How To Work a Plotline 5: When your character isn't fun anymore

Traceroo

Traceroo

Rogue
This is a series of posts designed to help you "get into plot" and be as involved as you want to be. To kick off the new plot year with this installment of How To Work a Plotline, I’d like to address what happens when your chewing gum has lost its flavor – in other words, what do you do when your character is no longer fun to play?

Good roleplayers may often feel like their character is a unique, living being, a real person who lives in another world. Good roleplayers may feel like this character decides for themselves who they are, how they react, what is part of that character’s central identity.

There’s a lot of good in that in-depth style of play… until that character makes a personality choice that makes the play no longer fun for you as a player.
  • Does your character dislike the PCs whose company is fun for you?
  • Does your character bring out an aspect of your real personality that you don’t like?
  • Is this character tortured, sad, or damaged in a way that’s draining to play?
  • Are you saying No to fun-sounding plots because “that’s what your character would do?”
  • Does this character follow a path through plot that isn’t fun for you?
  • Did you make a choice at character creation that you wouldn’t repeat now that you know the game better?
  • Does this character hold values or beliefs that stand in the way of your fun?
You get the idea. There are lots of situations which might mean that a once fun character, who is still perhaps much beloved by you, might lead you as a player through a path that just makes the game not very much fun for you as that character.

You need to know: You’re not the only player who might feel this way. Lots of players end up in the same boat – even me! I’ve been at a real impasse with playing Dame Katherine in particular; after awhile, it just wasn’t fun for me. I really get you here. You’re not the only one to ever get painted into a corner by their own roleplay choices.


Saying No to Fun-Sounding Plots
This one is going to get its own entry eventually, but ask yourself: What’s worth more to you: Your character’s resistance to getting involved, or the chance for you as a player to have fun? You made that character choice based on assumptions about how the world works – now it seems like the world works in a much more fun way! Your character can change policy, can change their mind. Don’t talk yourself out of cool plot!


Team Daedalus wants you to know this:
  • Real people change; characters can change, too.
  • Your character can change.
  • You can change your character.
  • Your character’s personality, beliefs, values, habits, and opinions are just as changeable as yours are in real life.
  • You are the master of this character experience.
  • You’re not locked into the decisions you made once, under different circumstances.
  • It’s totally valid to steer things about your character experience in favor of your own fun.
  • If it’s not fun for you, quit doing that!
  • The Plot Team is here to help you.

Here is the roadmap to this improvement:
  • Figure out which parts of the character experience are not fun for you – Don’t edit, don’t justify, don’t get bogged down in details. Just freeform make a list. Brainstorm.
  • If you don’t like those aspects, what would you enjoy instead?
  • Does it make sense for your character to make a conscious choice to change to get out of the bad thing, and into the good thing?
  • Can a change in character goals get you back to fun?
  • Would it help you if you talk to other players in the good thing, and ask for their help to get your character there? Can you ask IC? Can you negotiate OOC?
  • Can the Plot Team help get you there?

What’s in your control?
Your character is in your own control – not the character in control of your fun.

Be honest with yourself about what’s really in your power, as a player, to change. If you find yourself saying, “I can’t do that, it wouldn’t make any sense for my character!” remember that you are the sole arbiter of what allegedly makes sense and what doesn’t. You designed this character, and you can modify that design.

If you find yourself thinking that other elements need to change: the plot needs to be run differently, other PCs need to change their actions, that team needs to do something different in order for you to have fun – please reconsider this question: What can YOU do to make this more fun? What is solely within your control to improve this situation?

Do that thing.
That’s the thing you should do!


How the Plot Team can help
  • We’re always available to talk about your character path with you. We have the god’s eye view; we may see opportunities or paths to change that you don’t see. Ask us; we’ll talk it out.
  • We might recognize more of what’s in your control than you realize; we can help you discover those resources.
  • May we write you a BGA experience that might be the inspiration your character needs to change to something more positive?
  • Can we keep your character in mind for certain scenes, encounters, or experiences in the game that might be helpful to get your character from Point A to Point B?
Let me be clear about what you should not expect: Although we value your fun, and we want to write cool things for every character’s journey… We can’t do this for every character in the game all at once. Plot has the whole game to look out for, and that includes making the game fun for our hard-working NPCs, too. We do not make this offer for “plot on demand” to write a starring role in a big plot for you just because your character experience is kind of a bummer right now. But if there’s something that we can do to help you out, we will. We’re really quite loving people even if we curse a lot and occasionally kill statistically significant portions of New Acarthia.

Take responsibility to change what you can on your own.
Come talk to Plot about the rest.


But… I HATE steering!
What if zero I have written above applies to you because your dedication to consistent character roleplay, and artistic integrity makes you loathe the mere concept of steering your character OOG like I describe? What do you do then?
  • Play a second character for awhile.
  • Take a break.
  • Come NPC full-time for one event – we’d love the help, you get fat loot in rewards, you keep in touch with your friends, and gain some fresh perspective.
  • Take a BGA to send your character on vacation, maybe they need IG stress relief!
Very genuinely, I encourage you, however, ask yourself: Is it time for steering OOG, too? If you’re not having fun, maybe it’s time to consciously reconsider which brings you more joy: your commitment to character integrity by not steering – or the chance to have more fun at events, starting now. Your play style is valid if it’s making you happy. If it’s not, you always have the option to change your mind, change your style whenever you like. (And please remind me of this when I go back to PCing eventually and complain that I’m not having a fun playing a whitebelt – my advice applies to me, too!)


New gaming season = new opportunity!
With the 2018 Season Opener on the way, this is a great time to consider some positive changes to your character.
  • Can you get into more of the encounter types you like?
  • Can you get to the level of involvement you want?
  • Are there friends you’d like to hang out with more?
  • New people you want to meet and get to know better?
  • Might your character have some new goals?
  • Does your character wish for self-improvement within their own inner monologue?
  • What is in YOUR control to improve?

As always, seek out the Plot Team if we can help you at all, we’re always willing!

Love & Kisses,
Auntie Trace
Team Daedalus
2018 Acarthia Plot Team


(This thing stopped letting me link for some reason.)
 
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