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So your best friend just got eviscerated in front of you. Your party blew up. Your captain/lord/leader exiled you for reasons that weren't your fault.
So your character just stands there and....?
From what I've seen, even in pbps, there are lots of situations like this where characters just don't... cry? Emote? Do anything more than sigh, let a single tear fall, or say nothing. Okay, I get this, sometimes. What I don't get is a the fact that a majority of characters I've seen both in live action and pbp games... they just don't let tears fall? Ever?
Why do you think this is? And do you find it as much as a disconnect with the suspension of disbelief that there are so many characters who barely seem to care about the world around them like this? I mean, I know they're fictional, but even fiction has to parallel reality if it's to be believed.
I'm not just talking about hardened soldier characters, either. I'm talking about the first level just-above-commoners and farmhands, too. Sometimes there doesn't seem to be anything in the backstory to justify this detachment.
Thoughts?
Haven't ever had that problem. Occassionaly, when appropriate, some of my player's have had their chracters cry. The most memorable of which was in a campaign where a beholder had just distentigrated the druid brother of the party's barbarian. He had his character spend a couple of rounds dropping to his knees and "weeping hysterically over the ashes," before standing up and destroying every foe in the rest of the dungeon in a fit of revenge.
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Ah, see, now I find that quite believable in comparison with a few similar situations I've encountered in real life table-top sessions... but it's also a bit refreshing. I'd like to think that we, as gamers, are hams at times. What's the use in gaming if one can't have a little ham?
Not to mention that the barbarian class has to thrive on emotion. I think a ridiculously stoic barbarian (who isn't of the urban pursuasion) would be the greatest breaker of my suspension of disbelief.
Also, HELLO RINGTAIL! I was worried about 'chu. Good to know you're still alive. :)
Usually because I never think of it.
That and I don't cry IRL where people can see anyway.
Wow; didn't even look past the alias. Yeah I was gone on a bit of an unexpected gaming hiatus for several months and recently came back. :)
Usually because I never think of it.
That and I don't cry IRL where people can see anyway.
But can you always control it in sudden, violent situations?
Or, should I say, do you think most people could?
I can't fake cry. I feel too stupid doing it. And if I were to try and get into character by thinking of things that make me tear up, it would take too long and I don't know that I could stop.
Oh, I don't even mean going that far(that's not a fair thing to do to anyone if they're not training for the stage), I meant saying something along the lines of "my character cries", even.
Wow; didn't even look past the alias. Yeah I was gone on a bit of an unexpected gaming hiatus for several months and recently came back. :)
Welcome back, then. :D
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In the heat of combat or another action scene, I think it makes sense that a trained and experienced adventurer would be able to focus on practicalities until the immediate danger was passed.
Once the adrenaline has worn off though... well, different people deal with loss differently. Some might weep, but others might just grow sort of numb and distant for a time while they try to come to terms with what they're feeling, and others still might translate their sorrow into anger, or turn to some personal crusade or simply empty hedonism in order to avoid thinking about what they've lost.
In my own life I'm a crier... perhaps moreso than is typical for a guy. But I respect that not everybody expresses loss in that way. When it comes to role-playing games, both imitating weeping and saying "my character is reduced to tears" can come off as kind of awkward, so I can see why most would be more comfortable having their characters react to tragedy in some other way. And as to those who don't seem to have any reaction at all... well, I suppose that's ok too. It's just a game, after all.
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Yar!
You* may not be able to in real life, but why can't your character? Your character is not you, nor is it a toon or avatar that acts as the middle man for you to interact with and win the game^, it's a character controlled by you (Yes, there is a difference). Just saying in a dead pan "My character falls to his knees and cries, temporarily overcome by emotion to do anything else." is easy to do, and what (from the sounds of it) rarely happens when one would think it is appropriate to do.
Personally, I have had characters break down, cry, rage to the point of making bad choices, go insane, and so on. Sometimes even mid-combat. Some of my other friends who I play with have done so as well. I cannot speak for others, but from my personal experience (which may not jive with other peoples experiences, and that is okay), those who tend to not emote in any way seems to me to be players who view their characters as themselves with different skins and super-powers, or simply as gateways for their (as in, their real life selves) interaction with the game world instead of actual characters with their own personal desires, different perspectives, and alternate ways of thinking and doing things that may or even may not be the same as the player does in real life$.
There is nothing wrong with either approach to characters. They are just different, and in my personal experience, have shown themselves through many various nuances, including the lack of sad/negative emotions portrayed by the characters.
