Tag: roleplay

Once upon a time a friend’s psyker Player Character, Toby, decided to take as a student another Player Character, Reiko. Toby did this despite her known erratic personality. Reiko had already manifested some uncontrolled psychic ability. Toby recognized that if he did not teach her, someone else would.

He did not dismiss his concerns about her character’s character. Instead, he emphasized them in a no-nonsense lecture. He made it plain to her that his motivation was as much for the safety of the community as it was for her own. Should Reiko ever intentionally misuse what he teaches her, Toby said to her face, “I will end you.”

This scene predates Star Wars: The Last Jedi with Luke’s aborted killing of his student, Ben Solo. These are the only two instances of I know where a teacher/master is prepared to kill a student going-but-not-yet-gone rogue. The literary trope is a younger student sent against a rogue ex-student of the same master(s), e.g., Enter the Dragon.

In a milieu where great magical and/or psychic powers exist, this vigilance and grim contingency needs to be standard procedure for every teacher of them.

From a practical point of view, most distinctions made between “magic,” “psychism,” “sorcery,” “witchcraft,” “psionics,” “shamanism,” or “miracle working” are simply not relevant to magic in the real world, although as artificial distinctions, the terms are useful for anthropological classification and to add variety in games.

— Authentic Thaumaturgy, p. 19

Author’s emphasis.

When I’m playing a role-playing game, I’m much more interested in hearing what someone’s character feels about a situation than what they do.

If we understand the character’s feelings, even taking no action is informative. And if we don’t know their feelings, any action remains a mystery. Why did they do that? We don’t know.

And if you ask a player what their character feels about something and they can’t answer, all the more reason to slow down, dive in, and let them figure that out. Take that time! Understanding your character’s feelings makes deciding what they would do a whole lot easier.

— Feelings > Actions – ars ludi

Author’s emphasis.

…[It] might just be that good and evil are moral extremes embraced by a select few. Good is prized because it’s laudable, not to mention rare. Evil is reviled because it does harm and threatens all others regardless of their philosophical bent. But neutrals predominate….

GOOD characters aren’t simply decent people. They’re philosophically committed to advancing good, fighting evil, and bringing justice to others. Indeed, their attentions are for others, and they act with deep compassion and mercy for the downtrodden. This is the questing white knight. The one beloved by good folk and resented by the wicked.

Everyone wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to do what it takes to get there, and herein lies the high regard champions are held in. Few want the job!

…

— Shifting to Neutral (‘Cause Most of Us Are) – Pits Perilous

The coaching technique profiled in the New York Times article “Teaching Golf Pros What They Already Know” is just what I strive to impart as Xenograg to his dueling students. He does not impose his style upon a student, but seeks to enlighten her regarding her¹ own natural style—and to trust in it (and thus herself).

Here is the key quote:

“I don’t teach; I help these guys learn,” Lynch said. “You can’t tell someone to do XYZ because they won’t do it out there.”

¹ Most of Xenograg’s students are female, thus the feminine pronoun is appropriate as well as fair-minded.

People often ask me if I believe in the Goddess. I reply, “Do you believe in rocks?” It is extremely difficult for most Westerners to grasp the concept of a manifest deity. The phrase “believe in” itself implies that we cannot know the Goddess, that She is somehow intangible, incomprehensible. But we do not believe in rocks—we may see them, touch them, dig them out of our gardens, or stop small children from throwing them at each other. We know them; we connect with them….

— The Spiral Dance, Chapter 5

Manifest deities are not just a staple in roleplaying games; they are usually the default cosmology. Characters do not have belief or unbelief in deities, but rather trust or lack trust in them.