Essay: Aiming the Spotlight
Author: ardweden
I'm female, and I'm going to use "he" as the default singular pronoun throughout this essay. This is convention, and you can be pretty darned sure I'm not doing it because I feel men are superior to women. 'Cause face it, guys, you aren't any better than we are.
My thanks go to ninjadebugger and Nicolas (still no eljay, the secretive bastard) for prereading.
Aiming the Spotlight
rdmgryphon's recent entry got me thinking about my own roleplaying experiences and others' concerning spotlight characters. Likely, if you've been roleplaying for any length of time, you're no stranger to the idea of favoritism. Player characters should be favored over non-player characters, but even past that, some player characters are often favored over others.
This is typical, and it doesn't even have to be a bad thing. Plot will naturally gravitate towards one or a few characters - it's more or less unavoidable, given some characters will be more active than others, and certain backstories, actions, and plotlines will be more closely tied to the main plot thread. A paladin's quest may end up pushing all of the characters through various obstacles both paladin and other character related. A young girl's search for her father might end up sucking everyone in, and the man who killed him is the ultimate nemesis of the campaign.
In a novel, there is usually a cluster of major characters, and even within them, some will gather more spotlight than others. Take the Wizard of Oz, for example. It's Dorothy's story, but there are other characters. They solve her problem, but on the way, they develop and take care of their own. This makes for a good, easy storytelling tool, and campaigns will also fall into that pattern, intentional or not.
I've been in a lot of campaigns, good and bad, and both good and bad have ended up with a main character or two (or three) without fail. At face value, this looks like a horrible thing, since we as players want our own time in the spotlight and, ideally, to share the spotlight evenly, but it's not as bad as all of that. Players can still have fun being side characters. This is typically accomplished through there being more than one plot: side plots, one off plots, and situations where this or that character is needed. Characters can contribute to a plot even if it's not theirs.
Why, then, is this a problem in some campaigns and not others? At what point is being a side character not fun anymore or, even more strangely, is being a main character not fun? Why do GMs let this happen? Game Masters want to make campaigns fun for everyone involved, but if there's a spotlight problem, they won't be.
The point when focusing on a character or two becomes a problem is when players feel useless. This is obvious. We all want to feel like we're contributing something, and not having focus on our own characters is a big negative to that. But when a character is focused to the point where it's not fun for the other players, often the player of the main character isn't having fun, either. He's *also* feeling useless.
How can he feel useless when his character's in the spotlight to the point where others' backstories and actions don't particularly matter? Wouldn't that make him feel more useful? Surprisingly, this isn't the case - I think the reason there's a problem is because it's not the main character's story anymore, either. The GM took that story and made it his own.
The line that separates a character-based plot and a GM-based plot is a blurry one, but I'll give it a shot. In a character-based plot, the characters affect the story. The characters (and therefore players) have the power to shape the world and change events; they can put things into motion, stop them, or just do nothing if they so choose. It's the characters' story. The story is dynamic, and the players feel useful because they have power. Nothing is set in stone.
In a GM-based plot, the character/player's power is muted to nonexistent. The GM is telling a story. It's static, and the player is simply an audience to a story. In the best campaigns, nobody is an audience. In the worst, everyone is.
The problem with main characters comes in two parts. The first is the GM-based plot: a static story. If the story isn't static, then main characters aren't such an issue. Everyone can contribute and play, main character or not. Character-based plots allow for that kind of fluidity, and even when someone doesn't have the spotlight, he likely doesn't feel ignored. If he wants to take the spotlight, he can grab it through his character's actions.
The second part happens when a GM with this static problem decides to designate a main character. When a main character is combined with static plotting, the other characters are just there for flavor and scenery. In truth, the main character is, too; the story might be "his", but it's not his. It's the GM's. This frequently happens when the GM takes the character's background and treats it as the end of that player's contribution to the plot. Other input is not required.
It's hard for a GM to know when he's making this mistake. Every GM wants to run the Best Game Ever, and in order to do this, he knows he needs to spin an engaging story that all players feel involved in. In order for a player to feel involved, his character has to be involved, and an easy way to do this is to dig into character backgrounds. Players put effort into them for a reason, and it's horrible when they're snubbed.
The problem is that isn't actually happening; the character is going through more or less predetermined motions (often by making obstacles impossibly easy/hard, having his actions and solutions no-sold when they're unexpected, or having NPCs solve problems for him) to fulfill the GM's vision of the campaign. As soon as the plot stops being dynamic, it doesn't matter how much background digging he does. Everyone will feel snubbed, main character or not.
Some well-intentioned GMs of this type even try to give side characters their own turns in the spotlight, but if this method is used, the story is still already written, and those players will come up feeling empty.
Unfortunately, GMs are often blind to this. The only way they can know - short of catching it themselves, which seems to be very difficult to do - is for their players to tell them. And as players, we have trouble pointing it out. We're trained to do things like trust the GM to give us our turns in the sun, and nobody *wants* to know exactly what's going to happen in the campaign's future. That also ruins the game.
GMs, take a close look at your campaigns. If you have this problem, your players may not be telling you about it. Run it under a magnifying glass: how often do they surprise you? Are you giving them solutions or having NPCs solve their problems for them? If you have a character's plotline you're delving into, how much does that character - and others - really affect it, and does everyone have a role to play? If a character comes up with an approach you didn't expect, do you let him take it or try to get him back to the path you had worked out?
Players, let your GMs know about this problem if it's there, even if it's after the campaign's over. Remember, chances are the GM isn't intentionally snubbing you, and if you're feeling left out or bored, it might be for a good reason. We're all here to have fun. And, well... don't blame the main character's player. It's probably not his fault.
