"My Guy Syndrome"
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MY CHAR IS UNCONTROLLABLE đ€Șđ€Șđ€Ș Iâm going to crash out.
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Ok let me be productive, I more often see people making subtle but socially hostile decisions in RP without considering the results or how it looks, buckling down on their own characterâs principles, as opposed to anything truly blatant. I think most folk generally know enough to avoid openly saying âitâs what my character would doâ these days. Maybe.
Threading that needle of doing what your character would do while ensuring it results in fun for others can be tricky, and requires a measure of thoughtfulness.
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I have had someone try to weaponize this the opposite of this concept against me, an online gameâs GM telling me, âI donât think thatâs whatâs what your character would do,â and itâs one of the most infuriating memories I have from tabletopping. Turned out they were very corrupt and regularly gaslighted many of their players.
Now that I vented lol, nice article, thanks for sharing. The âSame Pageâ tool they reference is a great concept to apply, this is a huge part of what session zero is about for me. I think you can articulate this well enough to translate it to online games and even online games with strangers, you just gotta make sure your leadership reports on and enforces it broadly which means they need to be personally aware of what players are up to.
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You have to walk them through the absurdity of their actions, framing each rung of their decision ladder in the most ridiculous way possible, as a âjust double checkingâŠâ thatâs what their character would actually do.
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@howyadoin When it works itâs so good. I am acutely sensitive to the question, âAre you sure?â XD
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@howyadoin I donât think this works for the context @Yam mentioned, though, which is why I wanted to have the discussion in a purely MUSH context.
I think in MUSH we see a lot of things like:
- Iâm not leaving the spaceship to go walk on the planet weâre visiting, my guy wouldnât think itâs safe.
- Sorry for making this social scene awkward with both of us here, but my guy wouldnât forgive their grudge against your guy.
- I wonât RP where you suggested. My guy wouldnât go to that side of town.
- Sorry for disrupting this town meeting, but itâs what my guy would do.
- My guy already knows that information so Iâm not interested in RPing passing it on to others.
- I wish I could RP but my guy wouldnât go out in this weather.
- I canât help you. My guy wouldnât find that interesting.
- Sorry I hurt your feelings with the way I acted IC. Itâs what my guy would do.
etc etc etc
Many of the times we run into this, there might not even be a GM involved to say âare you sureâ and the actions theyâre doing arenât inherently absurd. The My-Guyerâs actions might even be sensible. Sure, that planet weâre visiting does look dangerous.
As a GM you can definitely say âfine, stay with the ship then, guess you arenât playing in this eventâ and as a player you can say things like âwell you pick somewhere to RP then,â but the bad vibes are already there at that point. Other people are uncomfortable. Most players donât want to leave the My-Guy person out. Most My-Guyâers know that.
My-Guy people disrupt a feeling of collaboration and buy-in that is pretty fundamental to the improv we depend on in this medium. Thatâs what the top guy in the link is talking about: he got his way, the other players agreed, it was all very âin-character,â and it still felt bad.
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@Ashkuri said in "My Guy Syndrome":
I think in MUSH we see a lot of things like:
But a lot of those things arenât inherently bad. If your character wouldnât think the planet is safe, and itâs really important to you to honor that, I donât think itâs a cardinal sin to politely sit a scene out. Same for RPing out an IC grudge, or some of the other things you listed.
âMy guy syndromeâ, for me, is all about attitude.
âHey, want to RP at the spaceport?â
âNah, my guy wouldnât go do that part of town.â vs âWell, my guy has a thing against spaceports, but Iâd be happy to RP with you at the marketplace.ââWeâre going down to the planet for the plot.â
âIâm not leaving - my guy wouldnât think itâs safe.â vs. âHave fun! Iâm going to sit this one out because my guy wouldnât want to go down there.âThereâs nothing wrong with being true to your character, as long as youâre not a jerk about it OOCly.
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I REALLY struggled not to my guy a lot. Two of my heart characters were older men (late 40s, 50s) who were generally conservative af and not generally open to new anything. To a lot of things my first thought was literally " X would NEVERâŠ" Then I had to sit myself down and go, âBut is the never fun for anyone?â Sometimes it was, but most of the time it wasnât. Sometimes the conflict of new ideas vs old ideas was great. I had some excellent scenes with their children where they wanted to be wild and out there with a father behind them going âThis isnât right!!!â Other times that conflict was going to kill the vibe.
Over time both mellowed a lot. I would like to think they didnât lose their core conservative root, but they saw a ton more gray when I stepped away. That was fun too.
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@Ashkuri said in "My Guy Syndrome":
- Sorry for disrupting this town meeting, but itâs what my guy would do.
help im crashing out again
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I think as a medium we tend to err by not reinforcing enough the expectations around roleplay. It is natural to not want to tell people how they should play their characters, but if the expectation is that people should be fun to RP with and not miserable, and you can kind of tell what RP sucks and what doesnât, I think we do more harm than good by not explicitly saying so.
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@Faraday said in "My Guy Syndrome":
But a lot of those things arenât inherently bad. If your character wouldnât think the planet is safe, and itâs really important to you to honor that, I donât think itâs a cardinal sin to politely sit a scene out. Same for RPing out an IC grudge, or some of the other things you listed.
