learntorp

As a preface, the majority of the real-life experiences I'm using for this post are tabletop-based, but the idea still applies to other mediums of roleplaying.

When I was in college, I used to run tabletop games for my friends. One of these games occurred my junior year, with a group of five players. There was a guy in the group, who we shall call J, and he played a paladin. This paladin was pretty blatantly just a copy of himself. J made no effort to make his character different and unique, and even the description of the character sounded exactly like an idealized version of himself. Needless to say, this caused problems whenever the paladin got into trouble. Every difficulty this paladin encountered caused J to get angry, even when those problems were a result of actions J had made his paladin do. The final night of the game ended when J's paladin failed a saving roll and was turned into stone (something that can be fixed in the world of D&D). J was so upset that he stormed out of the apartment and never came back to another game.

Because of this game, I had a rule added to all of the games I ran after that: keep In-Character and Out-of-Character separate. It seems like a pretty simple idea, I know, but you would be surprised how many people have trouble with this. I could talk all day about the number of times a problem has been brought to me that had it's roots in blurring the line between IC and OOC, and I'm sure all of you can think of a time when you heard about this as well. Hell, I could go onto any of the anon comms and pull up half-a-dozen links to wank that involves blurring the line between IC and OOC. Despite the fact that it's common knowledge to keep IC and OOC separate, it's still a very common problem.

It's interesting to note that, when going by percentages, I see this problem a lot more in tabletop gamers and people who play OCs. I think it has something to do with the fact that these characters are something we personally made, so attacks on them feel like attacks on us. That's not to say that it's entirely absent in people who play canon characters, but it happens a lot less. Still, regardless of what ind of character you're playing, you need to remember one important thing: you are not your character.

If bad things happen to your character, it's not because someone hates you and they want you to suffer. It's because their character had a beef with your character that was settled within the context of a game. Bad things can happen to your character without being a personal attack against you. If another character hates your character, it does not mean that the player hates you.

I think most people understand this idea, though. There may be a few players that let IC actions bother them OOC, but the majority of players know that IC problems should not bleed into OOC. That said, most people who have a problem with this do forget the inverse: OOC problems should not bleed into IC.

You should not let your OOC problems affect how you play a character. If you've just broken up, you shouldn't have your character suddenly break up and hate dating. If you're feeling sick, it's probably not a good idea to have your character develop a case of the sniffles. Most importantly, if you have problems with another player, problems that make it impossible for you to even communicate with that player, you should never let those problems show up in how you play ICly. Just because you have a problem with Player A does not mean your character should go around saying Characters A1, A2, and A3 are horrible people.

Whenever you are having trouble defining the line between IC and OOC, just remember that you are not your character. Your issues should not reflect on your character, and your character's problems should not reflect on you. Don't take things personally; we're all just trying to have fun, after all.

For your practice, I want you to do some self-reflection. Where do you have problems keeping IC and OOC divided? What issues tend to leak over into roleplay? The first step to keeping IC and OOC separate is to identify the problem, so try to keep the phrase "You are not your character" in mind when you roleplay.