Greetings and salutations.  Welcome to the Astounding Mr. Goodner's Amazing Electric Widgets.

Mind you, Mr. Goodner is only particularly astounding to those who are easily astounded, and his Widgets are only amazing to those with a low threshold for amazement.  They are, however, electric, since otherwise you couldn't read them with your electrical calculation engine.

We're really just getting started here.  Expect a few changes over the next several days.  I'll be posting bits of fiction, gaming content, and possibly artwork for you to enjoy.  Most of it will be stuff I couln't publish professionally for one reason or another.  The most common reason being "I don't own the source IP."

I will, of course, also use this space to advertise any professional work I do or any other projects I work on.  Advertising may be gauche, but it puts food on the table, cokes in the fridge, and electrons in the wires: all things I have come to rely upon heavily.

Welcome to the end. I've decided, after about two years or so, to close the curtain on The Play's the Thing. I've said pretty much everything I have to say, and it's starting to be a chore, more than fun. I'd rather leave on a relatively high note than drag it out and write lousy columns that neither you nor I enjoy.

But before I go, I thought I'd leave you with one last summation of what I've been saying.

Here's what I think makes for a good gamer. Other people have different opinions. These are mine.

Consistent

A good gamer shows up on time. He's prepared for the game. And he plays in a logical way. If his character was a grim soldier last session, he's not a zany clown this week just because he got bored. (But maybe his character is really insane, in which case it's ok, unless it's annoying.)

Considerate

A good gamer plays well with others. He makes a character that fits in with the group, and tries to avoid invalidating other characters. He plays the game as a cooperative venture. Even when characters are in conflict, the players should be working toward a mutual goal.

Consideration is actually the cornerstone of my thoughts about being a good player. If you do everything else great, but you're a jerk to all the other players, then you're probably not someone I would want to play with.

Fair

A good gamer plays nice. Not cheating is obvious. Exhibiting good sportsmanship and style is a nice bonus. Fair play extends from the tangible things like not breaking the rules into intangible ones like not exploiting loopholes to the detriment of the game. If everybody is a point-scraping ubergamer, then that's fine, but if you're the only one and you specifically enjoy doing things no one else (including the GM) can do, then you might want to consider changing that behavior.

As a real-world example, I refused to play any Hero system game for about ten years after falling in with a group that had a couple min-maxers who got off on being able to point-screw the newer players.

Entertaining

I enjoy playing with lively, exciting players. One hefty part of gaming is performance art. Part of your job as a player is to play your role like an actor does. The better you do that, the more fun the game is.

Being entertaining isn't just about being funny, or intense, or anything else. It's about doing the right thing at the right time. A character played for comic relief needs to take center stage when comic relief is needed, and to fade into the background when it's time to be serious. On the other hand, a character who's always in the background, or never does anything fun to watch, then why is he there at all?

Inspiring

The very best gamers bring the game to a higher level just by being there. Some nights, I'm even one of them.

What's inspiring, of course, varies. Being entertaining (see above) is certainly part of it, but there's more. When I've been inspired (or more rarely inspired someone else), it's been a combination of factors. A character who really fits the game is absolutely necessary. He might be played true to genre, or a little oddball - but in a way that adds to the mood and themes of the game. His background makes the game more interesting - which might mean it's rich and detailed, or it might mean its light and sleek, with just the hook the GM needs. He has goals that bring him into conflict with the game's adversaries, and occasionally the other PCs. And he's played artfully, by a player who knows which buttons to push and how to push them, and most importantly when not to.

Now that I'm at the end of the column, I really don't know exactly how to be an inspiring player, or how to tell anyone else how to do it. I know it when I see it, though, and knowing what to look for gives me a goal.

And maybe it's like the quest for the Holy Grail. The finding isn't as important as the looking. And everybody dies at the end except Sir Bors.

(Well, maybe not the last part)

Conclusions

Really conclusions this time. That's all I've got. It's been fun. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope a few of you have learned something that helps you have more fun gaming. If I've managed to accomplish that, then that's pretty cool.

See you 'round. I'll leave you with the words of a guy who probably would have been a pretty good GM.

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend:

if you pardon, we will mend:

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,

We will make amends ere long;

Else the Puck a liar call;

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.

Welcome back. Today, we discuss what may be the most difficult problem character of all...

...The Leader.

To begin with, let me tell you, I hate playing the Leader. I hated being group leader in group work at school, too. (And I hated group work in general, but that's another story) I don't like being responsible for anyone else's fun, and in a pretty big way, the Leader is responsible for everyone else's fun. If he screws up, the rest of the group pays for it.

That said, I've ended up playing the Leader fairly often. A few years back, I was one of the oldest, most experienced gamers in my group, so the others tended to deferr to me even when I didn't want them to. I don't consider myself a very good leader, but I was good enough to get by. And, perhaps because I'm uncomfortable in the position, but frequently thrust into it anyway, I've given a good bit of thought to what it means to be the Leader in an RPG group.

The Leader, for our purposes is both the character the other PCs follow. To confuse the issue, the Player of the Leader is probably also the Leader at the meta-level. This is not so true of other character types, but with the Leader, the line between Player and Character is blurred. A Player can play a Rat-Bastard without the other Players hating him, but he can probably only play the Leader if the others are willing to follow.

The Leader is a really hard role to play, unless it's easy. This column probably isn't going to tell you how to do it. The best I can do is show you the pitfalls and suggest ways you might work around them.

First off, how about some general thoughts on leadership. RPG.net used to have a column on the subject. I suggest checking it out in the archives. Not bad reading. I'll be much more brief.

One of the tidbits I remember from sociology is that any group has two "leaders." The primary leader is the one everyone sees as the leader. He makes the decisions, picks the goals, and generally runs things. The second leader is the one who keeps the group cohesive and looks after the needs of the individual members.

We're mostly focused on the first type, but I'll digress into the second from time to time.

A Leader is more than someone who gives orders. In fact, giving orders can make you NOT the Leader. The Leader charts a course, and other people follow it. A good leader inspires people to follow him, or persuades them. Then comes the tricky part. He has to take them somewhere. So effective leadership has two components: inspiration of loyalty, and vision of objectives. Someone who can inspire loyalty, but can't come up with objectives makes a good figurehead, but not a good Leader. Those who follow him are likely doomed, unless he's very lucky. Someone who can set objectives and figure out how to reach them is only a Leader once he can articulate his plan and get someone to follow it.

If you want your character to be the Leader, you have to be able to do both, or at least simulate doing both. This being a game, not real life, you can sometimes fake it. Otherwise, any gamer who played a lawyer or a surgeon would probably be fairly wealthy.

Let's start with the first side of the Leadership coin.

Inspiring Loyalty

You're not the Leader until you tell someone to do something and they do it. In fact, you're not the Leader until you consistently tell people to do things and they do them.

There are lots of ways to inspire loyalty. Personal charisma is nice if you have it. Largess helps, too. So does blackmail, up to a point. But all of these have practical limitations. If you aren't charismatic, wealthy, or sneaky, you might have trouble with them.

Another good option is generally being right. If, every time the group says "what should we do now?" they end up following your suggestion, you are probably the Leader.

Once again, there are practical limitations to that, inasmuch as you have to really be right.

There are many books in the business/management section of your local bookstore or perhaps Dewey Number 6XX of the nearest public library on the subject of how to inspire loyalty. Most of them boil down to the following:

• Treat your followers with respect.
• Give them an environment in which they feel empowered and needed.
• Trust them and make sure they can trust you.
• Reward them for their accomplishments.

Most of that's pretty obvious, once someone points it out to you. Reading a book or two on the subject might not be a bad idea if you want to know more. The "Short form" is that it's about respect. Particularly in a roleplaying game, a group is probably a group of equals. Even if your character is Captain Jean-Luc Tiberius Archer of Starfleet you are still just another member of the group, and your friends aren't going to take well to you ordering them around. (If they do, hey, I'm big enough to admit when I'm wrong. More power to you)

So for now, let's assume you need a little help getting into your position of leadership. Here are some suggestions.

First off, you should clear your plan with the rest of the group. If you want to play the Leader type, mentioning that to the GM and the other players is a good idea. You can work out in advance why they'd follow you, and you can iron out potential problems. Or you might realize it's all a big headache and play a moody loner instead.

