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Existential Angst

No one ever believes me about this, but Shadows in the Fog often produces a strange sort of involvement with one’s character that can be deeply creepy. The more you play it, the more you get inside the head of someone whom you may increasingly dislike. Over time, this makes players look forward less and less to playing sessions.

There are several ways around this problem.

First of all, try to avoid characters whom you dislike personally from the outset. For example, you may be tempted to play a sadistic Satanist, but do you really want to live with this person for months at a time? Do you really want to think your way into his head? Because if you don’t, it will be difficult to stand back from him during play, and you may find yourself wanting to switch characters or drop out entirely. Start with a character who has some admirable and likeable traits, so that you can enjoy his agonies.

Second, every character needs anchors in the real world, things that keep him from just sliding into the abyss. These anchors are most importantly personal: they’re usually at least partly represented through the bonds with other characters. This can lead to the classic literary trope of the man whose slide into corruption is halted by the love of a good woman, and many other variations are possible.

Finally, make sure that your motivations are not always and entirely unified. If you start to find a character unappealing, this is probably at least partly because his main goals in life have become unpleasant or uninteresting to you. If you can draw on other elements of the character to work against this, dredging up old goals and directions that got set aside in what you might now perceive as a spiraling obsession—and possibly depression—you can build your way out of loathing by setting the character on the path to a richer and more tolerable (to you) life.

-- ChrisLehrich^? - 24 Dec 2004

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