Please differentiate between player and character

[buzz]

I would love to se 6e separate players and characters in the game text, e.g., in examples of play.

So, instead of:
Andarra needs to roll 12- in order to deactivate the computer's security. Andarra rolls a 9, and succeeds.

The text would instead say:
Bob is playing Andarra. Bob needs to roll 12- in order for Andarra to deactivate the computer's security. Bob rolls a 9, and thus Andarra succeeds.
This may not seem like an important aspect of the text, but I really think it is. The typical commingling of players and their characters in game texts is just plain detrimental to the hobby.

[Balok]

Your point is semantically valid - but you have turned two sentences into three, and 17 words into 26, just to get rid of a fairly innocuous shorthand, IMO. Or is this a trick so you don't have to buy Steve a huge cookie? :)

[buzz]

Your point is semantically valid - but you have turned two sentences into three, and 17 words into 26, just to get rid of a fairly innocuous shorthand, IMO. Or is this a trick so you don't have to buy Steve a huge cookie? :)
You'd think so, but not really. :)

I honestly think it's an important distinction to make that many RPGs just fail to do. And, within the context of the rulebook, you can have a set group of "players" for use in examples so that you're not spending time introducing people every example.

[Steve Long]

Sorry, but I won't be doing that, buzz. Your approach is more logically correct, but it makes the text more cumbersome and I don't think it really adds anything. The reader knows what's going on. ;)

[Kdansky]

Also, it's actually a good thing if players refer to their character as "me", because they roleplay rather differently.

I tell the thugs that they have to leave.
"Get out of here or I'll burn you to tiny bits of Ash!"

Now what's better?

[buzz]

Sorry, but I won't be doing that, buzz. Your approach is more logically correct, but it makes the text more cumbersome and I don't think it really adds anything. The reader knows what's going on. ;)
Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I think a lot of gamer damage stems from the blurring of the line between player and character, and how this relates to the people at the game table.

At the very least, I would ask you to consider simply replacing "Andarra" with "Andarra's player" when you actually describe game mechanics. Ergo, my example sentence simply becomes:
Andarra's player needs to roll 12- in order to deactivate the computer's security. Andarra's player (or "he"/"she"/"they") rolls a 9, and succeeds.

[buzz]

Now what's better?
I'm not talking about what players do at the table, so I think that's moot.

[Pattern Ghost]

Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I think a lot of gamer damage stems from the blurring of the line between player and character, and how this relates to the people at the game table.

I think the concept of "gamer damage" is a logical fallacy. This term implies the games cause the damage, rather than the truth: Damaged people are sometimes drawn to RPGs.

The use of terms like "gamer damage" seems more detrimental to the hobby than example text.

I agree on the semantic validity of your proposal, however. I also agree with Steve that the curren way saves verbiage, and any non-damaged persons reading the text will understand what's going on.

[TSandman]

And if you take into account every examples in the book, it would add more than a few paragraph to the page count ;)

[Killer Shrike]

What is "gamer damage" anyway? Is that like "freezer burn"? I've never met a gamer that would think "Andarra" was referring to a player and not a character. And even if they did, somehow, if they also get the idea that a 3d6 roll of 9 passes a 12- test then the sentence has served its purpose.

[Vondy]

In literary or academic usage buzz's position is more correct. However, usage rules are not universal to all forms of writing and a gaming manual is neither literary or academic. It is, essentially, a technical manual and steve's method is commonly accepted as correct usage for that style of writing, which is akin to the usage accepted for journalistic writing.

These distinctions are even recognized in dictionaries by profession grammarians (and their ilk), esp. if you look at the notes in unabridged dictionaries. My American Heritage dictionary (abridged) makes note of these distinctions and how their panel dealt with them in one of the introductory essays (yes, I read dictionaries when I find myself awake in the middle of the night).

Clear, succint writing will be key for 6e (the current edition is already the epitome of gravitas) and the current method is both clear and succint. More so than the proposed change.

