thread: 2009-07-13 : How About Some Q and A
On 2009-07-17, Adam Dray wrote:
Bwian:
I guess you could say that the existence or non-existence of squirrels in The Deepdarkwood - even though no 'character' has ever entered The Deepdarkwood - still 'matters to a character' because some hypothetical character say - who had heard of the place might wonder about it sometimes ('I wonder if there are squirrels in The Deepdarkwood, mused Thorg Squirrelsbane as he drifted off to sleep.') ;i
It doesn't matter to a character that isn't being played. Imagine you can bring your character to life with a computer. It's really advanced artificial intelligence software. You ask it, "What are you thinking?" and it answers, "I am thinking about the squirrels of The Deepdarkwood!"
Turn off the computer. Now ask it what it is thinking. No answer. It is not thinking of squirrels or anything else.
Not-playing is like turning off the computer. The character "comes to life" only in the imagination of the player, and in a technical sense, only during play. I don't consider "lonely fun" imagining to be "play." (I also really like lonely-fun activities, so don't take me wrong there.) If you're riding the bus and imagining your character thinking about squirrels, you're really either making plans for play or playing with hypotheticals to better understand/develop your character. The squirrel-imagining didn't really happen, because there's no player group to affirm that it happened.
I suppose you could write on the character sheet, "squirrels matter to me," and expect it to be fact in the game later. Did you establish it right when you wrote it? Only as a plan. It isn't true till it comes into play and is affirmed by the group. See Vincent's thread on secrets.