* You as in a general you, not any specific individual.
^ This is my opinion, an how I play. This is not an absolute truth and may be, to varying degrees, how someone else plays... and that is okay.
$ Again, this is not an absolute truth. There are people who can play like this and be emotions, and people who do not play like this and do not emote either, and any variation in between. That is okay. This is just a summation of my personal observations in this topic.
~P
The point of this is discussion, so I'd like to think all inputs are welcome. Thank you, everyone thus far.
Do you think male or female gender identity affects whether or not characters 'cry' or can make said fake tears(deadpan, for the sake of argument) awkward?
Usually because I never think of it.
That and I don't cry IRL where people can see anyway.
But can you always control it in sudden, violent situations?
Or, should I say, do you think most people could?
Have been so far, beyond a misting of the eyes. I think a lot of people can, but I don't know for sure.
I can bawl my eyes out when I'm alone but my tear ducts apparently come with a proximity sensing valve shutoff.
And the reason I don't do it in character is because it makes me feel silly. Don't ask me why, it just does.
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There's no crying in gaming!
Some of my characters are too stoic to cry. Others have held their emotions in check and only let the tears fall at particularly vulnerable moments. It varies. I don't cry in public either, usually; the last time was a few months ago when I went in to work and found out that one of my coworkers had died. Before that, it had been years. I tend to save it in the game for when it makes the best story.
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Stuff crying.
"Fix bayonets!"
But can you always control it in sudden, violent situations?
Or, should I say, do you think most people could?
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think sudden, violent situations would make 'most people' cry in the first place.
I have had one of my barbarians break down in a PbP, shed many tears and repeatedly punch a wardrobe until his fist was a red wreck.
But my other one wouldn't.
Different strokes for diff'rent folks.
In one of my Play-by-Posts I'm playing a young oracle who has never had to kill anyone before or really be in combat. On having killed someone for the first time in a fit of blind rage (burning them to death with burning hands) I spent a while just having her bawl her eyes out, hunch over by the roadside and get sick and generally just have a hard time with things.
One of my characters broke down and cried once. But it was thematically appropriate at the time. Her sister who she had been trying desperately to rescue all this time was revealed as the BBEG by the GM.
I don't have my characters cry much... not sure why. It just never happens. Maybe mother saying "Big girls don't cry" sank in on a subconscious level. But not crying and not reacting to tragedy are very different things. I could go on endlessly about my character's feelings back when I was a Narrativist. And there have been countless solemn moments where I expressed my sorrow... just it rarely ends up being tears.
It really depends on the character and the situation. I've had my PC break down and weep on occasion, if it fit both. It can be a very dramatic if you play it right.
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I can see he has never played with me.
In our last Alternity game we where over run by Klicks (Think Starship Troopers) I say overrun it was 4 of them to 6 of us. Panic hit the party as 1 ran like hell, it was run or die. Another Ran away defensively attacking when he could from range, 2 did a fighting retreat, my character not being combat oriented ran knowing if she died there was no doctor to fix up the group. Once we escaped back into the ship, she crumpled on the floor crying hysterically. It was not until the party was far away and safe did she come out of it and only to doctor up the party.
This is not the only character to have done this that I play. Others are tough and would never show a tear in front of any male
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Stuff crying.
"Fix bayonets!"
Yep.
The Frozen Shadows killed that kid that was following us around. They killed Fynn Snaeveld in his bed and he was just a kindly old man. They killed our nice tea-serving Tian landlady. They killed every living person in that Tian caravan. They tried to kill Ameiko.
In cold rage, my samurai swore revenge, gathered the party, and did not stop killing until nothing was alive above ground in Ravenscraeg. He would not have stopped even then but the spellcasters begged him to let them rest.
What an interesting question. Do you know that on serious consideration I don't think a scenario has ever come up that would incite a tear?
On to the why though...
It seems to at least some degree to be 'contrary to our table's 'style' of play...'? Lets see if I can break it down...
- At the forefront it's clear that my table's gamers are mostly experienced gamers and have a learned habit of not having strong emotional ties to any npcs that may be exploited by the gm.
- We play heroes, so we're generally successful... Not much chance for crying there..
- The world being gritty does, to some extent make death a natural part of the adventuring process. You know what you signed up for. This way stoicism lay...
- Resurrection within the system means that death isn't permanent, so as long as you've got easy access to clerics and enough loot in the pockets, death doesn't have the gravitas that might cause sadness.
