Journal Up For a Challenge?

[No Life King]

I just want to rant off a few things, I'm one of those who rarely gives up on a challenge, I try to push myself to get through it but some days I fall short. I noticed that less people my age, teenagers, aren't up for a challenge. I'm disappointed, half the class that went to my Japanese class dropped out because it was Japanese two. So it gets a little hard but the outcome is greater, one you can talk to someone who doesn't just speak english. Teenagers would rather be jackass than to get to know someone. That's a challenge in itself. My fellow classmate rather do have ass work than to actually do it. I failed some of my class because I truly didn't understand it.


Some day, more than often I find fellow role players comfortable in staying in their box, they rather have a character so much like them than something completely opposed of them. I miss when some one gave me a real challenge in role play, I mean I role played with people who actually pushed me to write more. They pushed me to try and give my character depth.


I don't want to get so wrapped up in this. Does anyone else feel like this?

 

[ghoti115]

I know this feeling. It seems like everyone, not just kids, want every experience to be an easy one. One of the things I have learned over the years it that the "easy" experiences aren't as satisfying as the "difficult" experiences in life. Whether it be a class, career, ownership (car, house, motorcycle, etc.), or life goals, I find that there is a greater chance for happiness at the outcome when what you are trying to accomplish is harder. This can even be true when you fail to accomplish the task as you (often, but not always) have the opportunity to try it again.


As for the RP aspect, I find that there are a few people I know who tend to play one type of character. Some tend to play the "myself with really cool powers" character, others just tend to play the same thing time and again ("I just like playing the [fill in archetype here]"), not to mention the ever hard to deal with "I don't know what my character would do", or worse yet the person who always has "a cool concept," but the concept never really fits into the game. This can be experienced from both a player standpoint and a GM standpoint. The player standpoint is pretty easy to work around if it is simply that you need to change what you are doing. However, it is hard to convince another player to try something different without causing the death of their character in game. From the GM standpoint, you can talk to the player about "little tweaks" to make to the character that will make it "fit into the game better".


One of the times I saw a player show their stuff was in a Vampire LARP I was running (in 1999 - 2000). He had come into the game playing an Angel clone (yes, angst ridden and all). I had fun with him making sure that he strayed further and further away from the path of Humanity. Despite him playing the character the way it was meant to be played (I had watched Angel and can say for sure that the player was portraying the character accurately), there came a a point where the other PCs couldn't stand the character any longer and took him out. The player wasn't too upset by the other players action, but didn't really have a good idea of what to play next. He was at a loss and wasn't sure what he should play next. He had submitted another clone of some other character to me, which I didn't outright reject but didn't say yes. Instead, I offered to put together a concept for him to look at. I gave him a two or three page background and he was interested because the character had some real depth. He surprised the entire game (about 30 people at the time) when he started acting out this new character which had a different spectrum of emotions than Angel. They had only seen him brood previously and no one really expected more from him. He came to me after the first game with the new character and said he enjoyed it much more than his Angel clone because he was able to interact with everyone more.


The point of the above is that sometimes the best way to break someone out of a niche is by offering to help develop a concept they wouldn't think about making themselves. Even if it doesn't work you can at least say that they tried.

 

[Darth Revenant]

This is part of me in a nutshell. To expand on the topic, I detest those who want change, but aren't willing to work for it. I get along with everyone, but I'm not keen on people who don't challenge themselves. People who don't try new things. Or those who want to, but don't want to. You know? They try to play halvesies and walk the line -- staying in both camps. "Really but not really". It's beyond annoying.


Since the person above me mentioned role-playing, I figured I'd stick with the curve. I dislike RPs/GMs with limited versatility. Most RPs I've seen (and I've seen over 9,000) have to have these elaborate character sheets that must tell everyone what they think about on a dark September night, to what colour their underwear is, to what they're going to eat five years into a future on a leap year. Whenever I get to the history or personality part of a character's sheet, I grimace. I have trouble writing those, but I have no trouble with characterization. I shouldn't tell you what the character's past is. THEY should. When I get those try-hard GMs, I lose my muse, which is already fickle and flaky to begin with.


Perhaps I digress, but I think it ties into not challenging yourself as a GM and trying something new. Maybe something an interested party suggests could up the fun factor for all players. It seems today's society lives in fear of living. It's sad, but all you can do is lead by example and worry about yourself, right?