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benlehman at 11:11am on 12/03/2005
benlehman at 11:11am on 12/03/2005(quotations may be exaggerated for dramatic purposes.)
Vincent said to me: "The point of Dogs is that you go in thinking you are heroes, and you realize that you're playing the bad guys."
I said to Vincent: "The point of Dogs, to me, is that you go in thinking you are bad guys, real zealots, the SS or the inquisition, and you realize that you are actually good people, trying your best."
Every satisfying character arc I have ever had has played out this way -- at the start, the person is a caricature, and they become human in terrifying and startling ways. I see this in character arcs, written across my past -- Raidant, Takam, Eric, Mike, Kent, Mark, Cyrus. They began as form and became as substance.
The joy of this play, the process of this play, the inescapable purpose of this play is not the creation and celebration of these mythic types, but the destruction of them.
I do not believe it is possible to play an RPG character without eventually becoming aware of them as a human being and, by coincidence, destroying their "archetypal" role as a hero or a villain. (Archetypal is in quotes because I want people to know that I don't mean archetype in any sort of Jungian or Campellian sense {spoon. me. gag. with.} but rather in the literary sense.) This development of this compassion (in equal parts sympathy and disgust) is central to RPGs as a tool for moral development.
Which is what they're for.
Vincent said to me: "The point of Dogs is that you go in thinking you are heroes, and you realize that you're playing the bad guys."
I said to Vincent: "The point of Dogs, to me, is that you go in thinking you are bad guys, real zealots, the SS or the inquisition, and you realize that you are actually good people, trying your best."
Every satisfying character arc I have ever had has played out this way -- at the start, the person is a caricature, and they become human in terrifying and startling ways. I see this in character arcs, written across my past -- Raidant, Takam, Eric, Mike, Kent, Mark, Cyrus. They began as form and became as substance.
The joy of this play, the process of this play, the inescapable purpose of this play is not the creation and celebration of these mythic types, but the destruction of them.
I do not believe it is possible to play an RPG character without eventually becoming aware of them as a human being and, by coincidence, destroying their "archetypal" role as a hero or a villain. (Archetypal is in quotes because I want people to know that I don't mean archetype in any sort of Jungian or Campellian sense {spoon. me. gag. with.} but rather in the literary sense.) This development of this compassion (in equal parts sympathy and disgust) is central to RPGs as a tool for moral development.
Which is what they're for.
(no subject)
But I am, as they say, OldSkool that way.
(no subject)
I think you understand this pretty well, actually, which is why you never play characters you don't like.
yrs--
--Ben
(no subject)
Oops.
So -- is it that you don't think that this sympathy process occurs or that you don't think it is the purpose of RPGs?
yrs--
--Ben
(no subject)
And I don't think it's so much the point of RPGs, though we all get different things out of them. Seeing things from different viewpoints is definitely a bonus, but I don't think those viewpoints have to be--or, in my case, should be--those you'd find contemptable. Hrm. Do you want this to become a discussion about human nature and sympathy or the points of RPGS? 'Cause I could do either, albeit post-Procon.
(no subject)
My point is mostly that the process of playing a character gives you compassion for that character -- which invokes both sympathy (for characters you didn't want to like) and disgust (for characters you did.)
Whether this is a good or a bad thing -- let's put that aside.
(no subject)
(no subject)
On the flip side, this is why a lot of D&D doesn't work for me, as alignment encourages folks to NOT break archetypes but stick to them...
Sna?
See, I find this totally bizarre. I mean, true, from many peoples' moral perspectives, the characters in Dogs are questionable. But "bad guys"? What? So are the demons the good guys? I mean, sure, maybe Dogs is a world and game in which no one is right to show the fundamental flaws of the worldview in which any of the represented sides occur, but within the world as stated, the Dogs are kinda not the bad guys. Or if they are, you've got a seriously weird game going, and the group may want to consider playing a different one. The choices they make are at times difficult if the GM's doing his/her job, but I don't see how that makes the Dogs "Bad Guys." I think I just lost a fair amount of respect for the game on account of that creator-analysis.
I also don't know what this post has to do with Chuang-Tzu, but that's cool, I'm sure he doesn't mind being quoted regardless of relevance.
Re: Sna?
1) I took a quote out of context for the purposes of an essay, and I should explain the context.
2) I am in no way able to explain something that someone else had said.
Clearly, in terms of the in-game-world, Dogs are Good, demons are Evil. This isn't what Vincent is talking about.
The quote which preceeds this is about a particular game at Dreamation 2005, which took a particularly nasty turn. One of the players, afterwards, said to Vincent "I'm not sure I want to imagine a world where God is okay with what we did."
Point being: Dogs has all this stuff about divine judgement, but you (the players, here) aren't divine. You're human. There is going to be a situation in which you can't figure out the best solution, or where there isn't a solution, or where you screw up and gun down the only man who'd be a good Steward in town. (Note -- repeated play may be necessary for this to happen, but it will happen.) Or you screw up and kill a big chunk of the male population. Or you let the demons win.
That's, at least, what it seemed to me in the conversation we were having. I can ask V to come in here and clarify.
yrs--
--Ben
P.S. Zhuangzi should be quoted in any context. My point was that playing characters means that they tend to move towards some more human middle, rather than the extremes that a lot of people create them at. Hence, the playing is evening things out. Destruction of categories, man.
Re: Sna?
So you try the best you can. And sometimes its good, and sometimes its really, really bad. And then you leave- and you've either cleared out a lot of drama or left a lot of people fucked up in your wake. Its basically doing community surgery without any guidelines or procedures...
(no subject)
Total agreement about the compassion thing. Neither Meredith nor I enjoy characters in any form that we can't sympathize with. Part of the appeal of Dogs for me is the inevitable human failings of the characters and how they grow because of it.
But that's no surprise, really, is it? :)
(no subject)
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Zarquor
Demetrious
yrs--
--Ben
(no subject)
I'd think the point of Dogs is that you go in thinking you are heroes and you realize that the King of Life has set you on an impossible path. The Watchdog's job is fuckin' rough. Being a judge, jury and executioner is a tough gig.
Eventually, you will have to put away the trenchcoat and fade into the community, because this kind of lifestyle, being a judge with the mandate from GOD cannot end well.
The game world tells us that the Dogs are RIGHT and JUST but as players we see what's beneath that and how flawed it all is. These flaws are, of course, part of the King of Life's plan.