- If death is not the only thing one could be sad about, there certainly hasn't been much effort on the part of any of our gms (including myself) to discover what those things might be. Most likely because...
- We game to escape real life and there's more than enough sadness in real life, so it's understandable that the game would have less of what we're escaping from in the first place.
- While a convincing role play of sadness can be thrilling from a character development or thespian point of view, the thing that happens to your character that makes them sad is probably not much fun to the person... Dont run into many masochist gamers that beg for reasons to be miserable...
The obvious qualifier is that It doesn't defacto preclude 'all appropriate emotionial response' necessarily... In the heat of battle when things go poorly there's typically plenty of anger and fear on the part of our players... Perhaps thats part of the hero experience. Sadness is natural and correct but less often 'relevant' in gaming... Could be that sadness is equated with powerlessness, while fear is necessary and anger is more relevant to an experience where your character has an impetus/plan/motivation to 'do something about that which 'might underneath be' or 'might have been' making them sad.
Part of being a hero (or even what is commonly perceived as the stoicness of a character) is escaping the victim mentality that you are powerless against that thing which brings you sadness. Only at a table that is comfortable with playing out every stage of the full transition from sadness to empowered would such things come up often. I expect most folks either skip the sad because it can be easily mitigated through the magics of the world or jump straight to the empowered because we're not at a gaming table to enjoy a good cry as much as we're here to lay waste to that which has wronged us.
Good thought provoking question .
The point of this is discussion, so I'd like to think all inputs are welcome. Thank you, everyone thus far.
Do you think male or female gender identity affects whether or not characters 'cry' or can make said fake tears(deadpan, for the sake of argument) awkward?
Yeah, I occasionally have my PC's cry (moreso in pbp's, as it's easier to emote their thoughts & feelings).
Although I did recently have 1 PC cry, when she found out her Aunt was dead and she (accidentally) caused her mothers death. The GM's reaction was funny, being totally shocked.However generally to address the point on gender, I find age and personality have more of an affect. Specific genders might be culturally more likely to cry in certain circumstances; which is something that I try to consider.
Then again, I don't act this out - except maybe as part of dialogue.
In my experience crying and being sad are often played differently than other emotions. I might raise my voice and use harsh words when angry or annoyed and use first-person view. When describing sadness, I use third-person view. Makes it much easier and not even accidentally comical to others. Fellows I play with are on same page with me and also use third-person view to make things easier for everybody.
Still, sadness and misery aren't very common feelings in our games. Often I see players just "swallowing" those feelings and playing like nothing happened. Sometimes though there is reason for behavior like that.
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My half-orc barbarian was shedding some tears after witnessing atrocities worse than anything he had seen before last session.
There's a wide range of ways and tone in how characters can cry, whether it's silent shaking sobbing, "I'm trapped in a glass cage of emotion"-style breakdowns, tears of joy, the popular Manly Tears(which honestly work for either gender), or Kenshiro tears.
Manly Tears only works for tears of joy for a comedic character, depending on your interpretation.
IMO they do tend to work at serious moments if the character is right. The popular poster children of serious manly tears being Alex Louis Armstrong (both comedic AND serious), Simon, and Kenshiro.
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I've had it happen to two characters, one of them twice.
The first one found out his wife had been erased from reality months before, and had in fact never existed anymore. Only he and the rest of the party knew she'd ever been real. He had a Heroic BSoD followed by him crossing the Despair Event Horizon, breaking up in tears and going nova. It was the game finale, and in our homebrew superhero system there was a way of burning pretty much anything in your character sheet to get temporary one-use powers. Didn't work, and he ended up committing suicide to allow the universe to be reborn (or all existence would have ceased to be, permanently). And in the reborn universe, all his memories of her are gone, since he'd never met her, and now lives a lonely and friendless existence. Yay, we won.
Same-ish character, about a year later, new universe. Gets dragged into an end-of-the-world scenario. Turns out, the party has to protect the current universe's incarnation of the person-turned-insane-god who had caused the former universe to be destroyed from his heralds, who were still trying to destroy all of existence. Party, of course, has no idea who the "innocent" is.
Game ends, party recovers its memories of existence in the old reality, everyone celebrates... except the one guy for whom the new universe only meant knowing he was now living alone and lonely, a bitter shadow of his former self, but in another universe, he had actually been happy with a woman who was now happily married to someone else and had never heard of him.
Oh, and my PF wizard cried when he saw a city razed to the ground.