…it’ll get messy, folks
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Confessions Of A Dungeon Master
Self-Typecasting, Or, George Is Playing Another Stoner
The very excellent Robin D. Laws wrote a great book about game mastering (Titled “Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering”), in which, among other things, he talked about various kinds of players. Players like the Power Gamer or the Casual Gamer or any of several other types.
I’m not going to go over those types of players. I’m here to talk about players that may not play the same class, profession, etc, each time they create a character, but they always play the same basic personality.
Example #1: I used to game with a guy who always played a suave, debonair man of mystery. A James Bond type of ladykiller and asskicker. It mattered not if he was playing a barbarian, a spaceship captain or a 1930’s reporter, the personality was always the same.
Example #2: A women always played a party girl. She was not in party mode in the dungeon or stealing an airplane of fighting off giant ants in Phoenix, but as soon as the PCs hit town, she was off to drink, dance and have a good time.
If I told you that neither of those two people were anything like that in real life, you’d believe me, right? Because it was true. The first guy was shy around women and surprised us all when he finally got a girlfriend. The woman was a guilt infused lapsed Catholic who was actually allergic to alcohol and spent most of her nights home with her husband and cats.
Both of the above examples are 100% okay. It’s called a ROLEPLAYING GAME, and not all of the roleplaying comes from playing an elf or an alien. Many, many people want to be something they are not for a few hours. Still, we all know gamers that typecast their character personalities. I’d go so far as to say most gamers do it, at least part of the time. I include myself in that group.
Now, GMs play so many different sorts of characters and species in a given game that it’s nigh impossible for them to have a single sort of personality. On the other hand, many of us might play certain types of NPCs with similar personalities. I know that despite my best efforts and use of accents, most of my innkeepers or tavern owners turn out to be a friendly and chatty sort. My bureaucrats are usually self important, mildly dismissive wankers. My cops/city guards are either inept Inspector Lestrades or tough headbusters.
So, is this sort of self-typecasting avoidable? Yes, but it takes some effort, more than most folks want to apply, IF they even see a problem. From a DM/GM perspective, players playing the same sort of character can be annoying, useful, or both.
I tend to just deal with the circumstances and use their character peccadilloes to move the action along, introduce new stuff, and let them have fun.
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