Reverb Games: Media Characters
Question #10: Have you ever played a character originally from a book/TV/movie? How did the character change from the original as you played? If not, who would you most like to play?
Ew. No.
More precisely, no, and I've no particular intention of doing so. I have enough difficulty with NPCs from other people's settings, let alone taking on a character who's so intensely associated with someone else. It'd be faintly like... I don't know, wearing someone else's underwear.
Now, being fair about it, there are certainly influences on characters of mine from those in books, TV or movies. Books, mostly. Many of my less sane mages owe a debt to Antryg Windrose, for instance. Some of the members of the Ashes of the Rose, a sort of guild of undead-hunters, wouldn't be as they are if I hadn't seen Van Helsing. But these are influences, not the same characters.
This seems to be the direct opposite of how some authors feel about fanfic. I don't mind anyone picking up, or straight-up copying my characters for their own use, but I'd really, really rather not pick up anyone else's.
By and large, this hasn't been a problem for me, except when it comes to Planescape. Planescape relies on Sigil, Sigil relies on the factions, and the factions have leaders. Factols, even. And those are distinct personalities that someone else wrote. My campaign setting uses the Planescape cosmology - more or less - and therefore has to deal with the factols.
There've been few enough encounters with these characters; most of the time, players in my campaigns are either passing through Sigil, or laying low. But Rhys has appeared a few times, and Erin Montgomery once as well. And I really didn't like playing them. I still have plans to run a Planescape campaign at some point, so I'm going to have to bite down and get over it, I think.
Actually, that probably explains why I've never got the hang of published modules, either.
Posted by Drew Shiel at January 18, 2012 11:26 AM