And sometimes this goes all the way around to what @Muscle-Car described as weaponizing my-guyness. âHey, Iâm sorry I blew up your characterâs car that she got from her grandfather and rebuilt with her own hands, thatâs just what my guy would do. Wait, why are you being such a My-Guy jerk and holding a grudge about it? Why canât we just go back to being friends? Youâre not being a very good collaborative roleplayer.â
Acting and reacting in-character isnât binary, and, like a lot of things, itâs good up to a point and bad when taken too far. Of course, not everyone agrees on what constitutes âtoo far,â and thatâs kind of the root of the problem. Some things are almost always not OK (the thief who murders everybody else in the party and steals all the loot because âthatâs what my character would doâ â but even this might be fine if the expectations are set appropriately). Some things are almost always OK (holding a grudge against whoever murdered your characterâs best friend â but this can still be taken too far and become not-OK). Lots and lots and lots of things fall into a gray area where some people think theyâre fine and other people think theyâre not.
Communication helps, but even then you sometimes run into disagreements between players. What to one person feels like raising a reasonable concern over what someone elseâs character might be contemplating, might from the other side feel like inadequate player-character separation (âgosh, sheâs getting really upset over something thatâs happening to her characterâ).
Thereâre just an awful lot of ways to misunderstand whatâs going on in someone elseâs head, and many (most?) of us arenât really that good at putting ourselves in someone elseâs shoes. I donât think there is a single solution here other than to try to listen to what people are saying even when they arenât saying it out loud, and thatâs a really hard skill to learn.
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Just in general, MUSH RP is a âyes, andâ medium. Players would do well to remember that. There are always, always ways to work around âmy guy would/wouldnât do thatâ scenarios if players would just put a modicum of thought into it. Why the hell would anyone want to or continue to RP with players who are always throwing up roadblocks to RP, or finding ways to make it unpleasant for other players? Itâs a collaborative environment. So collaborate.
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@chorus This. Yes, there is some level of âstaying true to your characterâ, but acting like your character is an actual existing person vsâŠya knowâŠa character you created and are in control of the actions ofâŠalways baffled me.
There is a difference between âI donât know that my char would be much use in this sceneâ or âMy char just had a bad run in in that location so would avoid itâ followed with âbut thank you for thanking of me!â and being totally unwilling to find compromise or being offended youâre left out as a result of the limits you set.
Itâs reminiscent for me of characters who always start a scene sitting off to the side or doing a task that obviously distracts them from the events around them in a group or even a one on one scene. Then, donât get involved until a character specifically approaches ic to get their attention.
Like, yes Iâm willing to work with you in a scene and contribute my share. Iâm not begging you ooc or ic to hang out with me/my char. Thatâs not fun. I deserve to feel just as prioritized in the rp as who Iâm rping with.
On a bright side now I have the âWhat is up, My Guy?â soundclip in my head! XD
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I agree with both @Ashkuriâs list of problems, and @Faradayâs perspective that they arenât always problems. I think that @chorus and @SockMonkey have an important point to bridge that attitude gap that Faraday mentioned: sure, there are some things that your character wouldnât normally do⊠but we donât play this game to play ânormallyâ do we? I often like to think, âNo, normally my character wouldnât be caught dead in that biker bar where the RP is happening, so why is my character there?â
Formerly known as Seraphim73 (he/him)
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Thereâs nothing inherently wrong about playing your character the way you wrote your character. Itâs when you use the âMy Guyâ excuse to be a dick or a roadblock to other people that it becomes an issue.
That being said your characters âdonât just write themselvesâ and I do think you have to be consciously aware if your decisions would make for good RP. Likewise I think we have to do a better job as a community of just saying no sometimes. If youâre a game runner and youâve made your spaceship game and want all the characters on the spaceship game to leave the spaceship and explore, itâs OK to say no to the character thatâs being chargenâd to avoid exploring.
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@Roadspike Exactly. Sometimes the âwhy IS my char here?â makes the best memories. Itâs fun and a chance to step outside their comfort zone with no rl consequences.
We donât have to play normally at all or stick with certain âwould and would notsâ because itâs ic. OOC sure donât disrespect a boundary and donât let people push you past a comfort zone (in MUSH, friendships, life, etc.) Itâs MUSH though. By pushing my charâs comfort zones Iâve actually ended up growing my own confidence irl and used fiction to help encourage ooc growth.
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@bear_necessities Itâs also ok to remove yourself from a situation if your no isnât respected. Whether thatâs the person dealing with the My Guy or the My Guy themselves. If it doesnât bring you joy? Marie Kondo it. I donât know, but life is too short.
While itâs not our job to point out what seems to be obvious negative traits in rp, I also will say sometimes all it does take is one person being willing to not complain behind the scene and instead go âHeyâŠIâve noticed this trend. I think you might get more positive results and interaction if you try meeting people halfway.â
They might be âMy Guyâ but that doesnât mean they are âMy GuyââŠor something >.>
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@Roadspike said in "My Guy Syndrome":
I often like to think, âNo, normally my character wouldnât be caught dead in that biker bar where the RP is happening, so why is my character there?â
Iâm going to push back a little here. I generally am the kind of person who will always come up with a reason why my character is in XYZ place even if they donât âbelongâ, but I also do my very best to know my place and try and decide if my presence in that scene is going to add to it. So if in your example the RP is happening in the biker bar, and the RP is happening because a gang of bikers is having a scene for their faction, and you are not in the faction, does your character add value to the scene? I have seen so many faction events have some random person inserted into it and they suddenly become the Main Character of all the events even though they donât belong in the faction and have many other factions they can be part of. Itâs frustrating as person IN that faction that gets sidelined.
So just ⊠I guess, itâs okay to join the biker scene even if you arenât a biker, but maybe just ask yourself if you add value by being there.
