I'd like to leave this as an open question, relating to my last post.
I'm of the opinion that humans don't have a choice about the sexual orientation, their physical reaction to drugs or alcohol, and certainly not the number of brothers and sisters they have, or the backgrounds of their parents. These are things we're given and forced to accept about ourselves; and it is on that premise that my character background generator is based. NO, you can't make up a story in which your father was killed by a fellow who is now king and you're plotting revenge. Your father being alive or dead at the time you start your character isn't up to you; nor is the behaviour of any NPC in the game world. If you have a problem with your father being alive, you'll have to take that up IN GAME, in the manner that suits you.
This said ...
Should a player character be allowed to decide their favourite colour?
This is a funny one.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, there's literally no good reason not to roll for it.
On the other, my mental fantasy for my character has a pretty specific vision, a specific color scheme.
But like, so? Is it really that big a deal if Pan thinks orange looks good, and I think it's never made anything look good ever? Obviously not!
The question will always boil down to the one concern that actually means something: can you make it meaningful to the game at hand, and if so, I think virtually anything is justified.
Orange makes an orange look good.
ReplyDeleteThe DM has full and fair control of the game world. Player have full control of their characters, within the physical rules laid by the DM. As a consequence, characters should not have any background with significant impact on the world, except when specifically required by the system (being a dwarf in a human city, or a female among male warriors needs to be adressed by the DM) - and reciprocally, players are free to assign any psychological trait they wish to their character, provided they respect the alignment initially chosen, or imposed upon them.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, I personnally think that for most players, it is a bad idea to state right from the start that their character has such and such preference and disgust, since it already proves difficult to maintain proper roleplay with conditions that appear during the game (mind-altering spells, wounds, etc), and even more difficult to assume for a long time a personnality too different from their real one.
So my answer is : the DM should allow it, but only after he has made sure that the player is able to stick to what he/she has stated in all roleplaying situations, AND only if he thinks that it won't be annoying for the rest of the table in the long run.
In the past, I have accepted elf-friendly dwarves characters, food-obsessed magicians, and overly optimistic thieves. Hard no on characters decribed as raging nymphomaniacs, always speaking in verse or terrorized by the colour green.
Pandred said, "On the one hand, there's literally no good reason not to roll for it."
ReplyDeleteI agree. But, I can think of literally no good reason to roll for it either, unless there are some sort of sumptuary thought police in your campaign, what effect will it have?
Random rolls for ability scores force you into certain game-relevant decisions about your character, and guide and constrain play. Random rolls about family background force you into different types of game relevant decisions in game. These may or may not constrain play, based on the type of campaign. Favorite color? I can't think of any situation (aside from the above mentioned thought police type situation) where it might make a difference if my PC likes brown more or less than blue.
If you can think of some, I'd love to hear them.
I think there's a point at which the game world deciding your character ceases to have a meaningful effect. No, you shouldn't be able to choose your dad and his circumstances, or your craving. These things can cause things to happen (like you said about travelling to find what you crave). I think liking the colour orange would only have this effect if the character was a sociopath, or if they belonged to a religious group who held the colour to be holy/unholy. I'll bet there are other ways it might contribute to the game world but I can't think of them offhand.
ReplyDeleteA lot of these responses I can't help but feel either didn't read the last post, or are suffering from a certain lack of vision.
ReplyDeleteAs of right now, your favorite anything in game has precisely zero effect. There's no reason to care about it at all.
This post is in the context of potentially changing that. Alexis has information about dyes in his system, let's say he can drill down on a dozen or so different colors, just for arguments sake.
With that information, your favorite color scarf could cost more, or cost less. If other effects were tied to those colors, like Purple being perceived by others as a higher-status color to wear, then having a favorite color that conferred that status could be really beneficial.
What if your uniform was your favorite color? What if it was your henchman or hirelings favorite, and they wore it with just a little extra pride: that's a neat idea.
It's precisely why I'd be willing to justify rolling for literally any aspect of a character if it could be made meaningful in the context of the game world.
Yes, first and foremost, some dyes cost more than others; and in some places in my world, a given colour isn't available. Many obscure places don't have access to any dyestuffs, because they are too far from civilisation. Dye was a very rare and expensive thing in the 17th century; not everyone enjoyed it's benefits. In fact, dyestuffs did not become a middle class thing until the 19th century, and wasn't universal until the 20th.