If the rest of the group goes for it, you can play a really autocratic character and get away with it. As an example, right now I'm playing a Star Wars game. My character is essentially another PC's butler. His character orders mine around and is generally a little condescending. If he'd tried to pull that without asking me, I'd be pretty annoyed. But since I actually asked him if he wanted a butler, it's all in fun.

Second, you should be prepared to metagame. I've previously discussed that there's good metagaming and bad metagaming. Altering your character portrayal to avoid nasty conflicts is usually good metagaming. In Character, your Starfleet captain might be a decisive man of action who just snaps out orders that are instantly obeyed. Out of Character, you should probably be a little more diplomatic. Taking a minute OOC to discuss what you've got in mind and ask the other players what they'd like to do is a good idea. It can help you in another way as well. We'll get to that in a minute.

Third, be prepared to compromise. If you have a really strong direction in mind (which we'll discuss in a minute), you have to either be able to sell that goal to the rest of the group, or be ready to lose your leadership position if you try to force them to follow it. So be ready to change your goals if necessary. Remember that the game isn't about your character and his sidekicks (generally). It's about a group. Everyone needs a chance to shine, and if you're always pushing your character to the front, you're going to annoy your fellow players.

So now you're reading this and saying "but David, if I do all that, I'm not really the Leader at all. I'm more like everybody else's servant." To which I reply, "Yeah, pretty much." The best Leaders don't think of their job as "order these people around." They think about it as "Help these people succeed."

Not all leaders are like that, of course. And if you have the personal magnetism to get the rest of your group to do whatever you want, you don't have to do it either. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Now, on to the second matter:

Providing Vision

The Leader's job is to direct his followers. This is the hardest part to teach. Giving orders is easy. Giving them in a way that people will follow isn't too difficult. But knowing what orders to give? Aye, there's the rub.

In a fairly typical roleplaying party, the group engages in a mix of investigation, intelligence gathering, and small-unit military tactics. An ideal Leader would be adept at planning for all of those. He'd know the strengths and weaknesses of everyone on his team, and be able to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of his enemies. He'd also be able to put different pieces of information together to create a coherent view of any situation, then figure out how to exploit that situation to his team's benefit.

Tall order, huh? And we're not quite done yet. That's all tactical level stuff. A good Leader also has to be able to work at the strategic level. He needs to provide overall direction to the team, so that they're always moving closer to a goal.

Not many people can really do all that, which is, more or less, why leadership works at all. Fortunately, you don't really have to be able to do it all.

Some of the same mechanisms I suggested earlier will help you here. You should probably really talk to the other players about the overall strategy the group wants to pursue anyway.

For the tactical side, if you don't have at least a basic grasp of problem-solving skills, you might want to reconsider your choice to be the Leader. But you don't need to be a SWAT commander or anything. The GM's probably not, either. (Besides that, all too many groups use the tactic of "just do whatever" without much coordination anyway...)

If the GM is willing to work with you, you have some options. Spend points on skills like Notice and Tactics, and ask for rolls to give your character ideas. It probably won't be very satisfying to play a tactical genius by just sitting around waiting for the GM to make up your plans, but he can give you enough help to get by.

Another option is to delegate. If your character can provide the overall direction, others can help with parts of the whole. The most important aspect of the Leader's role is to know what needs to be done and be sure someone is doing it. If another player is better at planning out combat encounters, let him make the plans. Try to ask some good questions. It's the same as the fact that the Leader would let the unit's medic do the field surgery, and the scout do the intelligence gathering.

The, of course, you're just management. (Just a joke. Don't take it personally)

Seriously, though, you should be prepared to delegate some things. Everyone wants to feel creative and useful. Most games aren't about The Leader and his Spiffy Minions. They're about a team of relative equals. Often, even when there's a logical command structure, groups tend to be more democratic than would be logical. We'll talk about that more in just a minute.

The flip side is that if you're having to delegate everything, then perhaps playing the Leader isn't for you. Chances are good that if the other players are metagaming so their characters will follow yours, and someone else is coming up with the plans, you're not really doing a good job in the Leader slot. At some point, you'll have to consider whether getting to wear the Leader hat is worth the compromises you and the rest of the group are having to make.

Ok, so that's the basics of the job. Let's talk a little about practical matters.

Implementation

The Leader of a group of PCs has different challenges than, say, a SWAT Team commander or a feudal lord. Essentially, he doesn't really have any authority other than what his followers choose to give him. It doesn't matter who spent the most on the Rank advantage. You can't make the other players do what you want, and attempts to do so will be disruptive to the game. Sure, technically, a military commander could have an insubordinate soldier court-martialed, but if you try it, you'll end up bringing the game to a halt.

And that, you see, is the key. It's a game, played by people who are doing it for fun. If you do anything that makes the game not be fun, nobody is likely to cooperate with you.

Another matter is that some tactics that work pretty well in real life just don't work in some RPGs. Unless you've been trained in small-unit tactics, you just won't be as good at making up plans as someone who has, and even if you have, you might find that the rules won't support some otherwise logical courses of action. For instance, if you're playing Dungeons & Dragons, you might have problems with plans that involve quickly and quietly dispatching opposition. Escalating hit points will get in your way unless you have options like Sleep spells. (Not really a dig against the d20 crowd. It's not even absolutely true - but it's a good enough example.)

In general, your planning will need to be fairly light and flexible, simply because you don't have the resources for highly detailed plans. There are exceptions, of course. I know a few gamers who really dig the minutia of planning and plotting with maps and guard schedules and all of that.

Often, as Leader, your real job isn't so much to direct every action as simply to remind the rest of the group of their true objectives. Going into a fight saying "We're here to take out the Liche Lord. Only mess with the popcorn as much as you have to," could be enough. Your fellow players will tend to pick out their own smaller fights within the larger engagement.

One last thing that separates RPG Leaders from their real life counterparts is that they're characters in a roleplaying game. (Well, duh.) Some GMs set every detail down in advance, making the experience almost the same as real life. I hate them. I've never been that organized, and neither have most of my GMs. That means, occasionally, a plan can succeed because it sounds cool.

But occasionally not. You've really got to know your GM. To some extent, you should collaborate with him. It's not your job to lead the group into an ambush, or to slavishly follow exactly the path the GM has laid out - but on the other hand, it's not very nice to exploit your position as the Leader to shaft the GM's plot. If he's dropping hints that the group should go to San Francisco, then deciding to take them to New Orleans instead just

out of spite will probably get dice thrown at you.

Conclusions

That pretty much wraps it up for the Leader. The best I could do here was a general survey. The topic is complex enough to rate its own series of columns, but I don't think I'm going to do that.

Like just about everything else, my theories on playing a good Leader boil down to playing nice with the rest of the group. Of course, sometimes the Leader has to make hard decisions - but those should be dramatic, done for the good of the group and the game, not just to annoy another player.

TTFN

Welcome back, for the latest installment of problem character types. Today's topic is one near and dear to my heart: the dreaded Cross-Gender Character. I may have a hard time writing this one, because I really lack experience in the bad side. About half the characters I play are female, and a few people I've played with have played cross-gender characters over the years. In all that time, I've only dealt with one really annoying guy, and his male characters pissed me off to no end, too. He was just annoying.

The classic problems are these: Some players play cross-gender characters as ridiculous stereotypes with over-the-top falsetto voices or whatever. Others seem to play cross-gender to indulge juvenile sexual fantasies. And of course, some do both.

So the simple answer for this month's problem is "don't do that."

But leaving it there would make for a very short column. So let's see if we can go a little deeper.

(Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself.)

Question 1: Why?

Let's begin with motives. Why play a cross-gender character? The "Straight" camp generally holds that men can't really understand how to play women, and vice-versa. Then they look rather uncomfortable when someone asks them how much insight they have into the minds of nigh-immortal Elves or whatever. But the question is a good one.

The simple answer is "because I want to" of course. But we can head off a lot of trouble if we can get into why someone would want to.

For me, the answer at first, way back in the ancient days of High School, was that I didn't really roleplay very well. My characters were pretty much pieces I moved on the game board. Their only goals were to go on adventures as laid out by the GM. If I found a cool female miniature, why not play a female character? There was a seed of the thought that in the stories we were trying (poorly) to emulate, there were female characters, so we ought to have some in our games, but I doubt I could have articulated it very well back then.

