Mourning a character, how do you do it?

[Hella]

I know some people can lose a character and be fine. But I am fucking devastated and looking for others' input. How do you (or do you?) mourn character death, IRL?

A friend suggested writing a small letter or short blurbs (just for your own edification, not to be seen) to all the characters (PCs and NPCs) who influenced and shaped your character, and I thought that was a really great suggestion.

[Juniper]

I know when I lose a character, what I want is to feel seen. To know that others noticed my character there and noticed stories that they went through. So it can help to get together with friends and acquaintances and just reminisce about shit your characters did together.

I have had a dead character have a wake/funeral organised, and while I didn't attend or even really know about it at the time, it was nice to know that somebody noticed enough to do that. Of course it's awkward to ask anyone else to mourn your character so maybe not the best of advice in this situation. But if one of your friends is reading, consider doing it!

[Devrex]

@hella I'm a little self-conscious posting this but...a) I second @Juniper and b) I think letting yourself cry, if you haven't. You are losing something: experiences, a creation that had a part of you in them, certain dynamics that can't be replaced, a story you invested in or followed.

[Arkandel]

What might mitigate the loss is making sure that, along with the IC parts, you don't have to also suffer OOC loss.

For example in some games the character name itself is our identity. Our closest friends might now my PC, Bob died and now I'm playing Rick, but others who're not paying as close attention at a time might not. So chats, hanging out, all that other peripheral stuff might make the game feel lonelier for a while since when you're on it's not the same as before.

Then perhaps get busy creating associations again with your favorite people. You don't need to recreate the same affiliations, but coming up with good reasons to be regularly in scenes with the folks you're having the most fun with should be done right away as you design a new PC. That makes the transition much smoother and more fun than needing to carve not just a niche all over again but while missing people you like -- and who like you.

Just some ideas!

[reimesu]

I've rarely had chars outright die, but I always seem to lose them long before I consider their story done. Sometimes, (not all the time, just sometimes,) I have someone where I can do private RP outside the game, exploring the what-ifs or the last of the story until something new replaces it. Not all the time, though.

The rest of the time, I let myself grieve because stories get a little too real to me and losing them is HARD.

[Macha]

@hella I mean, I've read a few interviews from Pros, who when they have to let a character go, they will sit, have a drink/toast to, write down the things they liked least/best, and/or have a bit of a cry.

[il-volpe]

The most charming sci-fi convention guest of all the con guests I've ever seen was Andrew J. Robinson, who admitted that at the time he was still in deep mourning for Garak and had been for quite some time. And read to us from his (as yet unpublished) Garak novel, complete with Garak voice and eyeballs.

No answers there, but you're a long way from alone.

[Ghost]

As one of the players who can lose a character and feel nothing, I figure in the least judgmental way possible I should sound off on why that is, and wherein may be coping mechanisms to handle losing a character.

I've always kept my eye on what the character represented, which, in my estimation due to the vaguely ooc elemented sense of things in MUs, was a sort of narrated sock puppet to play make believe with other marionettes. In all my years of MU it was fairly constant to make new characters as games opened/closed in short notice, so I realized any emotional impact I had due to character loss wasn't because the character itself impacted me, but because it represented some kind of anchor into the social aspect, connections to other players/characters, and therein lied emotional needs I wasn't addressing.

This may not be you personally, but Andrew Robinson played Garak for years, delved into makeup to the point of wearing Garak's skin, thinking as Garak, and the degree of fan love and energy generated from simply being Garak. I guess for me I never felt I ever did something so important or so deep with a character that letting go of them was all that difficult, but losing access to the human connection to another player was often more difficult.

So when I let go of a PC (which 95% of the time was due to me leaving a game or the game closing) my thought process was: Will people forget me? Will I find RP? Will I be able to find RP and social time with another character or will they focus on other people instead and it'll be hard to...not feel lonely?

So I feel (for me) it was important to focus on a bigger question: "Am I mourning the character or is this vaguely personal feeling related to me, my insecurities, and my need for a social outlet?"

With that thought in mind, I realize on an introspection level that I never really mourned a character, but instead mourned time spent with other people; be they a temporary warm body willing to make me feel like my presence had value or be they an actual friend that I liked spending time with.

[Hella]

@ghost it may not be my experience but it's a really valid point nonetheless.