ReplyDeleteAs Pandred notes, for many people, the colour orange is awful. But consider the natural colour of cloth, especially in light of virtually everyone wearing that colour. For any adventurer, it was a tremendous source of pride to "wear one's colours" ... because COLOUR was indeed startling when worn by anyone. Colour indicated at a glance that you had the money to pay for colour; just as an heraldic symbol proved you possessed the means to have that symbol made and assigned to your armour or banner. These were examples of early conspicuous consumption; and as a commoner, you did not lightly insult someone with the means to wear a symbol that might cost as much money as you would make in a year, or 10 years.
So consider your aspirations as a player character; here you are, 1st level, in drab, drab clothes, wishing you had the money to buy pretty things. That goes for the men as well as the women, as being a peacock male was a HUGE part of social status. You can't afford pretty things, however ... and in no way does the GAME as written give a good gawddamn if you can or not. You get absolutely no benefit whatsoever from pouring a bunch of money into pretty clothes, jewelry, embossed swords, heraldic symbols or anything else, because these things aren't seen as TANGIBLE or MEANINGFUL elements of game play.
Well, why not? If you were forced to wear the same clothes as every neighbour on your street, every day, all day, while SOME people around your town or city could dress as they pleased, would you feel "meh"? No, you would not--as evidenced by the reaction you have when you show off your new $230 shoes, swag jacket, $35,000 Piaget watch or whatever you can afford. Why spend such money for things unless there's a material emotional effect on your self-identity and positivity?
I agree with the colour-specific status element of it, but really? If my favourite colour was purple but I needed to wear orange to get an audience with the local dignitary, I'd wear orange. I'm not saying he shouldn't use it, but this level of rolling, for me, doesn't hold a meaningful enough impact that I'd use it.
ReplyDeleteNow, ViP says that Players have full control of their characters, but do they? Do you have full control over yourself? If you have a loathing for clothes coloured orange, why? Did you choose to loathe orange things? Or were you predisposed to loathe them? Can you just "decide" one day you're going to like the colour orange? Are you likely to start forcing yourself to start wearing orange because you're making some point about your freedom of choice? Can you imagine explaining that life plan to a friend, or a family member? What would they think about that? What would you think if a friend pitched the idea as something they're doing, and something you should do also?
ReplyDeleteWe can argue that until you're dressed as you'd like to be dressed, or until you have the level of property that makes you feel entitled, that you're NOT HAPPY. The solution would obviously be that you should strive and work to get those things; and to wear the colour that you're predisposed to enjoy; and that until you do those things, or achieve certain standards of living, your personal contentment is a burden. We could establish, in game terms, a -5% penalty on all experience gained until a certain standard of wealth was obtained. This standard wouldn't, therefore, be based on your level. It would be based on your willingness to forgo practical purchases that make your character better armed and protected in favour of material objects that have formerly had no concrete value to the game's rules. We could set the standard of wealth as very high: perhaps the acquisition of 10,000 gold pieces worth in property and personal gear; and say that at least 1,000 g.p. must be WORN at all times to maintain that personal standard. And we could say that because you love the colour blue, a colour you don't choose, it means you can't achieve that standard with emeralds or diamonds, garnets or amythysts, but that you would probably have to achieve it with sapphires.
This would create the same problems as obtaining your Craving, as sapphires, or any particular gemstone (again, a prediliction you have which you haven't any control over), isn't universally available. At least, not in my trade system.
Food for thought.
Orwellian,
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you would treat the colours purple/orange with pure pragmatism and feel nothing as a game character indicates a HOLE in the game ... because people actually do care. And ought to feel "dirty" having to compromise themselves in the fashion you just described.
But you're suggesting using a -5% penalty or +5% bonus to experience for wearing your favourite colour or not. Surely then it's a pragmatic decision to wear your favourite colour until the fact you won't get an audience with so-and-so makes it less pragmatic. I tend to build poorer, less materialistic characters. You have me thinking, though, I may have to start paying more attention to fitting in during my travels.
ReplyDeleteYes, the player should get to choose. What you describe in you character generator are things that are outside the character's ability to choose, past-facing if you will. If the character becomes defined by their actions on adventures after the game begins, color preference could be one of those things. It seems more future-facing to me.
ReplyDeleteIf preferred color is outside the character's / player's choice, what character preferences would unquestionably be in the player's purview?
