The Boring Adventures of Lady Genevieve of Ambrosia
If you enjoy role-playing games please read on. If role-playing isn't for you feel free to sit this one out.
I've been a part of a D&D group for the past three years. The character I designed is the perfect fantasy character for myself. She's the dream of who I want to be: a brave and adventurous elf-druid named Freya who ran away from the forest to fight battles and discover the best loot. The longer I played her, the more like me she became. So much so that when she died (the roll-a-new-character kind of death) I literally cried. Fortunately, her owl companion was actually her dad who brought her back to life...but that's a different story for another time.
The point is, I loved Freya because she was me. She was easy to execute and role-play because I just did whatever came naturally. Recently I was asked to join a "one-off" D&D session and I wanted to try something different. Who I came up with was named Lady Genevieve of Ambrosia and if you left off any part of her name she would immediately correct you.
Lady G. was a wealthy socialite trolling for mermen on her daddy's dime. The character was hilarious and the others in my party loved her ridiculous antics, but I hated her. While the rest of the party was searching the ship for loot I had to sit in the hull and hit on sailors. When a battle started I had to wait selfishly in the back until Lady G. herself was in danger. She was the opposite of everything I am and it took so much thought to act like this medieval-aged Karen would act.
This is a pattern I fall into in testing way too easily. I test the system as Freya; I'm role-playing as a different user but too often that user is a reflection of myself. I always Ctrl+C when I copy and Ctrl+V when I paste, I only click once, and if something doesn't look right I try it again. What I've tried to remind myself to do with the 'Playing with Personas' series is to push what is comfortable when testing. Ask myself if my path is just natural or if it is a path that another user may take.
When it comes to D&D I think I'll stick to ol' faithful Freya, but Lady G. may find new life in my testing.
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Any other role-players out there? Do you have a character that would make a hilarious testing persona?