This entry has been crossposted to bad_rpers_suck.
I'm female, and I'm going to use "he" as the default singular pronoun throughout this essay. This is convention, and you can be pretty darned sure I'm not doing it because I feel men are superior to women. 'Cause face it, guys, you aren't any better than we are.
My thanks go to ninjadebugger and Nicolas (still no eljay, the secretive bastard) for prereading.
Aiming the Spotlight
rdmgryphon's recent entry got me thinking about my own roleplaying experiences and others' concerning spotlight characters. Likely, if you've been roleplaying for any length of time, you're no stranger to the idea of favoritism. Player characters should be favored over non-player characters, but even past that, some player characters are often favored over others.
This is typical, and it doesn't even have to be a bad thing. Plot will naturally gravitate towards one or a few characters - it's more or less unavoidable, given some characters will be more active than others, and certain backstories, actions, and plotlines will be more closely tied to the main plot thread. A paladin's quest may end up pushing all of the characters through various obstacles both paladin and other character related. A young girl's search for her father might end up sucking everyone in, and the man who killed him is the ultimate nemesis of the campaign.
In a novel, there is usually a cluster of major characters, and even within them, some will gather more spotlight than others. Take the Wizard of Oz, for example. It's Dorothy's story, but there are other characters. They solve her problem, but on the way, they develop and take care of their own. This makes for a good, easy storytelling tool, and campaigns will also fall into that pattern, intentional or not.
I've been in a lot of campaigns, good and bad, and both good and bad have ended up with a main character or two (or three) without fail. At face value, this looks like a horrible thing, since we as players want our own time in the spotlight and, ideally, to share the spotlight evenly, but it's not as bad as all of that. Players can still have fun being side characters. This is typically accomplished through there being more than one plot: side plots, one off plots, and situations where this or that character is needed. Characters can contribute to a plot even if it's not theirs.
Why, then, is this a problem in some campaigns and not others? At what point is being a side character not fun anymore or, even more strangely, is being a main character not fun? Why do GMs let this happen? Game Masters want to make campaigns fun for everyone involved, but if there's a spotlight problem, they won't be.
The point when focusing on a character or two becomes a problem is when players feel useless. This is obvious. We all want to feel like we're contributing something, and not having focus on our own characters is a big negative to that. But when a character is focused to the point where it's not fun for the other players, often the player of the main character isn't having fun, either. He's *also* feeling useless.
How can he feel useless when his character's in the spotlight to the point where others' backstories and actions don't particularly matter? Wouldn't that make him feel more useful? Surprisingly, this isn't the case - I think the reason there's a problem is because it's not the main character's story anymore, either. The GM took that story and made it his own.
The line that separates a character-based plot and a GM-based plot is a blurry one, but I'll give it a shot. In a character-based plot, the characters affect the story. The characters (and therefore players) have the power to shape the world and change events; they can put things into motion, stop them, or just do nothing if they so choose. It's the characters' story. The story is dynamic, and the players feel useful because they have power. Nothing is set in stone.
In a GM-based plot, the character/player's power is muted to nonexistent. The GM is telling a story. It's static, and the player is simply an audience to a story. In the best campaigns, nobody is an audience. In the worst, everyone is.
The problem with main characters comes in two parts. The first is the GM-based plot: a static story. If the story isn't static, then main characters aren't such an issue. Everyone can contribute and play, main character or not. Character-based plots allow for that kind of fluidity, and even when someone doesn't have the spotlight, he likely doesn't feel ignored. If he wants to take the spotlight, he can grab it through his character's actions.
The second part happens when a GM with this static problem decides to designate a main character. When a main character is combined with static plotting, the other characters are just there for flavor and scenery. In truth, the main character is, too; the story might be "his", but it's not his. It's the GM's. This frequently happens when the GM takes the character's background and treats it as the end of that player's contribution to the plot. Other input is not required.
It's hard for a GM to know when he's making this mistake. Every GM wants to run the Best Game Ever, and in order to do this, he knows he needs to spin an engaging story that all players feel involved in. In order for a player to feel involved, his character has to be involved, and an easy way to do this is to dig into character backgrounds. Players put effort into them for a reason, and it's horrible when they're snubbed.
The problem is that isn't actually happening; the character is going through more or less predetermined motions (often by making obstacles impossibly easy/hard, having his actions and solutions no-sold when they're unexpected, or having NPCs solve problems for him) to fulfill the GM's vision of the campaign. As soon as the plot stops being dynamic, it doesn't matter how much background digging he does. Everyone will feel snubbed, main character or not.
Some well-intentioned GMs of this type even try to give side characters their own turns in the spotlight, but if this method is used, the story is still already written, and those players will come up feeling empty.
Unfortunately, GMs are often blind to this. The only way they can know - short of catching it themselves, which seems to be very difficult to do - is for their players to tell them. And as players, we have trouble pointing it out. We're trained to do things like trust the GM to give us our turns in the sun, and nobody *wants* to know exactly what's going to happen in the campaign's future. That also ruins the game.
GMs, take a close look at your campaigns. If you have this problem, your players may not be telling you about it. Run it under a magnifying glass: how often do they surprise you? Are you giving them solutions or having NPCs solve their problems for them? If you have a character's plotline you're delving into, how much does that character - and others - really affect it, and does everyone have a role to play? If a character comes up with an approach you didn't expect, do you let him take it or try to get him back to the path you had worked out?
Players, let your GMs know about this problem if it's there, even if it's after the campaign's over. Remember, chances are the GM isn't intentionally snubbing you, and if you're feeling left out or bored, it might be for a good reason. We're all here to have fun. And, well... don't blame the main character's player. It's probably not his fault.
This entry has been crossposted to bad_rpers_suck.