[Dresden Files] It‘s not Zilch play, but what is it?
Daniel B:
I'm just jumping into this conversation in the middle. PLEASE NOTE, although I'm aware these comments border on bashing Frank's friend (and Anime culture in general).. I don't mean any particular offence to her.
Her behaviour is NOT necessarily indicative of her being any kind of abused gamer. The tip-offs are that first of all she's playing a Japanese exchange student, and secondly a half wereCAT (as opposed to half-something-useful). This is right out of an anime comic.
Anime seems to have this perverted streak in it, an obsessiveness for vomitously cloying cuteness. EVERYTHING has to be cute for no other reason than just to BE cute. That is, in itself, the end goal. It seems to pervade the whole anime culture to the point that even their most supposedly bad-assed characters are ultra-kill-me-now-cute. (Don't bother with counter-examples. I'm speaking in hyperbole, but not by very much!)
sirogit called it a power struggle between her and the GM, but I would claim it has absolutely nothing to do with the GM. In fact I would go so far to say that the GM doesn't even really register on her radar. To answer sirogit's questions from this point of view, I'll answer his questions again:
Is the first scene about talking? NO. Its about me being cute as a wittle kitty.Is the second scene about sneaking around? NO. Its about me being cute as a wittle kitty stuck up a tree.Is the third scene about fighting a bad guy? NO. Its about me being cute as a embarrassed wittle Japanese schoolgirl.Is the fourth scene about some dude in a coma laying there silently? NO. Its about a dying old man having "a special moment" with the cute wittle Japanese schoolgirl.
UGH!
Callan S.:
I don't think the japanese student were-cat is really indicative of anything at all. It's not part of her behaviour, as in body language and semantic interaction with other humans.
The issue of behaviour here is that it is like if the objective was to talk about an imagined cake and decorating it, the GM starts off by saying some sparkles around the base of the cake. Then he throws over the next stage to the girl, passing the ball so to speak, and she...talks about her kitty chasing a mouse in the corner. She does not add decoration to the cake then pass the ball on to the GM or someone else. Repeatedly. It's the mark of someone who's been burned - who's added decoration and then it's been stripped off along with some negative social feedback - indeed you can see the type of person who does that in this account who says "No you don't!" when she goes to euthenase the old man. This is happened to her enough until she's adopted this method of play. This is like sitting down to a jamming session and she just starts playing a song (an anime one) that doesn't link at all with what other people are playing.
However, don't take this as me supporting the notion that "You HAVE to play/work on the same imaginative material together otherwise it's not roleplay!". I support the notion of "It's nice to play together. And that sometimes means you might pass on decorating the cake". Indeed this girl has taken that 'sometimes' and simply extended it to 'always, by default'. This, instead of simply ditching roleplay forever.
Or at the very least, I think I'm accurate in saying that when someone passes the ball to her for the next cake decoration, she drops that ball entirely.
The hard question is has anyone here been burned the way I describe above? I have, a few times over the years I've roleplayed. If I had been burnt enough, I would have either A: Started doing what this girl does or B: Ditched roleplay forever because it was full of bloody minded bullies who treat their own imagination with religious conviction, like it's some sort of global truth. Atleast for myself I can speak perfectly accurately - if enough gamers burnt me, I would take one of those two options.
Frank Tarcikowski:
Daniel, seems she was drawing off anime in addition to the Dresden Files source material, granted. But why did she do it the way she did? That was my question. Please note that I do not know the player, I met her for the first time at that convention.
Callan, I don't know. It's a convenient explanation but it doesn't seem to be the only possible explanation.
- Frank
Daniel B:
Honestly, I really do think there's no deeper explanation.
I am of the opinion that your question of "why does she play that way?" is equivalent to asking people at a Renaissance Faire why they enjoy wearing period clothing and speaking in accents. It's just fun.
I expect the Anime angle is just a different sort of fun.
Frank Tarcikowski:
But why not, say, explore the anime angle in a way that involves interaction with the other players? That's the question.
- Frank
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page