Game WISH #60
Ginger’s question this week is
How do you use different frames of reference or mindsets in your games? In what ways do your characters or NPCs in games you GM think differently from the people around you? What sorts of things make them different (societal, mental, physical, etc.)? Do you feel that you?re successful in incorporating and showing the differences?
The way I tend to use mindsets–PC or NPC–in game can be summed up as follows: Everyone has their own personal mythology, with him/herself at the center of it. That means that everyone thinks differently from everyone else. Annika–about whom I was going on in the previous post–knows in her heart of hearts that she could have won Olympic gold in figure skating if she hadn’t gotten injured, causing her mother to fire her coach and forcing her to quit training. Whether or not she actually could have, objectively, is anyone’s guess. The point is, she believed it, felt utterly bereft by her mother’s betrayal (as she saw it), and spent the next five years in an undiagnosed depression. She is still driven to be the very best at something, which is why she’s utterly dedicated to her current job…which happens to be defending humanity from the alien menace. As a result, she’s very sensitive to criticism–constructive or not–and makes a immense effort to consistently improve her performance.
Nicky Finn (”an Irishman with a Reputation for Accomplishing Unsavoury Tasks on the Cheap”), in the Grand Ellipse, saw himself as a successful leader, helping “his people” get a little of their own back in a highly stratified and unequal society. Granted, it was in fact done by accomplishing unsavoury tasks on the cheap, but if the fancy are going to expect the worst of you no matter what you do, what’s to lose? (Objectively, he was an out-and-out violent felon who ran his gang mostly by threats and intimidation…but he didn’t see himself that way.)
More generally, I try to avoid modern attitudes in premodern settings–no “modern people in RenFaire get-up,” as Ginger so succinctly puts it. On the other hand, it’s important to remember that primitive/low-tech isn’t necessarily the same as stupid or unsophisticated. Different groups and societies have different priorities, and a character should reflect that.
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August 17th, 2003 at 9:41 pm
“On the other hand, it’s important to remember that primitive/low-tech isn’t necessarily the same as stupid or unsophisticated.”
I’m a medievalist by training, so this is one of my pet peeves. If I say any more than that, I’ll blow up your comments box, so I’ll leave it at “yes, yes, yes!”