Breakfast Topic: Is that you?
As is often the case with Breakfast Topics, I write about what interests me, asking commenters questions that I genuinely want to know the answers to. So it should be no surprise that I read the comments pretty religiously, and often they will spark ideas that lead to more Breakfast Topics. You've only yourselves to blame for being such interesting folk.
On a recent BT about gender in WoW, two commenters got my attention. Dez and Nagaina, thanks for replying! The parts that caught my eye from their comments were as follows:
Dez wrote: I know some players consider their toons to be extensions of themselves (1st-person narrative), but personally I see them more as other people whose adventures I am following (3rd-person narrative).
Nagaina wrote: I'm principally a roleplayer. When I create a character, I'm usually doing so for storyline related reasons not representing myself in game related ones.
I personally consider my characters to be extensions of myself. When I refer to them, mentally I'm thinking, "I'm over here," "I'm getting my face chewed off by a murloc," or "I'm going to get myself a kickass new cloak." When I'm talking in game, I do much the same.
The idea of the character as a third person fascinates me. I suppose it might be reflected in games like The Sims where you control the life of a character in a different way or maybe in FPS games where you're controlling a character with a predefined story. Or perhaps it's something that is a big part of roleplaying, creating a story for a character that is (maybe by definition) not your own story. I freely admit to knowing barely anything about roleplaying, so of course there is the strong possibility that all that might be utter nonsense!
What do you think? Are your characters extensions of yourself? Are you representing yourself in game? Or, like Dez and Nagaina, are you following a third person? And why?
