Johann (whom you view as completely separate from yourself) develops a crush on Felicity (whom Phil views as a part of himself). From your perspective, it's interesting character interaction and drama. From Phil's perspective, a friend of his is coming on to him, and depending on a lot of other factors, Phil might be uncomfortable, thrilled, or even angry. And those reactions would make no sense to you because from your point of view, there are no real emotions going on. It's just roleplaying.

Now, full disclosure: I tend to go with the latter view. I create characters and play them based on whether or not I think there are interesting stories to be told with those characters, and any personal parallels crop up after the fact and are more or less accidental. But that's far from the only valid way to create characters, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with starting from an emotional base when the goal is to get emotionally invested in your character and the world around you.

I'm a big fan of getting to know the people around you for precisely that reason. Because my characters aren't a part of me, it's possible for my character to dislike someone whom I personally like quite a bit or vice-versa. It's equally possible for my character to make decisions, develop affections, and even swear vendettas that I not only do not feel but do not agree with. I've watched characters take on lives of their own, doing things that I thought were unimaginably and obviously stupid when the characters were utterly convinced they were right.

And I like to make it clear that these actions are not tied to me. I'm the audience here, enjoying and watching and taking part, but with my hand only loosely on the rudder.

Much like last week's split, however, this is one of those things that doesn't get spoken about or even recognized on a regular basis. It's easy to tell Phil that Johann's actions have no basis in your feelings, but if Phil's used to his characters being a part of himself, he's going to assume that you're either bluffing or deluding yourself. And you, of course, aren't going to get why Phil is acting weird about it.

So what can you do? First of all, you can recognize that the split exists in the first place, and you can react accordingly. If you know that your characters are meant as a part of yourself, you can be aggressive about figuring out which players feel the same and which don't. These two philosophies aren't at odds with one another at all -- they actually work perfectly well together so long as you understand the distance between them.

The second major thing is to actually process the difference. This cuts both ways -- you need to recognize that if you know Phil invests himself personally, your character's actions have a context for him. Similarly, Phil needs to try and recognize that whatever Felicity might mean for him, Felicity is just a character to you, and you're trying to treat her as such. Meeting halfway and discussing where you want certain stories to go ahead of time are probably the best ways to keep things in the clear.

Last but certainly not least, you can try to see how the other half lives. If all of your characters are separate from you, make one you're personally invested in. Sure, maybe you aren't going to replace your usual stable, but maybe you'll have a different approach once you see things from another angle. And really, that's true for roleplaying online just like it's true with a therapist.

In contrast to my characters, of course, I do wind up personally investing myself in my columns, but you can still tell me whatever you think via mail to eliot@massively.com or just leaving a comment down below. Next week? Let's look at romance yet again, but not the in-character kind.

Every Friday, Eliot Lefebvre fills a column up with excellent advice on investing money, writing award-winning novels, and being elected to public office. Then he removes all of that, and you're left with Storyboard, which focuses on roleplaying in MMOs. It won't help you get elected, but it will help you pretend you did.