Since my High School gaming group was not made up of particularly mature, or even functional people, there followed some fairly depraved scenes, which should have really soured me on the subject, but didn't. I suppose it's because back then I never really identified with one of my characters. I cared if they did well only to the extent that it was a game.

But over time, my reasons changed a little bit. I got more adept at the art of portraying my character, instead of just directing his (or her) movements on the metaphorical game board. The decision of my character's gender became more than whim. I was still playing about half female characters, though. And a few years back, I finally became curious enough to think about why.

What I determined is that, as far as I can tell, there are two good ways to make a character. Most gamers who care about more than stats and bonuses will favor one of the two. Of course, without the other, you're not really gaming, so there's some pretty heavy crossover.

Group one is the Actors. These gamers primarily draw on the skills of acting in their gaming. For an actor, what's really important is the portrayal. The script is written, and all that remains is to take the words the playwright has given you and bring them to life. Gamers like this tend to focus on dialogue and mannerism.

Group two is the Writers. These gamers draw primarily on the skills of writing in their gaming. For a writer, what's really important is the narrative. It's at once a deeper and a shallower approach than that used by an actor. A writer needs to build everything from the ground up. He's going to bring his characters to life through words, using not just dialogue and description, but also internal monologue and narration.

I'm pretty much a "Writer" type gamer, and one of the places this comes out is in character creation. When the GM proposes a game, and I start thinking of what I want to play, the question going through my mind isn't "Who do I want to be?" It's "Who would be a good character for this story?" How I'll actually play the character once the game begins remains to be seen. (And every so often, the answer turns out to be "very poorly.")

As an example, let's take a theoretical Pendragon game. In this fantasy world, my friend Chris has decided to run Pendragon. (Hint, hint, Chris) And we start making up characters. Chris tells us it's going to be a somewhat mystical game, following four cycles of characters through the four stages of the Arthurian Mythos: pre Arthur, Rise of Arthur, Pax Britania, and post-Mordred. There will be a kind of Tarot theme, with the Sword (Excalibur), the Staff (the lance of Longinus), the Cup (the Holy Grail), and the Shield (which I can't remember the name of right now) each being important in turn.

I'll start my brainstorming for characters. Always immediately, the idea of a Roman Knight trying to be nobler than his decadent Empire while preserving its treasures springs to mind -- but I've done that. A Pagan Knight, powerful and mysterious, might work. And, cause I've never played one before, I might come up with an Enchantress, raised in an isolated tower and now sent out on a quest. The idea with her would be to fill the role of group "magic expert." It would give me the chance to come up with a cool mystical order, and make up a nifty story about why this contemplative, soft, fragile creature was sent out into the cold, cruel world. And I'd have a nifty development path where she has to come to terms with her new environment and find hidden strength within herself. It'd be fun. And the challenge of playing a relatively powerless character could be fun, too.

The character I'd pick amongst those three (and any others I thought up) would be based pretty much on what the group seemed to need and what the GM liked. If the GM's eyes light up while you're describing a potential character, that's probably the one you should play. If he looks uncomfortable or bored… not so much.

What inspires me for a character is generally a story, I want to play a character with a history and personality that leave him (or her) in a dramatic situation. If the character "works" better as a female, she'll be female. What makes the character work is just whatever happens to resonate in my imagination. I wonder to myself if I'd want to read a story about this character, and the ones I answer "yes" are the ones I present to the GM.

Of course, that's just my reasons. Other people have different ones. "Just to try something different" is an acceptable reason if you do a good job. Playing out your lesbian striper ninja fantasies is probably not, unless your group doesn't mind. I'm willing to accept that people play in ways I wouldn't enjoy. Just so long as I don't have to play with them, that's fine with me.

Question 2: How?

The big question, of course, is how you play a cross-gender character without annoying your fellow gamers. A lot of people seem to think this will be very hard. Oddly enough, in the writing circles in which I move, nobody seems to think it's too impossible to write about characters of the opposite sex. But the nay-sayers do have a few good points.

The biggest one is that it can be hard to imagine a slight, willowy elf-maid in robes of dark green when she is being played by a big, hairy guy in a Black Hand Gaming Society T-shirt. Of course, it would be hard to imagine the same guy as a thin, reedy wizard in sable robes, with a gnarled, wooden staff. But people's tolerances vary. Some people just don't want anything to do with cross-gender gaming (with an exemption for the GM to include tavern maids or whatever). If you're playing with some of them, then you'll have to decide what you want to do about it on your own. I haven't yet encountered a player who cared if other people played cross-gender characters, but I'd probably forgo the character if I otherwise liked the group. I've got more characters floating around in my head than I'll ever play.

I will note, here, that I think the best cross-gender characters I've ever played have been in PBP or IRC games. The screen of anonymity helps me open up a little more, and not seeing the other players leaves my imagination nothing but descriptions to work from.

The second problem is psychology. How do you portray a character of the opposite sex?

In my experience, it's not really that hard. I think one of my favorite compliments came from the Buffy game where I was playing Juri, the Japanese schoolgirl vampire hunter. (Yeah, I know. Playing around with the stereotype was part of the point of the character.) Several sessions in, the wife of another player joined up. After a few games, she told me that when she'd heard about my character, and that I was a guy, she was afraid Juri was going to be a stupid caricature. She said she was pleasantly surprised that I didn't play Juri as some kind of sex-fantasy or cliché, just as a person.

So, other than proving that I'm easily pleased, what does this example say?

It says mostly that you don't need to emphasize the femininity or masculinity of your character. Most of our behavior is "gender neutral" at least to an outside observer. There are a few tags you need to work in. I gave Juri a few "girly" hobbies, like a collection of Hello Kitty stuff. That also served to sharpen the contrast of her double life. On one hand, she was a grim vampire hunter, trained almost from birth. And on the other, she slept under a pink comforter, with a Hello Kitty Fairy doll.

Just pick a few typically male or female (as the case may be) things and try to do one or two every session or so. They don't need to be sexual, or relate to toilet habits. In fact, it's probably best to skip those since the potential for unintentional humor is so high. Mention that your tough as nails, old school cop guy goes to a sports bar. Or describe your female Occult Investigator trying to pick out the right outfit to meet a contact. (Actually, be careful with that one, too. Unless you want the parody)

Steal from TV, movies, or books. Juri was slightly based on various anime characters, since playing around with the Warrior Girl stereotype was one of my goals with the character. There's a Star Wars character lurking in the back of my mind based on Sarah, from CSI. I want to see how the driven, introverted technology expert works in a group of Rebel agents. (But if Chris decides to run Pendragon instead, all bets are off, of course)

You can probably skip any deep psychology and nobody will ever notice, unless you're playing with profoundly better roleplayers than the ones I know. (If you are, drop me a line. I might enjoy gaming with you.) John Grey's "Mars and Venus" books, and a few others, do a good enough job to give you the basics if you're really interested.

In general, women are more relationship oriented, and men are more task-oriented. But those generalities quickly break down in an average roleplaying setting. Player Characters are hardly typical psychological specimens.

Most of "How to play Cross-Gender" really boils down to "What Not to Do."

• DON'T speak in a squeaky falsetto. It's not really all that funny.
• DON'T go on about how your character does "Girl Stuff" (or Guy Stuff, I suppose). Just do stuff. There's a game going on. Play it.
• DON'T use your character to play out bizarre sexual fantasies (unless that's what your whole group is into, I guess). There's a huge world of pornographic fiction of varying levels of deviance. Lots of it is put up on internet websites, so you can even have an audience for your brilliant portrayal. Your gaming friends who are really interested in clearing the Temple of Elemental Evil can log on and read, too. After the game.

Which isn't to say that your cross-gender character has to be straight. The one I'm playing now is a lesbian, mostly because another player thought a love-affair would be fun to play, and I agreed. The one before that was bi-sexual because she had some pretty severe psychological scars. Sex scenes were far less important to the game than the aftereffects of her self-inflicted degradation. But in both cases, there were reasons that made the game as a whole better. I didn't just choose it for titillation value.

Conclusions

Well, more "summation."

Playing cross-gender is not as scary as some people think it is, but to do it well does require a little maturity. I guess the big factors are (a) have a good reason, and (b) do a good job.

