Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?
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I'd be fine with it. Authorial intent is a thing. If a character is written to be a specific way, and the person who made that Roster (N)PC chose that PB, they had a reason for it. I don't get this whole 'WAUGH NOT MINE'. Of course it's not yours. It's someone else's creation and they have a vision for that creation that should be followed a bit. If you're choosing to play a roster that you like, you really need to adhere to everything. It'd be like picking Cersei Lannister on a GoT game and picking Summer Glau as a replacement PB (because of COURSE the MU* community loves their Summer Glau). because of X, Y or Z. If you don't want to agree with their authorial intent, don't go with that character.
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@bobotron I'm not sure I'd go that far for an original fantasy game. I can make allowances, yeah, for when someone tries to whitewash a POC character, but I don't think a person taking a roster character needs to be 100% faithful to authorial intent... and expecting it of people is going to lead to heart break.
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Yeah, and on games where rosters are handled like that (thank god the one I play on isn't) I would just never ever take a roster PC. If I couldn't make my own, I would not play. That would be a huge barrier for entry to me.
ETA: That attitude (you have no ownership of a roster PC) is why I avoided roster games completely for the first 20 years I played in this hobby, and why I still won't play on most of them now. If staff thinks that's a way to build investment in their game, it's a good hint to me that their style and my own are not going to be compatible.
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I think having the PB already picked would be by far the biggest upside to taking a roster character, of course I tend to make others pick the PB for me if possible and failing that rotate through soap opera actors most people have no clue who they are.
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Generally overall, I think that the best course is to pick PBs (and hopefully good ones), but have a note that players can change the PB of their character so long as they aren't like ... whitewashing characters.
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@cobaltasaurus
This seems like it limits racebending PBs that default to white as well, though maybe that's fine (it's certainly not as visible or aggravating an issue as the opposite). -
@three-eyed-crow I mean, I think the point is that if you pick a new PB, it needs to match the character's description. I don't think you can play the game of "authorial intent" with rosters too much, but you can play the game of "does this character resemble what's written on their sheet." (And by "resemble" I mean overall, not just physical appearance.) Rosters should be able to grow and change, absolutely! I think anyone who's played a roster game has probably had the experience of "oh a new person just picked up that cool roster! to...ignore everything on their sheet, cool" at least once.
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@roz said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
you can play the game of "does this character resemble what's written on their sheet."
I really don't get this. Descs are the most malleable part of a character. Literally
@desc me=Something completely different.If your system has coded demographics for skin tone and weight and whatnot that requires a stats tweak. But unless their appearance is somehow critical to the character, what difference does it make?Especially in a sci-fi or fantasy setting - if you want to take my Emma Stone Caprican Viper jock and turn her into Lucy Liu - more power to you. (Of course, casting a modern-day Chinese-American Naval pilot whose ancestry is a critical point in their background as Emma Stone... that's just ignorant, as Hollywood is slowly learning).
It all comes down to how much about a roster char you allow players to tweak when taking them over, but personally descs and PBs are super-low on my list of things I'd care about.
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@faraday I'm kind of confused at your response just because you indicated earlier that you don't allow people to make PB changes after the first couple weeks for issues of continuity. How is this different? Note that we're not just talking about the first time someone picks up a roster, but also the second player, third player, etc., of that roster PC.
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@roz - Sorry, yeah, I was talking about the first time somebody takes up a character. Once a roster has been played, then their PB/stats/etc. are fixed, as I mentioned before.
ETA: But that's just my personal philosophy. If you're going to allow a change of PB, I don't get why you wouldn't also allow a change of desc details like height/skin tone/etc. They go hand-in-hand in my mind.
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I believe PBs for roster characters should be immutable.
The entire point of a roster PC, in my opinion, is to ensure some continuity. It seems disruptive to continuity when the PB for that PC shifts. I mean, I like Sarah Chalke and all, but when she took over for Lecy Goranson I was confused for a while.
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@faraday said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
@roz - Sorry, yeah, I was talking about the first time somebody takes up a character. Once a roster has been played, then their PB/stats/etc. are fixed, as I mentioned before.
ETA: But that's just my personal philosophy. If you're going to allow a change of PB, I don't get why you wouldn't also allow a change of desc details like height/skin tone/etc. They go hand-in-hand in my mind.
because it's weird to have rpd with a character that is 5'5" and then suddenly a new player takes them and they want to be seven feet tall. It's immersion damaging.
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@faraday said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
ETA: But that's just my personal philosophy. If you're going to allow a change of PB, I don't get why you wouldn't also allow a change of desc details like height/skin tone/etc. They go hand-in-hand in my mind.
Well if you change a PB, it should be someone visually similar, because it should be matching the same physical description of the character.
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@kanye-qwest said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
because it's weird to have rpd with a character that is 5'5" and then suddenly a new player takes them and they want to be seven feet tall. It's immersion damaging.
Yes, but it's equally weird - as @Ganymede pointed out - to be RPing with somebody who's supposedly represented by Matt Damon and then suddenly a new player takes over and they're Brad Pitt. Even though they're both white guys of roughly the same height and age. That's also immersion-damaging.
Anyway, like I said - my personal philosophy is to not allow any immersion-damaging changes to characters once they've been played. But if you're going to allow one, I don't get why the other is somehow worse.
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@faraday Different strokes, I guess. To me as long as the pb is superficially similar, change away. But changing the in game stats that are visual signifiers needs a story reason.
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@kanye-qwest said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
@faraday Different strokes, I guess. To me as long as the pb is superficially similar, change away. But changing the in game stats that are visual signifiers needs a story reason.
That's fair. To me, somebody's height or eye color (which are stats) are way less important than their face (which is just a soft desc or PB). But like you said - different strokes.
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For me, the answer to this question depends on how in-depth the roster system is.
If the roster is a basic sheet, with the power to tweak it as desired, a name (that can be changed), a brief description (that can be changed), and the sketchiest of BGs, then I don't think that the rostered character needs to have a PB associated with it.
If, on the other hand, the character is ready-to-play with a final description, a set sheet, and a detailed BG, I think that having a PB attached is a good idea. I also think that Staff should allow the PB to be changed, as long as the new PB still fits the description (including gender/race/ethnicity/age).
If the PB can be changed, I think it would be extremely valuable to have something saying "This PB is open to change, pending Staff's approval of the new choice" (or something like that) immediately alongside wherever the PB choice is listed (under the image, alongside the actor entry, whatever) so that it's very clear that the option for a change is there.
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I think I might be the only soap opera fan on the board, through that i have gotten used to re-casting of roles. Though even in that world you get upset at some casting changed as certain actors turn roles into theirs through either time or excellence or both.
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Porn models I will replace. I love porn. Hate porn chick/dude faces.
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@thatguythere
I loved those damn things back in the day and some recasts were awesome. I treasure first seeing Nathan Fillion as Second (?) Joey Buchanan on One Life to Live (RIP).
