Author: David Clark (---.beanfield.net)
Date: 08-21-2003 11:08
Great article!
I just wanted to note that it's going to be very difficult to play a monster (in the sense of the archetype, not in the sense of a vampire, a goblin, or a shambling bundle of snot) as a true character. I've seen plenty of people try it, and it usually comes across rather poorly. Once you plunk a character into the category of monster, you are dehumanizing it, segregating it into the realm of the other. When we call someone a monster, we are separating them from the rest of humanity as somehow essentially different and alien. You can call someone criminal, or cruel, or unjust, or sneaky, or deceitful, or abusive, or any number of descriptors for antisocial attributes, and still empathise with them. We've all had moments where we have given into our baser instincts and behaved in a less than upright way. But we don't empathise with monsters; their actions are so dispicable and their motivations so opaque that we cannot identify with them. We may see flashes of recognition within them; but they are never true; this is what makes them so horrific - the perversion of the familiar into something dangerously alien. Thus separated from humanity, monsters are more akin to destructive and terrifying forces of nature (or perhaps unnature?).
In order to play a character, one must to some degree identify with it. This need not be in the full "immersive" sense of a method actor, but simply in the way one identifies with a character in a story. We need to be able to say "I can see why he did that", at least some of the time. You can't do that with a monster.
Why did he kill the innocent villagers? If it was because he was consumed with rage, then he's a human with anger issues. If it was because he believed them to be impure, it's because he's a bigot and a zealot. If they were expendible, and he used them as a warning to others who might stand up to him, it's because he's maintaining his power base through violence against people for whom he has no empathy. We may despise these motivations, but we can understand them, and perhaps see a part of those feelings in ourselves- blind rage, xenophobia, desperation. With recognisable motivation he's no longer a monster, but rather a man, doing bad things.
So, in order to play a monster, you must always keep in mind that it is not moved by explicable things. It must remain darkly alien (and to be really, really, scary it must also lure us occasionally to believe that we do understand it, only to turn once again). The motivations shoudl be external, rather than internal- instead of thinking "what would I do if?", the player (or gm) should think "what would be unexpected, horrific, and completely debased?". This is a hard thing to do, and I think it strips away one of the most appealing aspects of roleplaying, which is that empathy and identification with the characters. Monsters are great tools for GMs- they are stark and frightening foes against which to pit your PCs. As PCs themselves, I think they entirely unsuited.
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