The first part is about your motives. Everything you do as a player should be aimed toward making the game more fun, both for yourself and for the other players. What constitutes "more fun" will vary from group to group. But in general, flat, or laughable character concepts aren't going to make most games better. If your big hook is that your character is "a chick," you're probably on the wrong track if you're part of my target audience.

(There's a large swath of gamers who aren't, and who are very happy that way. If you're one of them, Game ON! But not much of what I say will be helpful to you)

The second part is about your execution. Once again, you're supposed to be making the game fun. If you can't play a given character in a way that really entertains the other players -- AND the GM in an way appropriate to the campaign, it's probably not a good idea. But if you can, then it probably is. I've played some really good characters who just wouldn't have been as good if they were male. Unless your game is set in Amazonia, you can't do a male Joan of Arc type character, you know?

So anyway, that's it for this time. Next up will either be "Comic Relief" if my buddy Chris has time to help me, or I might wrap this series up with "The Leader."

Unless I change my mind.

See you next time.

"It is the very error of the moon,
She comes more near the earth than she was wont,
And makes men mad." --William Shakespeare (Othello: act 5, sc. 2)

That's right, kiddies. This time out, we're talking about Lunacy. Psychosis. Madness.

In literature, film, and drama, madness is a powerful device. The insane are sometimes frightening, sometimes comical, and often believed to have insights that escape those bound by rational thought.

And where popular culture goes, gaming follows. So characters afflicted with madness in one form or another have been around for a long time. They can be exciting, interesting, compelling, frightening... or really annoying. All too often, the ones I've encountered fall into the last category. Players use "my character is insane" as an excuse to be disruptive, or just lack the comedic or dramatic skills to pull off what could otherwise be a fun character.

Seeing it done wrong many times, and right a very shining few, has led me to try my hand at playing a few characters with varying degrees of insanity, and to think quite a bit about what works and what doesn't.

My two best example characters are Cordelia Hawkwood, and Piper.

Cordie was a Hawkwood noble in a Fading Suns game, but her father engaged in illegal experimentation on her in the womb to produce psychic powers. In Fading Suns, all psychics have a Stigmata, some manifestation of their power that they have trouble hiding. Cordie's was that she constantly heard voices - not whispering secrets in her ear or telling her everyone was a demon - just talking. She was a telepath, and she believed the problem was that she could never quite shut off her telepathy, so she was bombarded by the psychobabble of everyone around her. (As it turned out, she was wrong, because Larry is a cool GM)

Piper was my attempt to play the loony toon Malkavian character in a VLARP and have it be really good. He wore a funny hat and a beat up jacket covered in buttons with clever slogans on them. He never talked, only pantomimed, and played a flute rather badly (a skill I possess in real life). What made him fun was that his lunacy was all a sham. He really was a Malkavian, but his actual derangement was that he went into catatonic withdrawal under stress. Acting like a harmless clown was the consummate defense. Everyone underestimated him.

Both of these went over pretty well. I've had a few others go... not so well, but they were either altered pretty soon or retired mercifully. And I've seen many more.

So, tell me about your mother... er... I mean, let's begin:

First, a brief disclaimer: I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or any other form of mental health professional. I have taken exactly one psychology course, and that was a long time ago. So this is not going to be particularly accurate in a scholarly sense. I'm not planning to discuss much real psychology, though. What we're talking about here is "Literary Madness," insanity as it is portrayed in literature, movies, etc...

Freud said wherever psychology went, literature would have gotten there first, so we've got dibs.

What's Your Damage?

The first thing to determine if you're going to play a crazy character is why your character is crazy in the first place. In the real world, insanity tends to rise from maltreatment in childhood, severe stress, and/or an imbalance of chemicals in the brain leading to "mis-processing" of sensory information. Once you've opened the door to fantasy and science fiction, there can be many more reasons, though.

This is the simplest step, but should not be taken too lightly. If you're playing a truly insane character, instead of one who just has a few quirks, then whatever drove him over the edge is a, if not the, defining thing in his life. Hamlet was driven mad (or perhaps not) by the awful truth revealed to him by the ghost of his father. Jesus and his apostles fairly regularly cast demons out of people who we would probably now diagnose as having Multiple Personality Disorder. Hanibal Lector... actually, I don't know what was up with Hanibal Lector. Those movies creep me the hell out.

If you're playing a realistic game, the cause of your character's madness will help determine its type. The ever popular Multiple Personality Disorder (unless there have been exciting new discoveries since the last time I browsed a work on psychology) arises in people who were profoundly traumatized as children, and lost all ability to trust anyone around them. Schizophrenia is the result of brain-chemical imbalance, and tends to run in families. Sociopath (or maybe they're calling it something else these days. Narcissistic personality disorder? Something like that) is usually the result of childhood abuse.

In a fantastic game, all bets are off. Demonic possession, alien experimentation, gypsy curses, almost anything goes.

Besides telling you how your character is insane, knowing the root cause will tell you how he might be returned to sanity if that's your goal. Real mental maladies can often be treated with drugs and therapy. Demonic possession is a little trickier sometimes.

Of course, you might not want your character cured at all. But even so, knowing the source of his madness will help you play him. A crazy Seer touched by the elfshot will have certain motifs you can play out.

Accounts of Madness

After the cause comes the effect. As I said before, this article is not going to be particularly scholarly. I'm going to just divide up various insanities into broad categories and discuss the play effects of each.

Neurosis - phobias, minor quirks, general weirdness. Neurotic characters are generally not dangerously violent. They instead have certain inhibitions in social situations. One of the coolest examples in modern culture is the TV detective Monk, who is the OCD poster boy. He has an incredible fear of grime and disorder. Other than that, he's fine. But "that" makes him a basket case.

Almost all people have a little bit of neurosis. Playing a character with more can be fun. It's usually more for comic effect than as a serious hindrance or a major source of drama.

A little unfairly, I'm also going to lump in stuff like manic-depression here - perfectly normal traits magnified out of proportion. The "real" effects are a lot different, of course, but in play they tend to have a similar effect on character dynamics. A manic depressive character will have trouble dealing with the world, but won't really be considered Insane (with a capital "I"), just kind of weird.

Psychosis - getting into scary territory here. The world, as interpreted by a Psychotic's senses, is different than the real world. He might hear voices that aren't there, or see things differently than they really are. Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, could be described as a psychotic. (albeit a pretty harmless one).

This delusional madness is incredibly compelling for literature. The characters are interesting to observe and interact with. It's a challenge to figure out the psychotic's frame of reference so you can understand what he's saying. Throw in just a hint of fantasy, and it gets really fun. Maybe he really does see ghosts or faeries.

You can play this one just about any way you want. The delusions can be funny, poignant, mysterious, or scary.

Sociopath - (I believe this term has fallen out of vogue these days, but I like it, so I'm using it anyway). The sociopath is, mostly, perfectly sane except for one little thing: a lack of compassion. He might act nice, warm, and caring, but in reality the only person he cares about is himself. He is probably very smart (stupid sociopaths are usually just called bullies). This makes him all the more dangerous, because there is nothing he won't do if he thinks it will get him what he wants.

Sociopaths are dangerous characters. In the right game, they'd be fine. (In a lot of games, everyone's a sociopath, of course. In which case this advice is irrelevant). But most of the games I've played in had an informal social contract that said the PCs were all on the same "side." They might not like each other much, but they'd cooperate at least a little bit - and instances of player vs. player conflict would be limited. A sociopath changes all that. Played properly, he really has no loyalty at all to the group, and no conscience or code of honor to stop him from knifing another PC in the back if he thinks he can get away with it. And worse yet, he'd do it without any foreshadowing to warn the other player. While that's perfectly realistic, it's not very nice for what is otherwise a friendly social activity.

Multiple Personality Disorder - A much more rare disorder in real life than in literature, MPD means just what it says: one brain holds multiple, distinct personalities. They might all know each other, or they might not. Generally (probably more in literature than in real life) one personality is fairly "normal." and the others are more aberrant. They might be expressions of different aspects of the core personality, or totally unrelated constructs. Some of them might not even be human.

MPD can be a lot of fun to play. If nothing else, there's variety. I haven't yet had the chance to play my MPD superheroine, Reliquary. Her power absorbs the consciousness of anyone who dies within a few yards of her, so her mind is host to several personalities - some of which are quite strong-willed. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity some day.

