Bardic KnowledgeHow RPG character development helps writing characters in fiction. | [Original Page Build: 2024-05-22 11:25:18] [Content Updated: 2024-05-22 11:25:25] |
I have had RPGs on my mind this week after talking with friends about their D&D groups and with my son wanting to infiltrate our Pathfinder campaign when it returns from an extended hiatus. Since we are getting back into the game after a break of several months, I have been thinking about how I need to level up my character and refreshed whare our party left off in this adventure. I reminded myself of how RPG character development is an excellent exercise I should explore more when writing fiction.At times, developing rich characters can still be a struggle for me. I tend to focus more on the concepts than other story elements. I have improved compared to the characters of my earlier stories. One thing that has helped is being part of a well-run RPG group. The more I get into playing the character, the better the game play. That mindset can transition to fiction writing.
My Backstory
When I was a kid, I had the Dungeons and Dragons DM Guide and the Player's Manual. I was fascinated by it all, but I struggled to find or start a gaming group. Computer RPGs did their best, but still did not satisfy that desire to play in a social setting with friends. As newbies to the world of RPGs, my friends and I had trouble getting started. We moved onto other shiny objects before we could complete the character creation phase. Joining an established group seemed next to impossible. The easier ones to join often had a poor GM who made game play miserable for the players. Flash forward to a couple of years ago, some of our closest friends invited us to play Pathfinder, and all the waiting was well worth it for a very enjoyable and enlightening RPG experience.
Character Backstory
I picked a character to play, a gnomic bard, and the GM said gnomes are from this area, but the campaign will focus more in this other area of the map. I had my character's stats, his race, his class, and hometown. Before we started playing, I wrote my character's backstory to help establish a starting point for his frame of mind. If he was born and raised in location X and is now at location Y, what backstory brought him so far from home?
I found this helpful information to better identify with my character. This was his story before the real story began. Here is the Cliff-Notes version...Since he is a bard, his journey started with setting out to seek fortune and fame. Shortly after leaving home, he joined a traveling circus. Tragedy struck, and the circus disbanded. He tried to return home, but the local government had run his family out of town for reasons they would not discuss. Now, he has no idea where his family is, nor how to contact them, so he has no home to return to and is more free to travel, hoping he maysomeday encounter his family elsewhere. During these travels, he joined a traveling theatre troupe, which is how he found himself in the city where our game begins. Shortly before this new campaign, he split with the theatre troupe after learning they were a band of traveling thieves who would rob the audience as they watched the shows.
This backstory helped paint a more colorful picture of the type of character I wanted to play. As a performing gnome, he is a little guy with a lot of confidence. His moral compass points towards doing the right thing and does not want to be associated with criminals. He has faced a number of tragedies, but quickly bounces back. He is our group's positive beacon. He is inquisitive. Mostly, he loves building his life and adventures into a great story. And, he is a bit of a trinket collector to help retain memories of his stories.
Staying in Character
One tricky thing about playing a character is separating myself from my character's self. At times, I ask myself, "Okay, you know this, but does your character know this?" My character has his backstory, stats sheet, and notes of our on-going adventure. There might be things that I know from TV, movies, books, school, or wherever I learned such information. In the game, would my character know this same information?
As a bard, when there is a question about whether or not he would know a topic, the situation often falls back on a knowledge roll. If the roll fails, he either does not know, or he can't remember. Because his performing background, some of the myths he may know about from past performances he has either been involved in or has seen. However, theatre productions may not always be factually accurate.
This separation of identities is true for writing fiction. What information does the author know compared to what the character knows in the story? An extension of this is what other characters know, and when the main character learns what they know, or if they ever learn it. When the MC does know something, how did they gain this information and how accurate is it? The more the author taps into what a character knows and how sets up how well they are prepared for an impending situation.
Keeping a Journal
In the game, I do a decent job of tracking the key points of our adventure. The GM and my daughter (who also plays with us) do a much better job of taking notes. For the game, the notes are good for remembering where to pick up where we left off. Also, there may be bits of crucial information that seem trivial at one point, but are a sneaky crucial clue much later on. It's like Monty Python's Holy Grail line, "Oh! You're that man from scene 24!"
As an author, it is more like reminding myself to not throw away the outline I had been working from, especially when planning a multi-book adventure. I learned the hard way of writing a sequel to Checkered Scissors , and needing to remember where people were during this scene, or what the sequence of events occurred for that chapter.
In our game, this situation has popped up multiple times. What was my character doing when one of the other players learned about thus-and-such? Does my character know that, too? Remind me how they do or do not know? And, after looking through our notes, what will happen when I do not know a bit of crucial information, and how do I get out of the situation I find myself in?
There have been a few sessions when one of our characters has blurted out something, but we have not considered what, or if, the NPCs know? Now we have a third factor: what the character(s) know, what the player(s) know, and what the GM knows.
Game On!
Keeping track of all these layers of information can be mind numbing. This is why I am so impressed with how well authors who do write rich characters are able to keep all this straight.
Do you have a group who plays RPGs? If so, what is your character like? Have you developed a good backstory for them? Are you good about staying in character? How well do you separate yourself from your character?
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