In article <eoj6bb$6h0$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Del Rio <delrio@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>Do you find that as a single player with multiple characters,
>that you select an "avatar character" which is "more yours"
>than the others? Or do you play it as a "group story", maybe
>not investing overly much in the experiences or successes of
>any individual character? Or do you switch attention somewhat
>evenly between the characters? Or does the focus ****ft
>according to the way the story is going? Or some combination
>(or none) of the above?
It's pretty fluid. There's frequently a focal character, but
if there's just one for a long period of time we regard this as a
sign of incipient failure and try to fix it. The other PCs won't
remain interesting even as foils for the focal PC if they don't
get significant development and spotlight time of their own.
Things like group debates about what to do next can be
"group story" with a minority of clear in-character stuff, but the
in-character bits are very im****tant. Last night's session
had a planning discussion: how were the PCs going to find someone
in town? Someone--I don't know who, which strongly suggests
not being in-character with any of them--suggested just asking
around after them, but noted that this plan was awfully direct
and obvious. The next line of dialog was:
"It wouldn't hurt us to do something honest and straightforward
from time to time. Otherwise we may forget how." In an icy
and not at all joking voice.
The GM didn't need to ask who said it: that was Charis, and it
was Charis in character despite appearing in the middle of a fairly
badly abstracted discussion. (Brought the discussion to a
screetching halt, too, in favor of the straightforward plan.)
I always regard it as something of a personal triumph if I don't
have to put name-tags on lines of dialog like that, especially
for the four characters whose voices are physically indistinguishable.
(Bryce's is lower and Tillie's is higher, but I lack the acting
ability to distinguish six. I've never had a party where we could
tell more than a couple of them apart by voice, as opposed to
what they were saying.)
We have a bunch of techniques specifically for arguments between two
PCs, meant to reduce the number of times the player has to switch
POV during the argument. The GM can do some very delicate things
if he knows the characters well and is sympatico with them. It
would not have been completely impossible for the line of dialog
above to have been inserted by the GM, for example, though he wouldn't
have spoken it with so much certainty (GM dialog for a PC is *always*
a suggestion and no more).
It is harder for me to be in character in combat, with the round-by-round
forced switching and the burden of mechanics. It's not impossible,
though. When Fritz came up the stairs and found Jules swooning
against the wall with the mind flayer standing over her, and realized
he had only once chance to act, and no spell that was certain to
work--well, that moment was why he finally told her (later) that he
was in love with her, which he'd been concealing for months.
It helped that I didn't need to know what Jules was thinking at the
time, since she was stunned....The ensuing conversation between them
certainly couldn't have happened in the midst of combat.
Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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