Autism - not really an insanity, but worth mentioning here. Autistics have difficulty relating to the outside world, using language, and accepting change. There is a broad spectrum of Autistic disorders. Characters on the low end are just somewhat eccentric. But on the far end, things get exciting. An Autistic Savant could be an interesting character, if you can keep him playable. It would be a good idea to have another player helping you out as your character's caregiver.

Developmental Delay - AKA Mental Retardation. Also not really insanity, but it could be interesting. Lenny, from Of Mice and Men is a classic literary example. His vast physical power was made tragic and monstrous by his feeblemindedness.

Alien - The last "not really insane" type, and in fact the last one I'm going to define right now. Alien characters are perfectly sane for their species, but have a different outlook than normal humans. A classic example from the ancient days of gaming (the 80's) is the Kender: a race of short, cute little people utterly without fear, and with uncontrollable curiosity.

North by Northwest

Ok, you know the "Why" and the "How," so it's time for the "What." Once you've figured out your character's derangement, you have to put it into practice.

Broadly, there are two ways to play an insane character: seriously, or humorously. There is also a third way: disruptively, but most people who play that way will argue vociferously that they're actually playing one of the other two, and the other players are just mean ole' jerks with no appreciation for good roleplaying.

Played for laughs - Insane characters are funny. Just think about Daffy Duck, particularly in his early, kidna freaky incarnation. They're wild and unpredictable. The problem is, they're hard to bring off. "Dying is easy, comedy is hard," as they say. I've seen more disruptive loony characters than I have ones I really wanted to share a game with. The most common symptom is that the kook constantly annoys the other PCs with his childish behavior, random outbursts, or whatever - then when the other players are fed up, the kook's player falls back on the "I was just playing my character" defense.

To pull this character off, you've got to walk a narrow line. Too little, and he's not really the character you want. Too much, and he's messing up everyone else's fun. My friend Chris gave me the following advice while we were discussing this: "remember, your job is to amuse the rest of the players, not yourself." Obviously, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be amused, but your goal is to be comic relief, not comic torture.

I think the trick is to work your portrayal so the character is a little "off" most of the time, and just goes spilling over the edge into complete lunacy every once in a while. Then you try to time those outbursts (maybe one in a long session) for times when they'll make the game more dramatic or more fun, rather than just when they'll be the most disruptive to everyone. And be ready for cues from the other players that you need to rope it in a little.

Unless you're really playing an adversarial game, you probably don't want to ruin the other PCs plans, just to make them more... interesting. So the classic Malkavian with a cream pie probably shouldn't really throw it at the Prince. But he should keep edging toward it, maybe pick it up and weigh it in his hands once. But one of the other PCs is ready to smoothly take it away.

Serious portrayal of insanity is probably harder, in some ways. But once you get the basics down, at least comedic timing isn't as much of an issue. An insane character played seriously is more dramatic. He has a built-in struggle he has to face above and beyond what everyone else does. Almost by definition, he's struggling to make sense of an insane world.

The challenge for the player is to figure out how the character's aberrant psychology interacts with the world around him. Someone with schizophrenic delusions constructs an elaborate fantasy world that could be completely alien, or might be only subtly different than the real world. Someone with multiple personalities has a reason for being that way. Something besides random chance might trigger the changes. Certain personalities would emerge in response to certain needs.

You don't need to base your portrayal on textbook psychology. (If you're a psychologist, go for it, though. That could be cool) Literature is a much better guide. Rather than responding to misfiring neurons or chemicals, your character's madness can respond to narrative necessity. The strange and terrible insights of the mad, while not very realistic, are very literary.

That basic advice holds for any of the concepts I've presented here. You want to keep two factors roughly in balance, your character's psychology (be it insane or alien, or just a little odd) and the needs of the game. Where they conflict, in general the needs of the game win. Fortunately, the game doesn't need a whole lot. If you're not actively dragging it down, you're probably doing fine.

Working with the GM would be a good idea. Something so terrible that it drove your character mad is probably worth working into the back story. A paranoid delusion about alien abductions that just happens to coincide with an illegal government operation could be fun.

And even though we're talking serious here, don't be afraid of a little humor once in a while, if it fits your character.

Conclusions

Well, that's all the time we have kiddies. This column covered material I've talked about previously. Indeed, a lot of this series seems to be.

Next on the hit parade will be one of two things: Comic Relief, or the dreaded Cross-Gender Character. See you then.

Welcome back. In this installment, we will embark at long-last on the topic I've been putting off for a while, personality types. This will be a little different than the character archetypes I discussed earlier, because it won't focus on abilities at all - just personality traits. What I have in mind is to pick out some classically annoying personalities, and discuss how they might be played effectively.

First up, the "Moody Loner."

Everybody knows the "Moody Loner." He was orphaned at an early age, quite possibly raised by a ninja clan, has no particular ties to anyone else, and tries to be completely self-sufficient. He's the Masterless Man, not shackled to any cause, any place, or any group. He's free to do whatever he wants, limited only by his personal code of honor.

He's a very classic literary character. I could point to Gilgamesh (well, he had one friend), Percival, or Perseus. I could mention Josey Wales (or almost any other Clint Eastwood character). It would be almost criminal if I didn't mention Wolverine of the X-men. Fortunately, I'm covered there because I used his catch-phrase as the title of this column.

But literature and gaming are different beasts. In a work of literature, while the Loner is off brooding or whatever, there aren't four other loners waiting their turn. The story just happens. In a game, a character who demands a significant amount of one-on-one time can be a burden to the rest of the group.

So how can you make it work? How can you play a loner in a group activity?

A few ways.

Just Deal

Your character is a loner. He doesn't really care about the other PCs very much, and whenever faced with the choice, generally acts alone. This frequently means that the GM is forced to run a split group.

This is the least constructive way to handle the problem, but sometimes it's the right one. In a PBEM or PBP game, loners work much better than in tabletop games. In a LARP, it can also work OK, to the extent that if you want to have any fun, you'll still have to talk to other characters, but none of them have to be your character's friends.

Even in a tabletop game, you have some options. As I've said before, you only have a right to expect roughly as much of the GM's attention as the other players do, but if you don't mind sitting and watching a lot, you can do so. You can also try to handle your side-trips and personal quests in between games if the logistics work out.

Pick the Right Game

In games that eschew the traditional "party" structure, all the players might be playing Loners to some degree. Games like Amber, or an all Elders Vampire chronicle tend to blur the "PC/Protagonist NPC/Antagonist" division, so PCs are frequently acting on their own, against each other, or in shifting alliances. A loner character isn't so disruptive, since the social contract of the game is built to handle it.

A troupe style game might also work, to some extent. This is dodging the issue a little, because your Loner PC will have something of an entourage, but they'll be his subordinates, rather than "other PCs." Psychologically, he can still be somewhat of a loner, while not really monopolizing too much of the game.

Pick the Right Situation

Most of the literary examples of Loners get involved in groups to some degree. There are ways to make that happen. Your character may be a rootless wanderer, but perhaps his code of honor won't let him just walk away from a grave injustice. If some other people are fighting the same injustice, he might join up with them, "strictly temporarily." From there, he might always be on the fringes of the group, or might come out of his shell a little.

A Loner might be forced into working with a group, rather than choosing it on his own. Loners can be hard to manipulate, since they're built with few hooks. If you've chosen to play a Moody Loner because that way the GM can't "screw with you" then I think your motives may be a bit misguided. It's not really fair to expect the GM to be able to craft a game to your personal specifications in which nothing ever happens that you don't like. The literary experiences RPGs try to re-create are full of characters forced into situations they wouldn't choose: loved ones are kidnapped, killed, or cursed; Powerful enemies rise up from the past; Protagonists are bribed, begged, or blackmailed. If you're not willing to play along a little bit, you might be better off writing for your own entertainment than playing a collaborative game.

(Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now)

Pick the Right Loner

My favorite option is to build a character who might think he's a Loner with no compassion and no care for anyone but himself, but really he's not. Wolverine, particularly the way he's portrayed in the X-men movie, is an incredible example. Here is this guy with no past, wandering alone, but when he's confronted with someone who really needs his help, he gives it. He complains the whole time, but he does what needs to be done. And when he finds a group, he joins it, still complaining.