Now, that said, welcome to Peeve City. I have a serious usage fit when people refer to players as characters or the opposite in their posts. While I admit many of my players have been characters in the past, they are not characters in the sense of being player characters, and it makes me cringe when people invert the terms. Remember all those urban myths about gamers who went insane and started to think they were their characters in the early eighties...

I always dismissed them out of hand, but to read some people's posts, the players aren't the problem... its the game-masters. :eek:

[Tonio]

I'd also like a switch to "Andarra's player needs to roll a 9...", but mostly because I'm a purist. I cringe every time people in my gaming group talk about "my player" when they mean "my character"... especially since that's every time they talk about their character. =/

[Balok]

"Gamer damage" reminds me of that little tract Jack Chick wrote about D&D decades ago, in which he made the claim that games (such as D&D) corrupted people by stealing their ability to tell the difference between reality and games. I don't believe this is true. Granted, my gaming friends do not have evident psychological problems, so I can't rule out the possibility that someone with such problems might have a problem. But, just like I don't advocate a ban on wheat bread because a few people have coeliac disease, I can't advocate verbiage designed to deal with a few people who might be out there and might have a problem. I think that any individuals that badly damaged are better off steering clear of an activity that could harm them.

[Derek Hiemforth]

The advantage I see in this idea is not so much in preventing "gamer damage," but rather in keeping things clear for new players. There's a lot of terminology that gets tossed around regarding players and characters (players, characters, player characters, non-player characters, PCs, NPCs, etc.), so it's easy for new folks to get confused. Wording that keeps things clear (without getting too verbose) would be welcome.

Having said that, I don't think 5ER or SK do a bad job of this today, so I think Steve is probably as aware of this as he needs to be... ;)

[Sean Waters]

What is "gamer damage" anyway? Is that like "freezer burn"? I've never met a gamer that would think "Andarra" was referring to a player and not a character. And even if they did, somehow, if they also get the idea that a 3d6 roll of 9 passes a 12- test then the sentence has served its purpose.

Maybe a gamer called Andarra :)

While we are at it can we replace all those he/she/they pronouns with a single, invented word, like 'kweg' to avoid confusion?

Kidding...

[Sean Waters]

"Gamer damage" reminds me of that little tract Jack Chick wrote about D&D decades ago, in which he made the claim that games (such as D&D) corrupted people by stealing their ability to tell the difference between reality and games. I don't believe this is true. Granted, my gaming friends do not have evident psychological problems, so I can't rule out the possibility that someone with such problems might have a problem. But, just like I don't advocate a ban on wheat bread because a few people have coeliac disease, I can't advocate verbiage designed to deal with a few people who might be out there and might have a problem. I think that any individuals that badly damaged are better off steering clear of an activity that could harm them.

Most gamers I know have a very highly developed concept of the difference between fantasy and reality, and it is largely because of the game playing. That's, you know, DESPITE my evident psychological problems :)

[Balok]

While we are at it can we replace all those he/she/they pronouns with a single, invented word, like 'kweg' to avoid confusion?No sooner would you do that than you'd discover that "kweg" meant something Really Bad in some foreign language... ;)

[sbarron]

sbarron needs to roll 12- in order to avoid his character "Kweg" going bezerk and killing Balok and Sean for their use of his name. sbarron rolls a 9, and succeeds.

Whoa, that was close.

I'm sure it will never happen do to space issues, but I always like to see the "in-game action" before or after the out-of-game description.

"Kweg is trembling. His anger...palpable. He desperately longs to crush the life from these puny humans for disrepecting Torim customs and using his name on a gaming board. Slowly, sweat dripping down is bulbous forhead, Kweg takes a long, deep breath through his second mouth. "That's not your way anymore" he thinks to himself. "You left Torim and its barbaric customs behind long ago."

[Kenn]

While we are at it can we replace all those he/she/they pronouns with a single, invented word, like 'kweg' to avoid confusion?


I once saw an idewa to abbreviate "He or she or it" as "H'or'sh'it" with out the single quotes.

[buzz]

FWIW, by "gamer damage" I am not referring to anything Chick-like.

But, it's moot given that Steve has dismissed this idea already.

