Fractures

One problem that frequently crops up in games I have historically run is that the distinction between character and player often blurs very quickly.  It can easily be presumed that tabletop role playing games provide outlets for us to explore ways adventures we could never experience in our regular lives.  As such, many, I might even say most, PC's are stand-ins for the players themselves.  As such, disagreements, arguments, and betrayals quickly and easily transition from gamespace to realspace, and utterly preposterous circumstances in a fictional world cause problems that can strongly affect relationships in the real one.

The ability to dissociate character from player is one of the most important skills a gamer can have.  Besides the compartmentalization that every gamer needs to distinguish the difference between appropriate behavior in a game versus appropriate behavior in real life, being able to differentiate, in a real and meaningful way, the emotional state of a character from the emotional state of the player is what allows for not only thinly-veiled versions of ourselves to adventure in the future, but to explore entirely different personalities from our own.  In many ways, these skills are similar to the set of abilities very good non-Method actors must cultivate in order to portray a character without becoming that character.

The recent differences that Session 17 has brought to our game has reminded me of the exceptionally skilled group I am playing with, that the concerns being leveled are those of characters departing the party for reasons of their own morality and fears.  This easily could have exploded into out-of-game drama in other parties I have GM'd and PC'd.

In other news, Shin is trying to assemble a plan to eliminate the worst of the threat TerraSec now poses to the party, and we've scheduled an intersession run on Friday night.