thread: 2005-05-20 : Things on Character Sheets
On 2005-05-20, Vincent wrote:
Sydney: "Sometimes the mechanical cues tell us stuff about the imagined character that we didn't know beforehand."
Put the creativity where it belongs. Thusly: sometimes the mechanical cues provoke us to create stuff about the imagined character that we hadn't created beforehand.
As long as you don't think of any of the mechanical cues as representing the fiction or vice versa, you're fine. Instead, recognize that the players can manipulate the cues according to what's in the fiction, they can manipulate the fiction according to what's in the cues, but representation isn't what's truly happening in either direction.
Jay: "The stuff you write down about your character tells the other players about what you want from the game. It tells of your expectations. It gives the others hooks to grab onto and knobs and levers to play with."
I consider all of these things to be, straightforwardly, player resources.
Player resources can be (and usually are) a hell of a lot more interesting and subtle than "you get 10 rerolls, no questions asked." No contradiction a'tall!