A "Cooperative Loner" can be antisocial, moody, headstrong, and stubborn, but he has built-in reasons to work with the rest of the group at least half the time. He's built from the get-go to be part of the group, even though he doesn't want to be. Or better yet, he really does want to be, but he's got hang-ups that keep him from realizing it.

I'm playing one of those in a PBP Witchcraft game right now. I didn't really focus on the Loner aspect, but it was certainly there. When I was invited to join, the group was a little short on straight, physical muscle, so I whipped up a vampyre PC. Gabriel de la Luna was a Conquistador, turned into a vampyre by an Aztec vampyre/magician. Eventually, he escaped his master's control and became a member of the Fellowship of Judas (your basic "vampyres in search of redemption" group, for those who don't play Witchcraft).

He was full of self-loathing, adhered to a rigid code of honor, and that was about it. (Hey, I was in a hurry) As I fleshed out his background, I decided that he hadn't always been that way. Once, he'd had friends, and begun to think that he could really do some good and become "human." He didn't think he could really be mortal again, but he thought he might have something like a family.

Then they all died horribly.

That left me back at square 1, with a warrior vampyre who would honorably do whatever he promised. The NPC he considered to be his feudal lord asked him to protect the other PCs, so he did.

Over the course of the next few adventures, he started to care about them. Eventually, he fell in love with one, after a really complicated relationship with another one. (Fun game, kinda like a soap opera with periodic demon invasions).

Conclusions

Oh yeah, like you really think I have any conclusions by now.

The Loner is always going to be a little hard to play in traditional settings, but I think what I've outlined is a pretty good place to start. Like just about anything else you might want to do, it'll be good if you do it well, and bad if you do it poorly.

Your motives are important, of course. If you're playing the Loner to explore his effect on the group's dynamic, and the group's on him, you're probably in better shape than if you're playing a Loner because the other players are such losers. (And one wonders why you're playing with a bunch of losers).

When you're looking for examples and inspiration, it might be better to look at sources with something of an ensemble cast, rather than stories where the Loner is the only focus, to see how the authors split up the time. But even in more centralized examples, Loners almost always end up with some kind of connections. Find out how those work, and try to make them work for you as well.

Next time up, I think I'll try another concept, playing an insane character.

See you then.

Hi ya'll. We'll be postponing our discussion of different personality types, perhaps indefinintly if I get another idea I like better first. This time out, I was inspired by the end of my several months long WitchCraft game. I decided to do a sort of retrospective.

In the Beginning

The seed for this Chronicle was actually planted around three years ago. Our group was between games, and Chris was thinking about running. He'd picked up WitchCraft recently. I loved the game from way back in the Myrmidion Press edition. I suggested a character to him, a psychic test subject. The big twist would be that I would not actually start the game playing that character. I'd start playing her older brother, who had discovered that his baby sister was in a really terrible place and hired the other PCs to help him rescue her. He'd be a Mundane, and would die during the first session. None of the other players would know this was the plan all along.

That game fell through, but the idea stayed with me, and the personality of the psychic character slowly grew. "Anna" had been violated in every way possible, and somehow held on to a tiny shread of her humanity. She was very much not a typical hero. She was callous and cruel because that was the only way she could survive what had happened to her. But deep down, she wanted to believe there could be something good in the world, and once she had power of her own, she was determined to use it to destroy others who she judged to deserve it. Trying to figure out how someone like her would relate to the world was a challenge, and I thought she'd be fun (in a slightly squicky way) to play.

So years passed. We played some Fading Suns and some Tribe 8 and some D&D, some Deadlands and some smatterings of other stuff. And Chris finally decided he wanted to run something big again. And better yet, he'd been reading Anita Blake novels.

He decided on WitchCraft. Our conversation went something like this:

Chris (puts down Bloody Bones): I've been thinking about running a modern occult game. What do you think about maybe WitchCraft?

Me: I'm playing Anna.

That Chris remembered a character I'd proposed three years ago and never played, and didn't think I was strange for holding on to the idea in excruciating detail for all that time is probably one of the reasons he's my best friend.

The Game is On

So we got the group together. At the beginning, there were four PCs:

Anna Williamson: Psychic test subject with telepathic powers and... issues. Scratch that. Anna didn't so much have issues as she had entire runs of magazines on microfiche with full text archives on computer. She was a telepath with mind control abilities. She was also a musician, and if stupid demons from the outer demensions would have just stopped trying to invade our reality, she would have been really happy playing night clubs and stuff instead of going out and fighting evil.

David Lin: PI. Mr. Lin was an ex-military type who'd had a run-in with a vampyre in his past. He was Mundane (had no powers) but in WitchCraft, Mundane with a capital "M" makes you more like Rambo or Sherlock Holmes than like Willy Loman. He was an action hero, more than a little crazy, and was the center of the group since he was the one Anna's brother hired to rescue her. Lin hired the other PCs to help.

James Sinclair: Demon Killer Ninja. A mystical martial artist with a ten-year gap in his memory. He wanted to fill in the holes, and had a general desire to "do good." As it turned out, during the ten-year gap, he'd been a pretty bad person, and somehow gotten that part of his life wiped out. One of the group's major adversaries was the group of mystically powered assassins he'd founded back then. They were really surprised when he showed up to kill them.

Dr. Maggie Rynolds: Healer. Part of a family of demon hunters, but Dr. Maggie didn't really want any part of it. She wanted to be a pediatrician. Her sneaky family set her up to be hired by Mr. Lin because they knew it would eventually get her involved in the family business. In the first adventure, she went along because it was likely that Anna would need medical treatment (being in a mental institution where she was being tortured and all).

The game ran weekely for several months. There were three big threads of the plot, all braided together. At the end was a Mad God the PCs dubbed "Crocathulu" since it looked like a big, slimy lizard thing. It was trying to gain access to our world through a couple of means. There was an evil voodoo street gang, and a group of evil ninjas, and the project that had created Anna and some other psychic kids, all ultimately tied to this one big baddie.

Anna's rescue started off a kind of domino effect. The whole mess gradually fell to pieces, and the PCs were just following the carniage, usually arriving just in time to stop something from getting completely out of hand. Each encounter pointed us to a little more of the plot, and showed us a little more of how interconnected it all was.

Last night (as I'm writing this, you'll read it much later) was the final session. The heroic PCs shut down the evil psychic researchers and rescued their last few victims (but not before some of the bad guys could get away for the sequel) and tracked the big baddie to its lair where there was a terrific showdown.

Lesson for the forces of evil: If you're vulnerable to fire, don't make your base of operations in the same building as a meth lab. You might end up being beaten to death by a burning refrigerator.

Post Game Wrap-Up

So now I'm sitting in the afterglow, or aftermath, getting ready for our next game. I'm also thinking back on the last one and trying to decide what worked and what didn't and what I can do better next time.

What worked:

• My goal with Anna was to play the traumatized child within the young woman trying to be "normal." I hoped to ocassionally frighten the other PCs with Anna's casual inhumanity. It worked pretty well. Some of the stuff I thought was really good barely got a raised eyebrow, and sometimes I got really shocked looks for stuff I didn't think was that big a deal, but on the whole I was happy. Anna came off as someone generally good, but with a skewed idea about what "good" meant. There were some factors in the game that softened her edges a little. Dumb ole' Dr. Maggie being all compassionate and understanding all the time made it hard for Anna to reject all humanity. So in the end, she was nicer than she might have been.
• The plot progressed nicely. Everybody shares the credit for making characters who fit in with it and not getting too side-tracked on personal developments. Two PCs were just made to be in the thick of it, of course. I'm also pretty happy with our clue-finding ability. It never felt like we were running around aimlessly until the GM had to hit us with a clue-by-four.
• Roleplaying in general was pretty good. I was happy with my portrayal, and the other characters were cool.

