I know a few other roleplayers are on this forum, so let me pose a few questions for anyone willing to answer them.Dracosong wrote:So, I do a fair bit of roleplaying. I have a Dungeons and Dragons session or two each week and I'm also involved in the rise of the Shadows RP on these forums. I don't do any real RP in-game in World of Warcraft, but most of my characters have some internal backstory and personality. It's just who I am, I like making my characters actual characters.
I bring this up because I've become aware of something during my D&D session last night. We have two new members to our game. They've only been playing the game for a short while with us now and they're pretty cool guys. They're also really enthusiastic about playing and are genuinely excited about the game. But more and more, I find I can't stand the characters they choose to play. I kinda hate myself for it in a way, because I know that they're having fun with it. Who am I to disagree with how they have fun?
So, what's wrong with these characters? Well, part of it is inexperience with roleplaying. These mates of mine don't really get into that whole aspect of the game as much as I do. They like combat and cool powers. And normally that's alright, D&D is kinda cool that way in that you don't necessarily have to roleplay. But at the same time, what little roleplay they do with this characters is, well, morally wrong. I hesitate to use the word evil, but someone else could easily say so.
Let me give an example from tonights game. I'm playing the groups healer: a Dragonborn Warlord. I haven't really fleshed her out much beyond a generic honourable soldier at this point. My companions are an indifferent Githzerai Seeker (think a hunter mixed with an elemental shaman), a ruthless Warforged Barbarian and a cruel Human Swordmage. We get asked to interigate a captured hobgoblin for information regarding an attack earlier in this village. Said hobgoblin is in stockades, all we have to do is get him to talk about why his band attacked the city and where they took the people they kidnapped. The first thing the Warforged and the Human do is result to torture. Mostly just punching and hitting the hobgoblin, but had the guards not been there they would have gone onto using weapons on the guy.
Needless to say, I was not very comfortable with this style of play and I did not have fun. In fact, I'm having a hard time coming up with reasons why my character should stick with these guys after we rescue the townsfolk. I know they're just having fun and exploring what they can and can't do in D&D. I shouldn't force them to play how I want them to. But I'm not having fun myself; I find myself not looking forward to our next gaming session because of this. I guess this brings up another point; why am I so uncomfortable with this?
And I suppose the answer to that is because I put a little of myself into each character I make, and I use those characters to explore my own morals and emotions. Out of a great deal of characters I have created and played over the years, only a handful have truely been evil. Hell, even most of the "evil" characters I play in the Pokemon RP have sme sort of value that I can sympathise with. Seventeen is a savage and remorseless killer, driven by instinct. But she also has a fierce loyaly to Scarab and her pack, although it doesn't show all that often. Venin, an otherwise sociopathic monster, has a profound love for her own freedom. Gamin is a lonely soul who follows Seventeen because she's the only one who actually thought he was worth a crap. Even Insins, an amoral scientist who uses pokemon to further his scientific experiments, doesn't hurt others just to be an evil scientist. He does it for scientific curiosity, to learn what happens and why, to further the collective knowledge of mankind.
The only character that I've played recently that is well and truely evil is a D&D character named Shader. She's a defiler mage, which means she draws magic from living things around her in order to cast her spells. Her ultimate goal is to become a dragon-king, the ultimate personification of defiling magic. And, surprise, I find I do not enjoy playing her as much as I thought I would. My intentions on creating her were just to play as a defiling dragon. Because an uber powerful magic dragon kicking arse and taking names sounds fun right? I also thought it would be fun exploring my own dark side, just how far I was willing to go. Apparently, it's not very far.
I just really feel uncomfortable playing morally "evil" characters. This is something that extends beyond the RP table and into video games as well. For example, in Dragon Age and Mass Effect, you have the option of going a ruthless character should you want. In fact, you're rewarded for doing so with achievements. But I have never been able to really play an evil character. It just feels wrong to me, my sense of morality rebels against it. This is to even in a game like Fable, where ultimately the choices you make have little consequence other than what you look like and what some NPCs shout at you.
Why do you roleplay?
How do you create your character's personality?
Do you feel comfortable playing an all-out "evil" character, or working closely with someone who does?
If you do enjoy playing an "evil" character, why?
And what do you do when you feel uncomfortable with a situation that crops up in a RP?