D. Rex
Magic Eight Ball
Greetings everyone to my first installment of King Hink's Royal Rants and Ramblings! I am not the smartest, cleverest, or most experienced of my comrades here at RPN but I like to think that I have a talent for thinking nonetheless. Here, I shall nervously deliver to you my thoughts upon various subject matters that have or have not been addressed before. Why? Because I want to get you to think and I want to delve into matters and curiosities and look at them from different angles. I want to share with new roleplayers things that have helped me or things that I wish I had known back when I had first started. I want to offer views and suggestions and ramblings. I may not be much of a teacher, so I am hoping to learn as well.
This is the first of what I hope to be as many. This is also the first of such a thing I have put onto a forum, so please be merciful of your critique. You can slam my face into the rocks on my next one. I will get better as I go.
As for why the banner and name... Why not? I love me some theatricality. It's all in good fun.
Thank you @CloudyBlueDay for my banner
Good luck on Squire Corner!!!------------------------------------------------------------------
How many of you have made the resolution to exercise more this year? To hit the gym and real get yourself in shape? No way. Not me. I am perfectly happy relaxing during those rare times I am able to sit down at a computer for long periods of time. Luckily, fitness is not what I am here to lecture on today. I am here to propose a few exercises that are a bit more tailored to our interests. And don't worry, you can do all these from your comfy computer chair while you down yourself a nice cup of ice cold cola and procrastinate on doing any real work. Just like me.
Exercise! There I said it again, but let us talk the kind of exercise that I am suggesting. You are more than familiar with it, and you do it often, even without realizing. Creativity exercises. Much easier than sweating it out at the gym, and you get to flex that most important muscle required for roleplays.
Most of these are obvious, and perhaps even common practices to longtime players, but when I was starting out those many years ago, I wish I had someone around to tell me these few tricks of how I could make the most out of my games. Thankfully, every one of these is enjoyable, and by trying them you just might learn something new about roleplay and yourself by focusing one the main tool we have to play out our fantasies. Our characters. Just keep in mind that may vary, and I am not bashing anyone's ideals, instead I am offering things that have worked for me. Let's expand our mind, shall we? And be the best that we can be.
1. Play a character of a different gender. - Now for many of us, this is something we do often. When I started out gaming, I was guilty of only playing as males.... Well I was one, and didn't want to feel embarrassed by screwing up playing a female. A few years later I gave it a shot, well to be honest my character got turned into a female. It was not something I had planned, but I went with it, and it ended up being a very good transition into territory I had never really bothered to traverse into before.
My useless example aside, I have seen a number of people refuse to stray from certain genders. There is nothing at all wrong with this. And that is not what this exercise is attempting to change. Try it. Make a small part character, or an NPC. It will help you to become more comfortable with the other genders. Giving you an edge when it comes to playing whatever part you need to play. As a player, restricting yourself to certain avenues also restricts the fun that you will be able to have.
2. Have someone make a character for you, without any input from you, then play that character to the best of your abilities. Now this certainly sounds intimidating, after all, you didn't make that character so how are you supposed to know everything about it? Lol well your not. Doing this, will really help you learn how to adapt. Because you are basically jumping into the imagination of another player, a foreign realm! It may feel weird at first, and this is to be expected, but soon enough you will find that character will become your own. After all, this is a great way to see how characters truly grow. Growth and ownership isn't about the character sheet, that is just a summary. The interactions of that character determine everything, as does how you play that character. As you play, you will rub off onto the character and in time it may as well be as if it was yours from the beginning. Just don't forget to give credit to the person who made that awesome character for you.
3. Play a bad guy. Ooooh.... Yeah, here is a controversial one. Some GM's do not like you to be able to play a villain. Understandably so, but we will not be getting into that. This is a subject I will talk about in more length during another one of my rants.
Anyhow, playing a hero is all well and good, it is always fun to kick evil NPC butt. Though why does the story have to center on the good guys? The villains too have lives and trials. They too can progress and grow. They too have views and interactions with others of their kind in some sort of Henchman Anonymous meeting. Now when I am saying, play a bad guy, I am not meaning "The Big Boss", but instead a smaller part that will likely have you trying to counter the good guys at every turn that you are able. This is made even better when several people are playing bad guys with you. It can really make the world feel alive. More importantly will will give you better perspective of the confrontation that is really happening between the good and bad guys. Who doesn't like depth in a story?
This can also be intimidating, as sometimes players are worried that they don't have what it takes to be a bad guy. Or they might feel guilty when they are making a bad character do bad things. I understand how you feel. I truly do. You can learn some unsettling things about yourself, albeit valuable. Use what you learn here to make better and more believable heroes. Use what you learn from this exercise to take a step back and see the main feud in an entirely different light. And again, this is an exercise that will help you adapt and help you to fit into whatever role that you are called upon for.
4. Play a character that doesn't have your morals or personality. This can be a real challenge as people have a tendency to insert themselves into characters as if that character was them with super powers. Nothing wrong with this at all, I do it from time to time. But in RP you don't have to be you. And by playing roles that are not you, you get a crash course in what it is like to step into someone else's shoes. It can really push you to look at things from different angles and gain a new understanding of people in general. Helpful, no? An example of this is someone who normally plays overly kind character instead tries to play a grump. Or a hero type instead trying to play a backstabber. Or Mr. Serious to play a klutzy air head. Broaden your views, my friends! It will truly help. This exercise can also apply to people who generally play only one type of character. Again, nothing wrong with that.
Now I have only given four different exercises because I wanted to keep things simple and broad. And I also wanted to give my readers a chance to give some ideas of other exercises that players can do to expand their minds. What are some things that you all think are some good exercises to do to help expand the tools in our arsenal?
Good luck out there! And remember that the most important thing about our games is for us to have fun. That is what ultimately counts. So..... Have fun, everyone!
I am glad that I have given you something to work with. And you have brought another very valid exercise that I have completely neglected. I had made the assumption that it is typical to play characters like yourself, but of course that isn't always the case. Yes, playing a character like yourself, if that isn't what you are used to doing, would be very good way to flex those brain muscles! Who are we and why do we do what we do is a very noble question to find the answer to. What what better ways to find that question than to really look at yourself from the outside, meaning from the prospective of playing yourself. Jolly good!
). My favorite idea here isn't something you told us to try, but something you still encouraged. I think writing a cs for someone else would be a great exercise for everyone. Why? Because I see many roleplayers - both new and old - who writes CSs that don't quite explain the complete aspects for their character. Writing a cs for someone else who doesn't have an idea what kind of character you have in your mind forces you to be very descrptive with the personality and requires you to establish reason and character in their backstory. This sounds like a fantastic idea that I myself want to try.