I did not suggest a -5/+5% adjustment ONLY for wearing your colour. I did suggest that if you were going to do it right, your colour would definitely figure in the concept--as it would in real life, without your thinking that's a bad thing, and certainly you wouldn't consider it "pragmatic." You'd WANT to wear your favourite colour. The game feature must exist because players don't care about things like colour, although of course their characters definitely would.
ReplyDeleteBaron Opal,
ReplyDeleteClearly you haven't read the comments. Please tell me the story of how you as a child decided what your favourite colour was, weighing as you did the other colours, without it in any way being a predisposition of some kind.
Okay, what character preferences are in the player's purview? I would argue on one level, none. We are the people we are when we play the game. We are predisposed to everything we do. So, perhaps, we might argue that the player has to use their own favourite colour for all their characters, just as they will ultimately use their own prejudices and experiences in deciding how their character will act.
As a red head, I can honestly say there is a huge palette of colors I do not wear due to their unsettling lack of contrast to my appearance.
ReplyDeleteTherefore I can totally understand the 'loathe to wear the colors' and also predict a loathe to see me in those colors, though perhaps not so strongly of course.
I think the line really gets drawn on rolling everything out at where it stops contributing to the game as much as the effort to maintain it.
Obviously since you use a character generator, you can easily throw in a favorite color chooser. (maybe even with weights based off of born appearance?)
Beyond that is the documents it's tracked in, the mental memory it consumes to keep it in mind. Not a lot for one piece, not a lot if its the only game you're in, not a lot in a lot of ways, but it does add up. Because if you add 50 of these, eventually the player loses track, and the DM may not care to track, and at some point it's just vestigial.
I'm currently running 1 game, and playing in 4-5. Before each session I set aside 10-15 minutes to get reacquainted to my character. In this specific context, I feel like I would lose a lot of that rolled info. Maybe it would be less problematic as I would only reference color periodically, such as when buying things, or a color comes up in the description.
But at some point I think there's a line. A line that shifts based on your general player base. And maybe it levels up over time as people step up, get more involved, maybe memorize the first block of information and are ready to memorize the next block.
What if, instead, once the players are suddenly allowed the option of choice suddenly they realize they have preferences? After gaining a certain amount of... experience in the world they learn they like some parts more than others? I'm not sure if that's just downscaling the game to appeal to the dumber audience, but in a medieval world where there aren't shopping malls with even a plethora of choices for a low income consumer maybe they never had the inkling that they could have a preference...
I dunno, it also just seems like it might help ease the player in, and maybe pluck some of the effort out of early 'likely to die' characters. Possibly you 'unlock' the benefit of colors and who knows what else. There are a lot of people that learn quite a bit about themselves after leaving home for the first time. I know I did.
Oh also, the point at which I decided my favorite color (a very specific purple residing between a true purple and a red purple) was while mixing colors in college.
ReplyDeletePrior to that I though black was edgy, and of course red and green were cool like the ninja turtles. Very cartoon colors inspiring me.
I don't care for red nearly as much anymore, referencing clothes plus hair.
Forest for the trees, guys.
ReplyDeleteThe character is a vessel which exists in the context of the game world, which to at least a minimal degree is meant to model the real world.
We can't feel the PCs injury, so they have HP. We can't experience their body, so we have stats to model it. We can't know what it is to live directly in their social order, so we can model that social order.
This would again be a way of modeling something that the current game does not allow or account for: the contentment of an ordered and precious possession. My favorite blue scarf. The emerald brooch my mother left to me in her will. The blade with the inscription "For a True Hero".
We don't choose our stats. We don't choose our hair or skin. We don't choose our predeliction for alcohol. We don't choose our fathers or mothers. Pretty much the only things we choose for certain are our race and class, the second subject to stat modifiers, but it should be understood that this is largely because it is convenient, not because it is sacrosanct. First we establish ownership of the PC, then we learn to love what is good in them and what is flawed.
In the same vein, there's no particular reason our characters minds should in any way be subject to the same tastes we have. I have never had a drink in my life, and don't plan to (it's killed a lot of men and women in my family tree), but I wouldn't object to playing a character who suffered that addiction, nor to imbibing in a fictitious world in the context of the social custom: I.E., to avoid being rude to the host.
If we can model the experience of being alive in the fantasy world, then to me there is precious little reason not to do it. If the model we are creating is one which is about what it feels like to be a person who is not you, but who you are responsible for controlling: a player character, then I do not object to that model handing me a result to play with, rather than choosing it directly.
