Co-Geeking

This phrase is sometimes brought out by players in tabletop role-playing games to justify actions that are harmful (or at least annoying) to the rest of the party: “It’s what my character would do.”

My answer to that is: “Then your character wouldn’t be a member of this party.”

Role-playing is, of course, an important part of the game. We take on the personalities, histories, and motivations of characters who are not ourselves and tell stories about them. Sometimes, those motivations can lead to situations where characters come into conflict. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with having conflict, stress, or even outright hostility among the characters in a game, but when conflict between characters becomes conflict between players, that’s a problem that needs to be resolved.

Adventures are, after all, as Bilbo Baggins put it, nasty uncomfortable things that make you late for dinner. The characters in a role-playing game are very often not having a good time, but the players should be. Some players thrive on intra-party conflict; others abhor it. Sorting out what is and isn’t acceptable at your table is an important part of a session 0 conversation. You can have whatever rules suit your group, and if everyone at the table enjoys playing out character conflict, then go for it, but a good player should not be playing in a way that makes other players’ experience worse.

People who like intra-party conflict will sometimes claim that avoiding conflicts is a betrayal of role-playing. “In this situation,” they say, “my character would attack their character. It’s what my character would do.” But this attitude itself reflects a shallow approach to the role-playing aspect of the game.

Role-palying isn’t just about actualizing your own character’s deepest wishes; it’s also about exploring the dynamics of the group as a whole. Players need to remember that they are not just playing a character with a background and motivations, they are playing a character who has agreed, under some terms, to travel, fight, and work with a group of other characters. It may be an alliance of convenience, they may be working together with gritted teeth and watchful eyes, but they have agreed to work together all the same. Playing out how they manage to keep working together even when their interests collide is a greater and often more interesting role-playing challenge than deciding to do something even though it pisses off your fellow players. If you can’t play your character in a way that allows your fellow players to enjoy the game, then your character wouldn’t be a member of that party to begin with.

Keeping a role-playing game going isn’t always easy. It takes a good-faith effort by everyone at the table to make sure that everyone else is having a good time, even when things get rough for the characters they’re playing. Your goal as a player should always be to make sure the game is good for everyone, and sometimes that means putting in the effort to figure out how your character would decide to put the good of the group ahead of their own interests. It’s what your character would do.

Image by Erik Jensen

Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.