MUSHing did used to be partly about that, for me, so I can see where you're coming from with it. In the last year or so, though, it's become solely about the stories to tell. Creating a character with deep impact on the story was one of the best feelings, and watching that impact play out was rewarding. In the last year I kept OOC interaction to a bare minimum and was much happier for it when telling the story.

But I know that's not everyone's experience and I appreciate you posting this up for the diversity of viewpoint.

[hobos]

There's characters of mine I've lost without feeling much if anything, there's characters I've lost and felt satisfied about, and there's characters I've felt ridiculously sad about. For me it often has to do with the circumstances surrounding their death as well as how much I liked that character. It can be really sad to not only witness a tragic story but like... be immersed in it more thoroughly than you can get immersed in any other media. If you're more of a method-acting roleplayer, then it's almost like a part of you that you've lost. There can be very strong feelings of grief involved here and I think it's important as a community to acknowledge that these feelings are real and valid. It's an emotional struggle that will lighten with time, understanding, and players being kind to each other.

[Tooters]

@hella A character of mine just died ( or more accurately, was rendered unplayable). It was for a very justified IC reason that I knew about when making the character. But even if it wasn't, I genuinely wouldn't care. I don't get emotionally attached to the characters I make. Not only that, I don't understand why the vast majority of players do. It's a game. It's not real. These aren't real people. Their lives are fantasy lives. I can make a different character in a day, and I did. If this one dies, I also won't care.

[Devrex]

@tooters It's not about thinking they're real. Any more than I think a movie character is real when a movie hits me right in the feels. It can be a lot of things. A story that just genuinely made you happy for awhile is now over. The uphill battle of having to establish the contacts and social momentum all over again and going through a bunch of torturous new getting-to-know you scenes with people who already had to do that with you once. Losing an experience you enjoyed that isn't coming back. You might have a cool new experience, but the old one's gone and can't be replaced and that was an experience you liked and you don't know if you'll like this new experience. Lots of reasons, and I mean you know...people's feelings are their feelings.

[Ganymede]

@tooters said in Mourning a character, how do you do it?:

A character of mine just died ( or more accurately, was rendered unplayable). It was for a very justified IC reason that I knew about when making the character. But even if it wasn't, I genuinely wouldn't care.

I have a similar mindset if my PC is dead or unplayable as a result of my actions.

I get fussy when my PC is killed or rendered unplayable by someone else because they are having a snit.

[faraday]

@tooters said in Mourning a character, how do you do it?:

I don't get emotionally attached to the characters I make. Not only that, I don't understand why the vast majority of players do.

People get attached to characters in stories. Just look at any fandom to see people going bananas over their fav chars are treated (good or bad). Making people care about the characters in your story is kind of a fundamental hallmark of storytelling.

I won't pretend to understand the psychology behind why it is this way, but it is undeniably A Thing in human society.

So if you can accept that people get attached to characters in stories, in general, it follows that people would get attached to their own characters in their own stories, to include MUSHing. The degree of IC/OOC bleed that pervades roleplaying only intensifies this effect, and the PVP aspect @Ganymede mentioned can introduce an extra layer of perceived unfairness/anger/etc.

I wouldn't say I "mourn" characters (that word has too much baggage in my mind), but I do get bummed out when their stories get cut short for whatever reason. I don't really do anything specific about it though.

[hobos]

In a MUD I played for a while, there was this one player who didn't seem to care at all about their characters, just like you describe, tooters.

It was RPI and there were strict rules about revealing players-behind-characters and all that, and maybe ~60 active players or so, in different spheres of the game that didn't interact that much... but I could always tell this player's characters within like the first twenty minutes of interacting with them. They were all ridiculous antagonists who always tried weird metagamey ways to get under my skin, and the skin of others. I say metagamey because it wasn't strictly IC, but it was borderline enough not to get caught in the rules. Like, let's say your character had a very close friend named Finn, who died tragically. This person would know that, and then later create a character, stroll up to yours, and be like "Hi, my name is Finn". Or let's say your character knew a famous outlaw and was part of an outlaw group. This guy would create a character and come tell your character (who the player OOCly knows is currently friends with Famous Outlaw) and be like, "Oh yeah, I was there ten years ago when Famous Outlaw was escaping Famous City... the guards surrounded him and killed him. I saw him die."

