thread: 2006-01-24 : Still More Character Ownership
On 2006-01-25, anon. wrote:
I don't know... I was watching a program on Korean cinema last night, and this whole thing reminds me of the plot of "Samaritan Girl."
To try to do this without getting spoily... The film pulls the rug from under you a couple of times as to who the protagonist is. Sometimes by killing the person you thought was the protagonist. As far as I can tell, it rocks on toast, so why are we so worried about the same damn thing in RPG's?
Well, the reason is in two words: "MY GUY". And we end up acting like Hoffman on the set of Marathon Man, when he argued that "his guy" would act like more of a tough man than the script and director were demanding.
Sure, you've spent a lot of time and effort creating and establishing your guy, but if we're playing an honest game where the character is a tool for play, and not vice versa, then sometimes they may not be who the game is about.
In fact, the game is never about the characters, it's about the players.
This makes TB go "hmmm...."
But the story is about the characters. I haven't seen that film, but I'd still feel short changed if this happened in Spiderman 3. Did you develop enough attachment to a protagonist that their pointless random death felt empty? If their death had meaning in the story, that isn't an example of random death.
This makes VAX go ""Honest Game"?"
This makes VAX go "It's both."
The character is a tool for manipulating the story, and the story manipulates the players, and the players manipulate their character.