I hate orange, I don't think there's any good argument for my character hating orange too.
Oddbit those are solid observations.
ReplyDeleteAlso, 6 different games? If even half of them are with good DMs/Players I envy you.
Pandred, I agree such systems are good and worth developing for the reasons you've listed there. Where we vary on opinion is how far we'd go down that rabbit hole. I'm not a dedicated player or DM by any measure. I find my fun with less to track, a simpler game. As much as I enjoyed reading the online campaign I don't think I'd ever ask to play in it. You'll know I mean no disrespect there, Alexis, I trust.
ReplyDelete@Pandred
ReplyDeleteGood is subjective.
None are assholes.
We've filtered those out.
Most have ADD when it comes to running a campaign.
The longest game run was 5 years, but that's an outlier. Most are closer to 1-2.
I'm still a newbie DM so I don't presume I offer high quality, but I must start somewhere.
Most games are every other week, the fifth is a sporadic start up for a few months and die.
No lie, I would make time for a game that was consistent with good players for an long stretch. But not everyone I play with is huge on the capability of, and playing in a proper sandbox.
I have one DM who is capable, but gets drained quickly.
I'm trying to run a, uh, sandbox with a box to get better at DMing (using 5e), which I hope to run long term, and the players seem game.
I'd rate the one DM around 8-9/10
The 5th group around 6-7, but they're good friends so I try and hang with them whenever possible (after ousting the old dm who was a 3-4 that is)
The rest are more the 7-8 range, passable, but not exceptional.
Oh, let me be clear. There is certainly a limit to how many goofy rules a DM can pile on top of a campaign; and how many rules players will accept, just as Oddbit points out. I'm writing a BLOG, so I'm interested in how far we can push that boundary. If you give me a database manager of some kind, a "D&D critbit" if you will, that will continually monitor the dialogue at a D&D table and automatically remind players of any bonuses or considerations that arise due to existing rules that are incorporated into the system, then I'm ready to shoot the moon, feature-wise. And hell, such a thing may be available in 5-10 years. Until then, I'm making proposals for the sake of defining rule-making systems and what CAN work, rather than worrying about exactly what I'll incorporate into my game.
ReplyDeleteRemember that idea I had where every item purchased by players would degrade with use until becoming unreliable and breaking? Yeah. Never used it. Doesn't mean I won't. But the main argument against it was that it would be too much detail to manage. That isn't actually a criticism of the FEATURE ... it's only a criticism of our management capacity. Which, I rush to point out, is going upwards every day ...
Many survival games use this feature already, as you're probably aware. Degradation through use. I think roll20 and the like are a step in the right direction to allow that kind of mechanic, but they're not quite there yet.
ReplyDeleteSeriously? Okay.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was five my parents had the opportunity to paint and wallpaper my room. They asked me "what's your favorite color? How would you like your room painted?" I thought about it as they put out some color tiles- a veritable rainbow.
I liked the bright yellows that reminded me of birds and dandelions. Red was interesting as it made my Dad's friend's hot rods look fast. But, red also reminded me of slaughter-time and the pools of spilled blood. Purple and indigo seemed mysterious and secretive, especially since I saw so few things that were those colors. Orange, not much orange in my life at that time. Blue evoked freedom looking up at the cloudless sky and the boundless travel of astronauts that I was so enamoured with at the time. But green, oh green, that is where my heart lie. The green of lawns that I ran and tumbled over, and the green of the trees that I came to love. The green of the deep forest that embraced me with cool shelter from the sun and where I always found a sense of peace.
Now, could I articulate that when I was five? Probably not, but I was a precocious child. But, yes, I know exactly why green is my favorite color.
Just speaking as...um...a human:
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger I had a favorite color. This lasted so long that to this day, if someone asks me, I might reply that is IS my favorite color. Certainly I own a lot of clothing that color.
Thing is, it’s NOT my favorite color now...hasn’t been for two decades or more. And I don’t wear it except as a change of pace. My favorite color is different...and it’s not even the color I prefer to wear (which is ALSO different from my prior “favorite” color).
How do you model the shifting of preference? How do you model the development of “acquired tastes” and a changing palette? Random all?
Eh.
JB,
ReplyDeleteSome algorithm for that could probably be devised.