Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site reed.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!qantel!hplabs!tektronix!reed!shigeta From: shigeta@reed.UUCP (Ron Shigeta) Newsgroups: net.games.frp Subject: Re: Generic vs. Personal Scenarios Message-ID: <2320@reed.UUCP> Date: Sat, 11-Jan-86 06:33:12 EST Article-I.D.: reed.2320 Posted: Sat Jan 11 06:33:12 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jan-86 04:48:23 EST References: <688@ihlts.UUCP> <369@mcc-db2.UUCP> <741@watmath.UUCP> Reply-To: shigeta@reed.UUCP (Ron Shigeta) Distribution: Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon Lines: 30 Sender:Ron shigeta I for one would like to say that I had many characters which were deeply personal as opposed to genereic, but for me and my gaming group, there is never enough time together to play a personality to a fleshy satisfaction. (I think my freinds and I might be a little slow on the charcter development( We have never been afraid to die - actually I will say - we have never been afraid to KILL those too stubborn to live, or even those who merely happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time-that's the game to me. Of course this leads to problems. The last time I played, the party was looking out over an eighteen inch ledge into oblivion while around eighty soldiers and three very mean looking guys with red robes thought about what they could drop on us through their sparking blue wall of weirdo energy. With me was a dwarf (with eighteen henchmen). I ended up teleporting to the top of the cliff, killing 20 men with some horrible magic, with one other fellow, a thief who did as well as I. There were almost thrity peolple- including non-player characters- in the party! They were all so scared of dying that they refused a confrontation! After seeing all my effort go to waste (there was a troop of 500 outiside the tunnel) I went over to the other side with a couple of price- less artifacts which could have unified the men and the elves of the western world. For all the chaotic screaming and shouting I would call that a typical incident of occasional roleplayers taking out their stock personalities (not too divergeant from their own) and doing what comes natural. This opposed to taking a distinct and fleshed-out personality and playing it contrary to the instincts of your OWN personality or even contrary to the instincts of survival. If I had it all to do over again, I would surely enjoy a less deadly campaign where I could get some interesting characters with a history that I've played out myself, not just imagined in my head. But, this is a lot more work, and I doubt I'll ever have that much time again. This is, I feel the prime motive for so much generic playing. It's so much easier when it's a game you can tear down and set up like scrabble or something. Anyway, I hope you PERSONAL role players have the experiances you work for, they are the name of the role playing games.