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Role-playing Games Represent You?

On one of the several forums I attend a discussion brewed regarding this...

Can the choices you cause your character to make in a RPG influence or show your true behavior in real life?

At first you may be quick to say, 'No', but here is one of my replies to a user who was against it:

'Time is limited for me to go into any deep discussion, but I will say this... the same way TV influences minds by what you watch (even though you know you are not the characters you are watching) the same way you can be influence by decisions in work, fun, play, etc. Afterall, what gives you the 'thought' to reap havoc, it does not come from thin air.'

So what makes a player decide to do harm rather be the good knight? Is it that playing 'evil' seems to be more fun?

I am sure this will bring up much discussion and many disagreements, but let us be respectful.

You Represent Games Role-playing

For me it depends on the game.For D&D I have two alter egos,one is my "good"side the other is "evil".I have many other charactors but these two are my fav.

On average I would say YES to the question,Ive learned alot about people by their gaming styles.

The longer you play with consistant gaming groups,the more you will know about those people,and the fact that most gamers make alot of decisions based on "what they would do".Since most of the time the charactors face something new,the only thing to rely on is your instinct,which comes from YOU.This is especially true if your DM is really good at creating new and inventive realms for you to explore,not to mention all the "real life" experiance that is sometimes required to make those decisions.

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It is good to see that there are sane people out there that play RPGs and think that it cannot affect them. You are right on learning about people through the way they play, each user has 'typical' moves you know they are bound to take, this makes building a scenario quite enjoyable, because you can 'count' on those players to do certain things

Offtopic but, Catchup quick so you can enter the World of Medieval, I have already adjusted you to RPG status to start.

You Represent Games Role-playing

I am new to RPG and since there are only two of us in the game, I am not having all that much fun to be honest. There isn't a lot of interaction between different characters. There are only two of us. Nothing personal against the other player, but I would enjoy it more if there were more people involved for the variety. Anyway.......

I think you can definately learn a lot about certain facets of my personality by playing with me. For example, I don't like to be forced into anything. I also am not a big risk taker. I do tend to play ruthlessly, but the funny thing here is that in reality I am just the opposite. However, I think in my imagination, I can have more fun as a ruthless killer than as someone who lets emotions get in the way of decisions.

So, if you play with me, you will learn of my adversion to being given orders, and my cautious nature, but you might also mistakenly think I am personally mean, as well. I think, you can never really tell which parts of the character are the person in reality and which they just enjoy playing. I think this is true even if you play regularly with a person. I imagine you will come to know their playing style, but I am not sure you will necessarily know them.

You Represent Games Role-playing

They always do. I'm a very paranoid person by nature, and all of my characters are cautious, paranoid types. In fact, whenever I play a game where you can accrue extra character creation points from taking disadvantages, I always take paranoia, because I know that my character will act paranoid whether I like it or not.

A couple times I dispensed with this, and roleplayed the exact opposite - my character as a daredevil who cared nothing about personal injury or death, and rushed headlong into any danger that presented itself. These characters typically didn't live long.

Role-playing Games Represent You?

I also play D&D and have two characters, one good, the other evil (Drow and a Moon Elf) and I've had more fun playing my evil character because she's not like me and I have a great time getting to be rude to people with no thought of how that could get me hurt. I'm usually the kind of person who doesn't want to be rude to anyone and has a hard time saying no, reason being I'm a bit paranoid about what everyone thinks of me and wish to make everyone happy. In RPGs, though, I can leave those characteristics behind and act completely different because the worst thing that can happen is my character dies. Oh well. Hm... what was the question? Oh yes, I do think that you can tell a lot from the way a person acts in an RPG, but it's not the best way to tell. I agree with tenaheff in that some of the characteristics may be from the player, but not nessecarily all of them. I don't think trying to figure out a player by his or her character is a very good idea, as you might believe the characteristic that isn't really there... Did that make sense??

Role-playing Games Represent You

Even when I am playing my evil side,I still believe you can tell alot about me,'if' I was evil in a world like medieval,so no one is arguing that you could lose track of someones'personality'.but decisions are still based from what only your perspective can give.Example:Your charactor is faced with great danger,and you are forced to react quickly,impulsively,these kind of decisions are what gain me insight to the person I'm playing with.Including their responses.
And like JB mentioned,the more you RP the more you begin to count on certain people making certain decisions based on 'who' they are not what charactor they are.
Untill recently I was in an active gaming group,I was the one that was always ready to go,(the Dm too was organized)but everyone else was kind of flaky,therfore,so were most of their charactors(they lacked depth every time).I think this is another good example that people impose themselves within their charactors,no matter what they may be playing.

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This would suggest then that the best way to play RPG is to not play with the same GM often. The GM could just start manipulating the game based on what they know you will do and set you up to fail so to speak.

(Do I seem paranoid? :--> )