So this player, right... I later find them go on an OOC rant about how "long-lived" characters have players that are "OOCly-invested in staying alive" and all gang up together with other longer-lived characters.. and basically, to this person, the game was full of a bunch of dinosaurs who were against engaging in any sort of conflict or interesting plots, for fear of character death.

Meanwhile, this person's idea of 'interesting plots' was creating a character who was insane, bulling into an ongoing territorial conflict betwen warring tribes, and telling a bunch of crazy lies in order to get one of the player's frequent antagonist targets (Famous Outlaw) in trouble.

Long story short, I'd much prefer to play with people who care about their characters and care about the stories they're telling, than someone who will cycle psychopathically through a whole series of characters while not caring about them at all.

Let me just tell you I freaking love Famous Outlaw. I loved Famous Outlaw so much that if Famous Outlaw died I would not play the game anymore. Famous Outlaw wasn't even my character but they was inspiring and wonderful. Eventually I sort of quit this game because Probable Psychopath's brand new 80-year-old character met a dramatic death on the highway... while completely unrealistically attempting to get my character's best friend killed. After that I just couldn't handle how stupid the game was anymore, and the fact that Probable Psychopath was playing in a perfectly reasonable way considering how the game worked.

Sometimes I still think about Famous Outlaw and am real-life inspired by things that Famous Outlaw said. Famous Outlaw pulled on my heartstrings forever. Famous Outlaw is a fantasy character in a fantasy world but perfectly meaningful to me.

[Lotherio]

@hobos said in Mourning a character, how do you do it?:

Sometimes I still think about Famous Outlaw and am real-life inspired by things that Famous Outlaw said. Famous Outlaw pulled on my heartstrings forever. Famous Outlaw is a fantasy character in a fantasy world but perfectly meaningful to me.

Dang, now I want to hear tales of this rakish rogue.

[hobos]

@lotherio

I'd love to tell you, but like I said, the game has pretty strict rules about talking OOC regarding IC things... but just imagine this absolute rage machine, this monster bred for enslaved destruction in a completely terrible and corrupt world. And then imagine that he studied his oppressors, escaped, eventually found zen, and became the biggest and strongest force for kindness and thoughtfulness that you could conceptualize in such a crappy universe.

I mean, it's understandable why such a story would resonate with anyone in real life. And when stories resonate and have meaning, there's always degrees of emotional attachment. My thoughts are that if someone's telling a story that resonates, it will have meaning and emotional investment, and the characters involved won't just be narrator tools that get tossed aside without any sort of caring.

[Hella]

@lotherio said in Mourning a character, how do you do it?:

@hobos said in Mourning a character, how do you do it?:

Sometimes I still think about Famous Outlaw and am real-life inspired by things that Famous Outlaw said. Famous Outlaw pulled on my heartstrings forever. Famous Outlaw is a fantasy character in a fantasy world but perfectly meaningful to me.

Dang, now I want to hear tales of this rakish rogue.

Famous outlaws are the best characters. I'm not biased at all.

[Warma Sheen]

@ganymede said in Mourning a character, how do you do it?:

I get fussy when my PC is killed or rendered unplayable by someone else because they are having a snit.

This is how I felt recently when the sphere wiz made the sphere environment toxic to me and I had to choose between giving up the character and languishing in a sphere that was hostile to me.

It feels very much different on handling losing a character based on whether it was because of legitimate IC circumstances or OOC pettiness.

I was telling great stories with great people and that all got cut off in an unpredictable snap. I handled it by just focusing my time and energy on other things, despite the loss and messiness of another person's nastiness.

But that's a danger of the hobby and I was aware of that going in, so it softened the blow. Also experience. I've lost or had to give up characters before and it has become easier the more times I've had to do it.

[Arkandel]

@warma-sheen When I was still playing one of the questions what often came up was how to handle PC-killing when their players clearly valued their characters differently.

That is... you're playing a witty rogue. You've invested time and effort, expanded his alliances and made sure he's been involved in some plotlines for months. I roll a thug with the most basic background staff is going to accept.

Then when we get in a scene I pick a fight. Sure, your character might still win (assuming he has some combat stats, since you've been playing him for longer). But the stakes are different. If my PC loses what is actually lost? I could get the next thug on the grid in a few days. If the dice don't go your way, well, you have to mourn a prized PC.