[dsatow]

Personally, if you include the sample game script approach in 6e, I think it would be easier on new players to just italic what players do versus what happens "in-game". However, I think in the core rule book for 6e, you should just stick to the rules (in a different thread I explain my reasoning behind it so as not to veer of subject here).

[Sean Waters]

FWIW, by "gamer damage" I am not referring to anything Chick-like.

But, it's moot given that Steve has dismissed this idea already.

Chick flick.

Oh the vistas opening before me...

[Spence]

But, it's moot given that Steve has dismissed this idea already.

As a change to 6th, yes.

I would propose that it be considered in products aimed at new players.

For veteran roleplayers the distinction is not a big deal. But for the new-to-RPG’s gamer the concept can be extremely confusing and a confused prospect is usually a lost prospect.

If not a modification of the example text, then at least a small frame in the introduction that explains the Player/Player Character dynamic as it is portrayed within the book. Whenever I was writing Instructions or Manuals I used to have one of those picture things that have quotations on them having right in front of me. The quote was “Common Knowledge Isn’t Common”.

The philosophy behind a Manual for an experienced target audience is different from that of a new or beginning target audience.

[buzz]

For veteran roleplayers the distinction is not a big deal.
I'd argue that it may actually be even more important for experienced gamers.

It took me a while to think of a good explanation for why I requested this. I'm hoping the following makes sense.

First off, I'm not worried about gamers going all Mazes & Monsters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazes_and_Monsters) because of a vague game text. That wasn't the reason I posted.

What I'm talking about is how a lot of newer games that I really enjoy are very explicit about the procedures of play. Part of this is to clearly instruct how to play the game, but it's also about making clear the idea that the game is not about the characters, or the dice, or the battlemat... it's about the people sitting around the table.

I think that when the line between the people and the fiction gets blurred, you get player-to-character identification issues that can cause things like My Guy Syndrome ("It's what my character would do!"), or fear of having PCs fail, and consequently confusion of the meta- and in-game that can result in friction between players, including the GM ("I can't believe you did that to my character!" ). I mean, I think we've all seen this stuff happen, if not done it ourselves.

And, as has been pointed out w/r/t the rule text, "Andarra" is not the one doing anything, it's Bob. Bob is the only real person in the equation; Andarra is just a name on a sheet of paper filled with numbers. Andarra is the [I]tool Bob uses to interface with the game, and thus with the other people at the table. That character serves the same purpose as the dice, the mat, the books, the minis. It's an object Bob utilizes to play the game with his friends.

Now, I'm obviously not putting the blame for the various behaviors I mentioned above solely on example text not being explicit. As someone pointed out up-thread, people often bring all sorts of baggage with them to the game table.

Nonetheless, IMO being clear about the player/character distinction in the rule text is a Good Thing™. The more instances where we can impart that it's the people who matter, the better.

It's certainly not a deal-killer for me if Steve is not sold on this. It's admittedly kind of an obscure concern, at least in mainstream RPGs. Still, Steve said we could question everything, so I wanted to question this. Despite my initial awkward phrasing, I think that it's really a simple change. "Andarra" becomes "Andarra's player".

Anyway, that was my reasoning. I hope my request makes a little more sense now, whether folks agree with it or not.

[Enforcer84]

But we are trying to kill the players.

[Spence]

Anyway, that was my reasoning. I hope my request makes a little more sense now, whether folks agree with it or not.

Well I can see we were almost on completely different wavelengths ;)

I can see what you are saying. But IMO, that has nothing to do with the game, but rather the person. Being unable to separate the game from real life on any level could involve anything from gambling to video games to RPG's. From just getting angry because "Bob's" character killed yours to a real nut case won't be fixed by anything in a rule book and really doesn't gain the writer anything either. I have indeed met players and GM's that took things in the game personal and couldn't let go. If they didn't "get it" I simply asked them to leave if it was my game or dropped out if it was theirs.

I'm not saying you are wrong in any way because I am not any sort of expert. I just don't see how the content of the rulebook will actually make an impact.

[nexus]

But we are trying to kill the players.

That's why the book is so big.

[Steve Long]

OK, I think we've had enough discussion on this issue. Thank you for your input. ;)