{"id":6752,"date":"2005-01-09T21:01:30","date_gmt":"2005-01-10T04:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/01\/09\/equal-and-opposite-reaction.html"},"modified":"2005-01-09T21:01:30","modified_gmt":"2005-01-10T04:01:30","slug":"equal_and_oppos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/01\/09\/equal_and_oppos.html","title":{"rendered":"Equal and opposite reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Interesting post by Robin Laws about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/users\/robin_d_laws\/60262.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;inactivist&#8221; characters<\/a> &#8212; PCs that are defined more by what they <em>won&#8217;t <\/em>do than what they <em>will.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"block\">Memorable characterization occurs when a PC actively moves the story in a new direction ? not when he fails to act or prevents others from acting. A player who thinks a possible action violates his sense of the character should, instead of doing nothing, find an alternate, suitable action.<\/p>\n<p>Wow.  How simple.  And yet it&#8217;s a trap I know I&#8217;ve fallen into.  I tend to write up characters more about how their own choices are hemmed in by their own hang-ups.  And here&#8217;s the simple advice he passes on to (as the player) address it:<\/p>\n<p class=\"block\">a.) List three things you character will always do, whenever possible.<br \/>\nb.) Review the list at the beginning of each session.<br \/>\nc.) Pick the one that seems to relate to the scenario at hand.<br \/>\nd.) Try to move events in the story so you can actively do this thing.<\/p>\n<p>I like it.  Now I have to do it.<\/p>\n<p><small>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.20by20room.com\/2005\/01\/inactivists.html\" target=\"_blank\">20&#215;20<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Interesting post by Robin Laws about &#8220;inactivist&#8221; characters &#8212; PCs that are defined more by what they won&#8217;t do than what they will. Memorable characterization occurs when a PC actively&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6245,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/10\/04\/an_interesting.html","url_meta":{"origin":6752,"position":0},"title":"An interesting game mechanic","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 4-Oct-04 8:07am","format":false,"excerpt":"A description of an \"Engle Matrix\" game: The game is then played in turns. At the start of each turn, the players move the characters around the map, arranging them...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Gaming&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":160083,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2023\/06\/11\/movie-review-dungeons-dragons-honor-among-thieves-2023.html","url_meta":{"origin":6752,"position":1},"title":"Movie Review: &#8220;Dungeons &#038; Dragons: Honor Among Thieves&#8221; (2023)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 11-Jun-23 11:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As a D&D player, I had a lot of fun. But this was not a great movie.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Gaming&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DDHAT-poster-3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DDHAT-poster-3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DDHAT-poster-3.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DDHAT-poster-3.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DDHAT-poster-3.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5560,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/02\/20\/stuck_on_the_wh.html","url_meta":{"origin":6752,"position":2},"title":"Stuck on the wheel","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 20-Feb-04 3:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A fine article about why players make the same character over and over -- or the same subset of characterss. Vampire, Mage, and AD&D, to name just a very few,...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Gaming&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3669,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/09\/trump_trick.html","url_meta":{"origin":6752,"position":3},"title":"Trump trick","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-Oct-02 6:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Norris Thomlinson is collecting trumps of canonical Amber characters. Remarkably enough, even mine made it into the gallery. (Frankly, I think the Player Character trumps I did were a lot...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Gaming&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11665,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/07\/23\/book_review_missing_in_ac.html","url_meta":{"origin":6752,"position":4},"title":"Book Review: Missing in Action (Star Trek: New Frontier)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 23-Jul-07 10:34am","format":false,"excerpt":"Peter David's Star Trek: New Frontier series is a guilty pleasure of mine.\u00a0 It's vaguely embarrassing to be caught reading Star Trek stuff, but David's wit, his great ear for...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Books&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2792,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/09\/20\/cross_dressing.html","url_meta":{"origin":6752,"position":5},"title":"Cross-dressing","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 20-Sep-02 10:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"This week's RPG WISH: What do you think about cross-gender characters (i.e., men playing female characters and women playing male characters)? What about GMs playing them as NPCs? UPDATE: Doyce,...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Gaming&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}