Sandy's Soapbox

The player Tony is playing Cleo, an actress pretending to be a dancer named Zia.
The player Cathy is playing Terry, a spy operating under the alias of Zoe.
The player Zoe is playing Cherry, who is a spy pretending to be a dancer named Tony.

Tony: Okay, Cleo and Terry are going to be entering the room together.
Cathy: Tony, let's make sure Tony and Zoe are also there.
Zoe: Wait, do you mean me?
Cathy: No, I mean Tony's character and my character.
Zoe: Wouldn't that be 'Zia and Zoe' then?
Cathy: Sorry, got confused, let's only go by character names.
Tony: Okay, then Zoe, what about Terry?
Zoe: Terry is with Cleo, but thinks she's actually named Zia, right?
Cathy: No, wait, Terry said Zoe, so he was asking me. No, wait, Terry thinks he is Zoe. You know, let's just give up this example of play.

A bit exaggerated, but you know the prose. A set of normal-sounding people are playing other-named characters, and the references become hard to read if you don't actually understand the game rules yet.

Here's a more common example, less humorous but still a mess.

Cathy is playing Oliver, a fighter.
Zoe is playing Darwin, a mage.
David is playing Mary, a druid.

Cathy: Oliver decides to attack Darwin.
David: My character decides to turn into a mouse to hide.
Zoe: I run behind Mary.
David: Oliver gets attacked by Mary.

QUICK, who is where? Okay, let's first normalize and just use character names, no "I" or "my character".

Cathy: Oliver decides to attack Darwin.
David: Mary decides to turn into a mouse to hide.
Zoe: Darwin run behind Mary.
David: Mary attacks Oliver.

Even if we'd included character names, it's a bit of a mess. Player names are not correlated with character names, so in our head we have to track 6 people where only 3 exist: three player+character pairs.

Here's the tip for writing easier to read examples of plays. The players only go by their initials. By coincidence, their character names have the same initial letter as they do, and go by character full names. This leads to easily parsed examples.

C. is playing Chris, a fighter.
Z. is playing Zoe, a mage.
D. is playing Davyd, a druid.

C.: Chris decides to attack Davyd.
D.: David decides to turn into a mouse to hide.
Z.: Zoe run behind David.
D.: David attacks Chris.

*Boom* Now the reader can easily track what is happening, without the player-character divide intruding. Please use this.

Until next time,
Sandy
sandy@rpg.net