roleplay-related musing

[taimatsu]

Best skip this if you aren't a Camarilla UK roleplayer. Probably boring.

So, good characters should have goals, right? I mean, real people mostly have some kind of goals, or worry a lot about their lack.

I'm not even going to start worrying about my changeling character, because I haven't sorted out her background properly. However, my Mage does have some background, but she has no goals! I mean, possibly she aims to actually get her degree, but that's a mundane concern and pretty unimportant besides the worries that the Technocracy might come and get her any minute, the strange things haunting her dreams might turn out to have some existence outside her head, and life as she knows it might at any moment take a lurch into nightmare. There's also the low-key 'find a girlfriend' project. But of those major game-related issues in the middle, there isn't one she can actually do anything about. She is a ludicrously under-powered character and rarely uses any of the limited skills she has. Because of her uncertain status as an outsider in the Traditions system, she doesn't see an obvious future for herself, or a role she might fill when she's learnt more (leaving aside the OOC knowledge that the chronicle will be ending sometime soon). She just had these weird powers kind of fall on her head two years ago, and hasn't worked out what to do about it. She's not included in any organised plan anyone might have to Combat Evil, and nothing else seems very important.

Ideas welcome.

Comments

[aardnebby.livejournal.com]

ok, one thing I thought was important to Claire was those little church communities? Perhaps consider putting work into making their lot a better one, and protecting them from interference from outside?

Oftain a "territory" helps make a character more part of the game, especially at a local leve.

[nevecat.livejournal.com]

Characters are meant to have goals? *grins*

Hrm....well, I suppose mine *do*, but they're often among the lines of 'stay alive, get stuff done' rather than looking further than that, because of the hand-to-mouth nature of survival in the WOD at times ;)

[taimatsu]

Stay alive, get stuff done, is about the shape of it, but what stuff? Clare can't do anything to attack anything, no matter how small, and doesn't know what else might be useful.

[omentide.livejournal.com]

I do find it particularly difficult in Mage. Which is why I don't play very often.

Most characters seem to spend their social time arguing about issues which don't mean much to me or to my character. It seems to dig way back into the chronicle's history and I find little motivation to do the necessary research (and Becky, my character cares for intra-Mage politics even less than I do).

I did very nearly find a way 'in', but all the characters Becky had made friends with died. I think perhaps she's gone back to Goa or some other hippy haven. I just can't see her interacting in the current climate.

Oddly, despite what many say, I find C/A much easier. Mere survival is sufficient motivation.

[bringeroflight.livejournal.com]

Yves may have some suggestions in the near future. :)

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

real people mostly have some kind of goals, or worry a lot about their lack

More often the latter, I would have thought. It occurs to me that perhaps the clearly defined goals of role-playing provide one of its interests as against real life. What this says about your own problem, though, I do not know.

[taimatsu]

True, the campaign does have a shape and defined scope that RL doesn't have, but I think most people do have a concept of what they'd like their life to look like in the future, which can be developed into some long-term goals.

I mean, I don't know what I want to do in career terms, but I have an idea of what kind of salary is appropriate, where I might want to live eventually, what qualifications I want to gain and an idea of how...

It's a quite different task to develop goals in a roleplay campaign with Forces of Evil attacking your character every few weeks. You can't plan long-term, and even short-term planning seems too much as one feels one ought to be doing something right away. Out of character I know there's no point planning anything for my character beyond the end of the year as this incarnation of the game is ending. In character, though, that's not the case, and it all gets quite complicated.

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Several people have said to me that the question "Where do you see yourself in three years time?" is a very tricky one to answer.

You can't plan long-term, and even short-term planning seems too much as one feels one ought to be doing something right away

Sounds like me!