What didn't work:

• Group dynamics were our worst problem. One player (playing David Lin) had to drop out, and we never managed to replace him. That threw things out of whack for the rest of the game. Instead of One full-bore combat character, one combat/social, one social/combat, and one mostly non-combat character, we had one full-bore combat character, one social/combat character who couldn't really keep up, and one mostly non-combat character. We tried to redress the balance, but it never really worked.
• A big chunk of the problem was that I should have paid more attention to the other PCs. Kate (playing Dr. Maggie) was a new gamer, and made up an almost entirely non-combat character. Tom (playing David Lin) made up a combat character, but one who would either have to develop supernatural power in play, or end up in a mostly support role (both valid options). And in the end he had to drop out anyway.
• If I'd been paying attention, Anna would have been much more combat worthy. Instead of a smattering of different powers, mostly focused on investigative ones, she would have had just two, both very useful in combat. It would have shifted the focus of her personality slightly. Instead of having trouble relating to people she generally saw as puppets, she'd have been more flighty and afraid of herself because of her vast destructive potential. That would have been fun to play, too, though.
• I was too passive. I have that problem a lot. With Anna, it was a little worse because a lot of her characterization was about isolation and alienation. Logically, there were a lot of times she just wouldn't talk. I was roleplaying her sitting quietly very well, but it wasn't very exciting to watch.

What to do next time:

• I need to make more forceful characters, and make a conscious effort to play them more forcefully. I tend to be a little shy, and I think I'd enjoy my gaming more (and maybe my real life, too) if I wasn't. But part of it isn't shyness, it's that I make retiring characters. Anna's a good example. She just wasn't very talkitive or driven.
• I'd put down "work on group integration" but normally I'm pretty good at that. I just really blew it this time, and my mistake was magnified by some things beyond my control.
• The last thing I want to work on is communicating my desires to the GM. This one's a touchy point. I'm not sure how to express it.

Chris ran a pretty plot-focused game. Most of our sessions related to unraveling the big puzzle and defeating the minions of darkness, with very little beyond that. The PCs were presumed to have private lives, but they didn't really come up much. Unfortunately, a lot of what I wanted to do with Anna was wrapped up in her daily life, so it didn't come up much in the game.

I'm not sure, however, that this was a flaw in the game. Chris didn't run a game exactly like what I wanted to play, but that doesn't mean it was bad. What he did run was pretty good. The only flaw I'd point out was that combat didn't seem dangerous enough, and that was really only partially his fault. When we lost Mr. Lin, the combat dynamic of the whole group shifted. Anything that could hurt James would slaughter Anna and Maggie. So frequently, we ended up in fights where the girls hid while James beat up the bad guys.

Toward the end of the game we fixed that, too. Anna got better at support with her telekenetic powers. She couldn't really lay down the smack, but she could provide key distractions, and trip up adversaries to keep James from being overwhelmed. And when she needed to be, she was plenty dangerous. All it took was one guy with a low Willpower and a big gun.

Also, most of Anna's private life wasn't reflected on her sheet in any way. She didn't have any contacts, or any adversaries besides the big, scary conspiracy that was one of our primary foes in the game. So I didn't give Chris a lot to work with.

So the last item on my list is a reitteration of the predominant theme of my column, "work with the GM." From now on, I need to make sure the GM knows what I want, and that I know what the GM has in mind so I can adjust my expectations. I generally do that somewhat anyway, to tell the truth. This example just shows me why.

(And, Chris, I'm not dissing your game. This is a fairly minor quibble in a darn good game.)

Alright, that's enough for one month. I'll see what inspires me for next month.

Till then, have fun. Good gaming.

Welcome back. This month we're going to finish up this less than exhaustive look at heroic archetypes. I could probably come up with a few more if I really wanted to, but I am fresh out of catchy titles for the series.

The archetypes I chose for this installment are all, to one degree or another, a little problematic. In addition to talking about who they are and what they do, I'm going to try to offer some advice on how to overcome these problems.

The Loyal Retainer

I was originally going to do the Protector, but I've decided to expand the archetype a little bit. The Protector was going to be a character dedicated to the protection of another character. The Loyal Retainer is more general. He might be a bodyguard, but he could just as easily be a butler, or just about anything else.

The Loyal Retainer is the servant of another character, generally another PC. His role in the group is to help his master in some way. Examples include Alfred Pennyworth, Tanto, and Lobot, and, of course, Samwise Gamgee. In fact, during Fellowship of the Ring, just about all of the Fellowship were there to help Frodo, but Sam in particular saw himself as Frodo's servant, rather than his ally.

Whatever his area of expertise, the Loyal Retainer is a servant. His primary motivation is often not the same as the rest of the group's. Instead, his goal is to serve his master, who is following the group's goal. This can lead to some interesting roleplay. If the Retainer feels like his master's life is in danger, he might council his master to turn from his course. When presented with a choice that endangers his master, but moves closer to the goal, what does the Loyal Retainer do?

Then there's the whole question of his loyalty. Why is he loyal? If he's repaying a debt, then what will he do when he feels like he's repaid it? If he's following a generations-long tradition of service, what if he starts to chafe under that restriction out in the wide world? If he serves out of admiration for his master, what if the master proves not to be admirable?

When you make up your Loyal Retainer, the first step is to figure out what you'd like him to do. Loyal Retainers come in many types. Almost any kind of character from the strongest warrior to the cleverest thief could be the servant or sidekick of another character. Some settings offer a little more support to the Retainer relationship than others. A game in a medieval fantasy setting has built-in feudal relationships. A Knight might have a Squire (and in Arthurian literature, the Squire might be older and wiser than his Knight). A Lord might have vassals. A Wizard might have an apprentice, but that usually indicates a difference in power levels that might be a problem. But when you get down to it, whenever people have had societies, there have been some of them ordering others around, so I can only think of a few games where a Retainer wouldn't work very well.

The second step is to figure out who he works for. If he's working for a relatively faceless NPC, then he's not really a Loyal Retainer in the sense I have in mind. A big part of the Loyal Retainer's character is his constant subservient relationship. So he needs an employer who will be a constant factor in the game. An NPC master works well enough, particularly if the GM has an NPC closely associated with the party. For example, if the game involves escorting the pampered, spoiled Imperial Princess all over the kingdom, then her personal bodyguard makes a great PC.

But the real fun is to play the sidekick to a PC. One of my unrealized dreams back in the late 80's and early 90's was to find a Star Wars game where I could play the Loyal Retainer to another PC's Young Senatorial, Arrogant Noble, or Retired Imperial Captain. (Yes, I stole the title of this Archetype from Star Wars. I'd like to say I only steal from the best, but I don't. I'll steal from anybody) The PC you choose is important. In fact, this is where the problems start. First, there are in-game criteria. The "Master" PC needs to be someone who would logically have a retainer, bodyguard, or whatever. If you want to play a stuffy British Buttler, and nobody else wants to play a wealthy aristocrat, you might be out of luck. But second, there are metagame criteria. The player you choose is important. He has to want the relationship. He also needs to be someone you can trust not to abuse his position. Playing a Retainer isn't quite as emotionally loaded as playing a love interest, but it's close.

So, like so much else, the trick here is to look at these problems ahead of time and take steps to head them off. Be sure to talk to the GM and the other player. Make arrangements for what's going to happen if the Retainer needs to leave the game for some reason. Set some limits on how the master can treat his servant.

(It bothers me that this is starting to sound like a lesson on BDSM, but only a little.)

The master/servant relationship should be established ahead of time. If you want a kind master who's more like a friend, then be sure the other player knows that and wants to go along. If you really want to play the competent, cool aide de camp of a buffoonish fop, then you'll pretty much be out of luck unless someone wants to play the fop.

If the relationship is going to be particularly bad, like an abusive master or an ultimately treacherous Retainer, you'll want to hash out some of the details ahead of time. Discord can be fun, but it can easily get out of hand. Potentially, it can really disrupt the game. If the GM has a particular storyline in mind, he might prefer you not to design a traitorous PC, or (more likely, in my experience) he'll cackle with glee and help you plan the ultimate moment to strike. And if he's smart, he'll also arrange for some kind of replacement character for you, and something to soothe the bruised feelings of your fellow PCs.

For an abusive master, you also need some options. It's possible to have a subplot you can drop in where the master learns the errors of his ways, but that depends on the character. If he's a bad master because he's immature and insensitive, it's pretty easy. If he's bad because he's a sadistic bastard, it's harder. So you might just want to have a backup character ready in case playing the Retainer isn't any fun anymore.

