Separating Fantasy from Reality
Written by James
June 17, 2008
Separating reality from fantasy is fairly easy. We all know the moon isn’t red and that we can’t levitate our wineglasses or snap our fingers to create meals. We know we’re not superheroes and have no magical powers.
And yet, sometimes we wonder if we can separate fantasy from reality, especially when a character that we play in a role-playing game becomes a person we feel almost truly exists.
Characters do exist – in our minds. This makes them a blend of imagination and of reality. They come from you; they’re part of you.
But the fact that you can almost touch these characters in no way labels you as someone with a multiple personality disorder or a person out of touch with reality. Characters often reflect pieces of who we are. People are very multi-faceted and personalities are rich – and so are our characters.
The best characters are ones that are very close to our hearts. We can relate to their pain. We understand their suffering. We feel joy for the same reasons as the character and we feel sadness, too. We take what we know and feel to pour that into imaginary people we create.
Then we give them life.
So when a situation upsets our characters and we find ourselves walking around every day with tears in our eyes until the problem is resolved, it’s normal to wonder whether the lines between reality and fantasy have blurred.
They haven’t. Trust us. You’re fine.
You know who you are. Your character will never be identical to you, no matter how many similarities you might share. Situations too close to home may cause some introspection and make you feel more than you’d like to, but chances are, you know who you are and it isn’t your character.
Sometimes characters are us but with the ability to have what we never did. Sometimes characters share our past problems, the ones we never overcame.
Could your character be a reflection of you? Certainly. But reflections are never perfect, and they never have the rich color or depth of dimension of the real thing.
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We have made players Cry, LOL and “feel” for the characters in some of the games I have played.
Is tough not to when you are playing the same character for close to a year and that character has evolved from a simple farm boy/squire/assistant/mercenary/ext. to someone with a goal and purpose.
Hell I was playing this Star Wars game were we were Jedi in the old republic investigating the corruption of the local law in the bowels of Coruscant. The law had thus young punk captured and by the time we got to him he had bin interrogated and torchered. When the party entered the cell and the GM described the sine a silence fell in the room, we all fell sympathy for the NPC and a Hr after that moment we were still in character, no one said anything out of character for the rest of the session. It was a great role playing moment.
If the GM is dewing his job right the players feel for there characters and even some NPCs.
It’s hard not to feel sympathy or any other form of emotion for a character you’ve played for a while.
Sounds like that was a good scene.
Precisely the fact that the lines do tend to get blurry is what attracts me to roleplaying. Characters, at least those we care about, will always be a reflection of ourselves on some level.
I’d rather have that than the opposite: lifeless shells just standing in to allow the player to participate in the action, akin to most videogames.
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I like what you’re getting at here, James. It’s all right to have a connection to a character, and be affected by what happens in-game. It’s not a bad thing. In fact, it can enhance your play, I think.
As a GM, I like to think about how to encourage that connection between player and character. I think there’s probably a formula, here, having something to do with the length of time you play a character, the skill of the GM at creating good roleplay opportunities, and your own imagination and motivation.
When I’m GMing can only focus on one part of that - trying to provide good roleplaying opportunities.
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I like that you (unlike the rest of the blogging gaming community) are staying away from 4E subjects. Everywhere I turn is 4E this and 4E that…this blog is a breath of fresh air.=)
100 Kudos! ! ! =D
Thanks Loky! We do try to break away from the rest of the pack.