I am not Daimos from the Officio Assassinorum

If you’re playing someone else today, who’ll be playing you?

I am often amazed at the number of people who create themselves as characters to play in various roleplaying games and genres. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but I have always tried to avoid this sort of thing myself – partly because I suspect I would be terribly disappointed with the result of summarizing myself on a character sheet and partly because I don’t really want to feel that attached to my characters.

I’m particularly amazed when to add to this, players name their characters after themselves, and I do not mean a variation of their name. I mean, if a player’s name is Bob, that is what he names his character. This is terribly confusing to me. How do you know which is which? I mean obviously the guy across the table is Bob the Player, but when someone is talking about him, how do you know which one is which?

I’m quite sure that this can be an excellent way to fantasize about a life one does not have and isn’t likely too. I suppose if I were going to be in a mutant game based on a popular movie/comic book (staying safely from the copyright police here), I could name my character Brian and change the background so that I was part of the Weapon X project, the uncle of Wolverine, and Sinister’s long lost son. What a fascinating, adventurous life I must have led. What a neat fantasy for me.

When I was a kid, sometimes I would daydream that my parents were really international spies or royalty in hiding. Sometimes I would pretend that I was married to Lita Ford. Sometimes I would imagine a particularly harsh childhood for myself. All of these were something that added “spice” to my life when quite frankly I led a rather ordinary, uneventful childhood and adolescence. I was neither James Bond nor Gene Simmons, but somewhere in between and imagining something a little different always made for an interesting hour or so.

So, I can understand. Indeed, it’s because of this desire to be something more, live something a little more exciting and adventurous without all the real consequences that I got sucked into roleplaying – that and I was tired of going to the movies every Friday night like clockwork.

So, you’re wondering what my beef is since I say I understand why people might want to play some version of themselves in a roleplaying game…

I’m getting there.

Really.

(And, no, I’m not just trying to waste space here… really)

O.K. Here’s my problem with this scenario.

People who tend to do this sort of thing, often take what happens to their characters and how their characters are treated way too seriously and way too personally. I’m not saying everyone who plays themselves does, but there appear to be a good many of them out there.

They tend not to understand that what I do and say in-character is not necessarily how I feel or think or act or believe. Just because I play several cold-blooded killers doesn’t mean I am one. Just because several of my characters are secret agents and barbarians, does not mean I am. Just because some of my characters are Catholics does not mean I am. I also play Baptists, Pagans, etc. depending on the character and the game. Just because some of my characters practice magic or voodoo does not mean that I have a cauldron hidden in my closet that I pull out on full moons and Halloween. I also do not have wings, change into a panther, have cat ears, talk to the animals (well, my cats but they don’t answer back), see dead people, have a black belt in ninjitsu, work for the FBI, have amnesia, work for Darth Vader, or hunt vampires. I am not a skinny, pouty-lipped gorgeous model-type. I do not come from high society nor have I ever lived on the streets. Just because some of my characters are scatterbrained does not mean… okay, well, forget that one.

The thing is that some people seem to think that I am my characters. Most of these particular people have never talked to me outside of a game. They don’t know who I am. They just assume I am who my character is. This amazes me as so many people play roleplaying games to pretend to be someone else entirely.

Unfortunately – and it’s not really just the ones playing themselves, I must admit, though they are often the first ones to take things too seriously – there are those out there that take their characters too seriously, too personally. If, in character, my character were to insult Bob the Character, quite often Bob the Player will get upset, despite the fact that I the Player meant no offense, but was merely roleplaying my character. Now, Bob the Player has a grudge against me and takes it out on me rather than the character. This is rather childish. It is after all a game, a roleplaying game, where we are all taking up roles and “acting” them out as the cause and effects change.

And now, the title… I am not a Eversor assassin named Daimos from the Officio Assassinorum. Daimos was the one character I built that was the least like me in anyway – a cold-blooded assassin with no conscience who after being captured by a backwater planetary rebellion joined up because he didn’t care who he killed just so she got to kill. He once shot one of his own teammates because he was in the line of fire. Basically, he wasn’t a nice person.

I like to think I’m a nice person with the occasional bout of witchiness. Certainly, I’m not a cold-blooded assassin. I’m just a boring ole teacher programmer and I’ve got a nasty conscience. I’ve killed some bugs but that’s about it.

So, I am not Daimos from the Officio Assassinorum… but I play one on… erm… in roleplaying games.

So, don’t take roleplaying or life too seriously – it is after all just a game, but in roleplaying we pretty much know the rules – so get a grip.

Just my two cents.