From the article archive
Expanding an Idea: In or Out of Characer?
Mark’s latest article Wait reminded me a lot of my old Choose not to Choose article. Mark, of course came up with a different line of thinking than I had, further proving that it’s almost impossible to exhaust an idea.
In Wait Mark tells us that there are often multiple ideas and ways that a particular issue or situation can be overcome, and that occasionally we can get bogged down with the “what ifs.” That got me to thinking about how solutions to such situations come about in our games, leading me to realize that many are developed out of character but yet implemented in character.
Let’s say your party is trying to find a way across a deep chasm in a dungeon. Everyone wants to find the answer that accomplishes a goal and yet gets them through without a scratch (or at least minimal damage). These situations are often where we break from our character’s persona. As we brainstorm the options before us, we focus on finding a way to win or beat the situation, coming up with answers and ideas that are more of what the player would do or know than what the character would.
This is actually an old complaint that most of us have heard before. It usually crops up when a player has a barbarian with a three intelligence score who suddenly comes up with a system for crossing a room of spikes and pit traps so complex that it would confuse a mechanical engineer. Technically, the character could never have thought of such a solution as he’s just not smart enough – however the game group accepts the solution and moves on. Some gamers hate this as they feel it breaks from the “I’m in a real world” feeling that they want to achieve. Others don’t mind it at all, and would hardly even notice it if you didn’t point it out to them.
One of the reasons I think that players don’t mind out of character problem solving too much is that any solution that saves the PC’s bacon and keeps the game moving along is considered good. Same goes for GMs. If the PCs are able to conquer and move on that’s good. Most GMs don’t want the players stuck at a trap, riddle or other encounter for too long. We have a pace we like to keep in our games and if we can further it along with some out of character answers, that’s something we’ll accept.
Me, I’m rather torn on the whole issue. While I think it’s normally more fun for everyone to have their character perform actions and come up with ideas based on that character’s intelligence and knowledge skills, it doesn’t always work out in game. Sometimes it’s more rewarding to the players to be allowed to implement a great idea they have even if it’s out of character.
As I’ve said quite often in my articles, RPGs are all about having fun. And if your group is having fun by having players add in non-character knowledge to accomplish goals, that’s fine. The only thing you have to do as a group is to be consistent. If you allow the dumb barbarian to come up with a steam powered door opener one time you can’t disallow a similar feat the next time with the “Your character isn’t smart enough” argument. One of the things I do is to set ground rules at the beginning of each scene to basically tell the players what I’ll let them get away with.
If I don’t mind that they use out of character knowledge in a certain case, I allow it to happen but generate an in character reason for it. “While you’re thief hasn’t actually seen this type of pulley system used before, he has luckily heard enough about it over the years that he’s able to get it working.”
When a player comes up with an idea that is out of character and I don’t want them to use out of character knowledge I respond with something like “While your fighter can come up with that idea, he just doesn’t have the knowledge of how to implement it.” Or perhaps “As a librarian you’ve heard of disarming tomb traps like this, but you really don’t have the skills to do it.”
I try and tie any rejections I give them with a reason based on their character’s abilities or knowledge skills. As I’ve learned in Why Did That Happen? flat rejection is bad, but if you can tie it into the character, it’s much more acceptable to the players.
Again be consistent. If the players know that you’ll use these clues to tell them when they can “cheat” and use out of character knowledge, they’ll be more willing to role-play out the in character solutions when you want them to.
That’s all from me for now. See you in the forums!
In Wait Mark tells us that there are often multiple ideas and ways that a particular issue or situation can be overcome, and that occasionally we can get bogged down with the “what ifs.” That got me to thinking about how solutions to such situations come about in our games, leading me to realize that many are developed out of character but yet implemented in character.
Let’s say your party is trying to find a way across a deep chasm in a dungeon. Everyone wants to find the answer that accomplishes a goal and yet gets them through without a scratch (or at least minimal damage). These situations are often where we break from our character’s persona. As we brainstorm the options before us, we focus on finding a way to win or beat the situation, coming up with answers and ideas that are more of what the player would do or know than what the character would.
This is actually an old complaint that most of us have heard before. It usually crops up when a player has a barbarian with a three intelligence score who suddenly comes up with a system for crossing a room of spikes and pit traps so complex that it would confuse a mechanical engineer. Technically, the character could never have thought of such a solution as he’s just not smart enough – however the game group accepts the solution and moves on. Some gamers hate this as they feel it breaks from the “I’m in a real world” feeling that they want to achieve. Others don’t mind it at all, and would hardly even notice it if you didn’t point it out to them.
One of the reasons I think that players don’t mind out of character problem solving too much is that any solution that saves the PC’s bacon and keeps the game moving along is considered good. Same goes for GMs. If the PCs are able to conquer and move on that’s good. Most GMs don’t want the players stuck at a trap, riddle or other encounter for too long. We have a pace we like to keep in our games and if we can further it along with some out of character answers, that’s something we’ll accept.
Me, I’m rather torn on the whole issue. While I think it’s normally more fun for everyone to have their character perform actions and come up with ideas based on that character’s intelligence and knowledge skills, it doesn’t always work out in game. Sometimes it’s more rewarding to the players to be allowed to implement a great idea they have even if it’s out of character.
As I’ve said quite often in my articles, RPGs are all about having fun. And if your group is having fun by having players add in non-character knowledge to accomplish goals, that’s fine. The only thing you have to do as a group is to be consistent. If you allow the dumb barbarian to come up with a steam powered door opener one time you can’t disallow a similar feat the next time with the “Your character isn’t smart enough” argument. One of the things I do is to set ground rules at the beginning of each scene to basically tell the players what I’ll let them get away with.
If I don’t mind that they use out of character knowledge in a certain case, I allow it to happen but generate an in character reason for it. “While you’re thief hasn’t actually seen this type of pulley system used before, he has luckily heard enough about it over the years that he’s able to get it working.”
When a player comes up with an idea that is out of character and I don’t want them to use out of character knowledge I respond with something like “While your fighter can come up with that idea, he just doesn’t have the knowledge of how to implement it.” Or perhaps “As a librarian you’ve heard of disarming tomb traps like this, but you really don’t have the skills to do it.”
I try and tie any rejections I give them with a reason based on their character’s abilities or knowledge skills. As I’ve learned in Why Did That Happen? flat rejection is bad, but if you can tie it into the character, it’s much more acceptable to the players.
Again be consistent. If the players know that you’ll use these clues to tell them when they can “cheat” and use out of character knowledge, they’ll be more willing to role-play out the in character solutions when you want them to.
That’s all from me for now. See you in the forums!
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