The Jester

Comic Relief is a staple of literature for just about as far back as literature. God thought the perfect counterpoint to darkening the skies, making the rivers run red with blood, and blighting the crops of Egypt with locust was a bunch of frogs. Comedy gold. The Jester is a character intended primarily to provide comic relief. He can be intentionally funny, like a real clown or jester, or unintentionally funny, because he's stupid or insane. Examples include almost all the classic Comedia del Arte characters, but Scaramouche and Puncello in particular. Marry, Pippin, and Gimli were all played for comedy in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings adaptations. C-3PO filled the role in the Star Wars movies.

But the Jester is somewhat harder in a game than in a story, for several reasons. The first reason is this: You are not as amusing as you think you are. Yes, I mean you. Very few people really have the chops to play a humorous character correctly for a long time. There are a lot of factors. Comic timing takes practice. What you think is funny may be different than what everybody else thinks is funny. Sometimes you just have an off night. If you're playing a brooding loner, that's not a big deal. But if you're playing the zany sidekick, it can be.

The role of "Comic Relief" in a story has to be carefully managed. Generally, in a serious story, the comic relief is there to relieve tension every once in a while. But in a game, everybody tends to want to play about the same amount. It's easy to fall into the trap of having your humorous character become obnoxious without even trying. Not every scene needs comic relief. Some scenes are ruined by it. But how fun is it for you to sit around waiting for the right moment to have your character do something silly?

Another problem is that a lot of what makes some characters funny is "picking on" other characters. The inept sidekick who always gets his hero in trouble is an example. So is the Malkavian Vampire who is so nuts that he's constantly endangering the Masquerade, insulting the Coitere's allies, and throwing cream pies at the Prince. (I have coined the term "Kendermalkie" to describe him, and all similarly stupid, invalid, and basically worthless characters. But I'm not bitter.)

The key to solving all these problems lies in knowing your audience, and having good timing. If you come by these traits naturally, more power to you. If you don't, and you want to play a humorous character anyway, then be open to a lot of feedback. Ask for it. Be ready to listen. Set yourself a limit. Maybe three times a session, your character can do something monumentally obnoxious, and the rest of the time he's just low-grade obnoxious. If part of his shtick is using another character as a springboard, be sure to give that player a break sometimes. Also, make sure the target of your affections is in on the joke, and wants to play, too. A proper, stern, honorable knight is a great target for a clowning rogue's insults. But if the player of the knight is trying to play a noble and admired leader, and the rogue is constantly undermining his authority, then only one of those two players is probably having fun. And the Knight probably has Improved Critical.

The Quisling

Last on my far from exhaustive list is the Quisling. I'm not using the term in its strictest definition here, by the way. For our purposes, a Quisling is a character who is working with the PCs, but is also working for their enemies. There are some good literary examples. Loki, in Norse mythology is a good, solid Quisling. Sorcha in the movie Willow is another one, though she is really more of a turncoat. In Star Wars, since I just about can't write a column without referencing Star Wars, Lando is just about the perfect Quisling. In Empire Strikes Back, he's working for Darth Vader, only to switch sides later on.

A Quisling takes a particular kind of game. There need to be political factions available from the get-go. There probably needs to be an overarching plot, too. A typical D&D game about a band of adventurers wandering from place to place, looting ancient tombs probably won't do it. There wouldn't be a good enough reason to have some enemy place a spy in the party's ranks. But if you add in an ancient prophecy about a band of Mystical Heroes, you're golden.

A typical Quisling character needs to be fairly socially adept. He's going to be lying to the rest of the party for at least part of the game, and if he can't lie with a straight face, he's in trouble. In games with various forms of paranormal divination, he probably needs some way to circumvent those methods. Though, if more than just the Quisling player and the GM are in on the deception, this might be taken care of in a metagame way. And it might not be an issue at all. Most people aren't paranoid enough to cast "Detect Alignment" on everyone they meet, after all. Also, in some groups, the Quisling's non-allied status won't really be an issue. He might be openly part of one of the other factions, not trying to deceive the group as to his affiliation at all. In dark, gritty games, politics often makes for strange bedfellows.

Beyond his ability to deceive the rest of the group, the Quisling probably also needs to be useful. The group needs to keep him around, after all. Given the fact that he's usually going to be a social type character, the rogue, face-man, information gatherer kind of roles suit him well. Leadership is less of a good idea, since presumably he's an enemy of the group. A solid fighter is useful, and can either be social enough to hide his true motives, or just hide them behind a gruff, silent exterior. And everybody loves an evil wizard, of course. Or an evil decker, or whatever.

Problems for the Quisling come from a few different areas. The first one is that there's a general sense in most groups that the PCs are all on the same side. When one PC betrays the others, it can be very disruptive to group harmony. Further, as sad as it might be, the feelings of betrayal in game can spill out into real life. That's mostly a matter of maturity, of course. But it's a matter of maturity for both the Quisling player and the others. Bragging about it for weeks on end, or making a habit out of betraying your friends in game are not likely to endear you to them. Making sure the Quisling's betrayal is part of a good story will also help. Randomly whacking other PCs doesn't really make the game more dramatic. A carefully orchestrated plot with just enough clues that the other PCs eventually catch on can be a lot of fun, even if they don't stop you in time. (Of course, it's probably better if you have the Quisling decide not to kill them out of foolish sentiment, or something. Otherwise the game kind of ends early.)

Ultimately, the Quisling is supposed to try to switch sides and really become a loyal member of the PC group. Otherwise, he's not really a "heroic" archetype, and therefore falls outside the scope of this series of articles. Maybe he's inspired by their nobility, or maybe he falls in love. Maybe he was working for the bad guys against his will all the time. Then the eventual betrayal of trust becomes a more dramatic plot point as the Quisling tries to redeem himself and earn back the group's trust.

If you've played your role too well, and kept it too secret, this might prove a problem. I've played turncoat type characters a few times, and it always worked out, but I've seen it fail badly, too. Having the other players in on the secret from the beginning obviously makes the transition easy, but it takes some of the fun out of it. So possibly the best thing is to have the GM be ready to explain at the proper time. He's generally going to be seen as impartial, and once it's clear that you have been acting under his direction, most players will be willing to roll along with the new direction of the plot.

One of the biggest problems for the Quisling is that to some degree, he needs knowledge that the GM would rather keep out of the hands of the players. Presumably, he needs to know at least a little about the bad guys' plans so he can fulfill his part in them. Depending on exactly why he's doing what he's doing, he might know a little or a lot.

So that's the place to start. The GM will need to decide how much information he's comfortable giving the potential Quisling player, and that will determine where the Quisling fits into the hierarchy of the bad guys. A really trustworthy player could end up playing one of the major bad guy's lieutenants, privy to almost the entire plan. In fact (just to make everyone I GM for paranoid) I'm planning a game where one of the PCs is destined to turn on the others from the first session.

But far more common will be low-level Quislings. If the Quisling is just some expendable agent, maybe even forced to work for the bad guys against his will, he won't need to know much more than his current instructions. In that case, it's really just a matter of the GM setting up jobs for him to do, probably no more than meeting a controller from time to time to make reports.

Which brings us to the third problem. The Quisling has a built-in secret that will take some manner of separation of OOC and IC knowledge on the part of the other players. At the most difficult end of the spectrum, your Quisling might have active goals that run contrary to the group's, and that he has to act on during play sessions. In that case, you'll have to rely on the other players to keep IC and OOC knowledge separate. And you should probably resign yourself to being caught pretty quickly. There are a few things you can do to keep the game going, though. A fast-talking Quisling might be able to come up with explinations. A sneaky one might be able to buy the silence of the PC who caught him with blackmail or bribery. A ruthless one could just kill the witness, but that's not such a good idea if he's supposed to reform later on.

At the easier end, the Quisling might just be a spy, informing on the group. Then it's all a matter of logistics. If he has to make in-person reports, he might still get caught. There's still the OOC/IC issue to deal with. If the GM separates players for private scenes, everyone is suspicious. If he doesn't, everyone hears the reports.

Of course, the lack of separation could be used to increase the drama of the game. If the other players are in on the secret from the beginning, they can play along. They get the fun of seeing the Quisling's gradual change. Maybe he starts off by keeping a few secrets from his masters to try to protect the group. Then eventually he tries to set a trap, or leave completely. It's good roleplaying, but it's also good entertai