I found last year's questions more difficult to answer than previous years, so when I found S. John Ross's suggestion on how to handle questions this year, I liked it.
Today's question I find difficult. I don't think I've ever played a session for less than 2 hours! The alternate questions, as they stand, don't particularly appeal to me (though I could probably make something out of "What part or parts of a session do you look forward to the most?")
But then I looked back at previous years, and spotted the very first year, today's prompt was my very favourite roleplay topic: my favourite character. So how could I resist that?*
Way back in 2014 (when I came to the game late so didn't reach day 8 until the end of the month...), I talked about 5 of my favourite characters and why I loved them. You can read that here. The prevalent theme I picked up on at the time was innocence and compassion, which is still true of characters I love, but I've also realised that interaction with other characters matters just as much, maybe more.
To demonstrate: I'm currently playing Solomon in Deadlands. She matches the 'innocent, compassionate' archetype I'm so fond of, and I think she's a great character. I'm really enjoying the campaign.
On the other hand, my Exalted character, Taji, has an average human Compassion score of 2, while her Temperance is 3 and her Courage 4 (I forget whether Conviction is 3 or 4). She's a driven leader, and there have been times I've found that hard to play because I care, but Taji would be able to rationalise that away, or not care in the first place.
So on paper it would be Solomon I'd prefer, but I've got a deeper bond with Taji, and I think it's all down to character interaction.
There's a few factors at play. One is the nature of the two groups: Bells and I really enjoy character interaction, PC and NPC, while I think that's of less interest to Paul, Rich and Husbit. The size of the groups probably matters too, to a lesser extent: two of us have to interact more! The biggest is that Kito and Taji were designed to be close.
They're twins, as I've mentioned before, and intensely loyal to each other. Kito, as the elder, is fiercely protective of Taji: whenever we get into a fight, Kito will literally stand between his sister and danger, even when he's afraid. Taji actually takes this completely for granted, which shows how good a job he's done of protecting so far - I love that as a roleplay thing! She's actually quite egotistical and doesn't notice half of what he does for her - but equally, she'd lay her life down for him. He always hides when he's been hurt defending her, but whenever he's been seriously hurt, she will do everything in her power to save him (it risks getting a bit Supernatural at times, though neither of them has actually died yet) (that's right, I linked you to TV Tropes. Good luck escaping that!) (I really wanted to link you to one where specifically siblings keep resurrecting each other, but that one will have to do). Which, to be fair, in their mortal lives, mostly consisted of her hanging around and getting underfoot while other people fixed him up.She's the better speaker of the two, pushier and tends to take command, but the reason she has the confidence to be like this is because she knows, unquestioningly, her brother has her back. And that's great fun to play.
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RPGaDAY was started by Dave Chapman and is currently curated by RPG Brigade. To join in yourself, follow the questions in the graphic and blog, vlog, tweet, or otherwise share your responses with the hashtag RPGaDAY2017.
*I also realised why I preferred previous years' topics: they were prompts rather than questions; they were open-ended and less restrictive than current; and they encouraged focus on the things you find exciting, you aspire to in a game.
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