PDA

View Full Version : Your thoughts on self-insert campaigns



laeZ1
2013-04-12, 01:34 PM
Just wanted to get some discussion going about a sticky topic in my group of friends: self-insert campaigns.

Seems like a pretty cool idea at first. "What if you were in the fantasy world, with magic and monsters"

I've been in a few different self-insert games, in a few different systems, and it never goes well. From people thinking they know each other better than they know themselves (You wouldn't do that in that situation!), to character death, to the cheesy ways these campaigns can start (you get sucked into the book!), I'd like to hear discussion and stories of all your self-insert experiences (good and bad).

BWR
2013-04-12, 01:55 PM
My friends and I tried something like that many years ago. The campaign died, but I think that was more that the DM didn't have much idea what to do with it after a while rather than the problems of playing ourselves, mostly because we all kept our mouths shut about what the other PCs did - we did not try to tell our friends how they really thought and acted.
The sole exception to this idea was stating ourselves, when stats were based on what the rest thought about us, and we had no so over our own. None of us complained, because we realized we weren't worthy of stats above 13 or 14 (I think there was a single 14 in the entire group).

When I bring up the game, my friends react with "yeah, that was cool" not "eh, it didn't work out"

JeenLeen
2013-04-12, 02:21 PM
While I think I could enjoy a game like this, the biggest danger I see (at least for my gaming group) would be inability to differentiate between IC and OOC insults.

It's one thing to say that so-and-so's character is acting foolishly (especially if it's in-character) and to have your character state that. It's another thing if that is to represent your friend as in that situation. But my group tends to have some hostility between PCs (not so much in the latest game, but in our last one it got bad sometimes), so other groups may be able to handle this better.

Edit: on the stating yourself option, I would recommend having whatever energies take you to another plane also modify your body/mind to allow above-average power, and use something like point-buy so you are even. It's insulting if someone has better stats because he's an engineer & works out a lot (like one friend in my group) compared to the rest of who are relatively lazy. Or just have a low-power game where nobody is really great at anything; All Flesh Must Be Eaten comes to mind.

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2013-04-12, 02:44 PM
I remember one of my friends was applying one a PbP self-insert campaign, and the stats were based on the results of some internet tests/quizzes to determine one's D&D stats. He ended up getting high enough stats that the DM had to nerf them to let him in, I think. I just remember talking to him about it, since he thought it was hilarious that, according to the test, his actual stats were a lot better than those of his epic hero in the PnP campaign we were playing in. "Like, ****, why aren't I just wasting dragons erryday in real life? I should get a book on magic or something."

Since he never did slay a dragon, at least not to my knowledge, I think the real lesson to take from this is that those tests should be taken with a grain of salt.

Rhynn
2013-04-12, 02:49 PM
I don't really see the benefits over just playing modern-world characters (possibly facsimiles of yourselves) in a fantasy (or whatever else) setting. In fact, I think a degree of separation works wonders - I have run a campaign in Call of Cthulhu where everyone played a loosely-based-on-yourself character, but living on a different continent and of completely different age, created using the usual rules, and it worked just fine. As an added bonus, this gives the characters a chance to actually be competent at something relevant (without giving an unfair advantage to the one person who's actually into renaissance/medieval martial arts, or whatever).

SimonMoon6
2013-04-12, 03:13 PM
Two of my most beloved (by the players) campaigns were of this variety. (I've done this at least three times.)

First, I'll address the OP's comments.

Players should be allowed to act however they want to. Nobody should be told that they don't know themselves as well as someone else does. This does mean that the PCs may act a bit more violent and sociopathic than the actual players, but it's a game, so roll with it.

There were no player deaths, at least not for a long time (until a player really wanted his character to die). Obviously, therefore, we weren't using D&D as the game system.

And for stats, I've always let the PCs be built on the same number of points, so that there can't be any objections (because it's a game, you know?). Sure, this means that the out-of-shape moron gets to have the same general power level as the physically fit genius when that wouldn't be true in real life. Still, there should be an element of characters having the right stats being their best ones. Generally, you can give someone a higher INT or CHA stat than they deserve without anyone grumbling too much.

Now for info on the games of this sort that I've run:

(1) The Chaosium/DC game

The first game started off with the five friends (me and four others) being charged with going through the multiverse (all to try to fix something I did). In the process, they explored several universes (an Elric/Young Kingdoms universe, a couple of superhero universes, a Cthulhu universe, and something else). At the end of that quest, they had a variety of powers and magic items, but more importantly, they had access to the multiverse (which had at least 23 universes to explore, depending on how you counted).

The game started off in the "Chaosium" family of game systems, including Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Elric, and an obscure superhero game called Superworld. Eventually, this wasn't good enough for superheroes, so the multiverse was recrafted so that it used the DC Heroes RPG (by Mayfair).

Thanks to the Cthulhu universe's influence (which actually retconned itself into the main "normal" universe), the character who was "me" went insane, and since I knew all about the universes in this multiverse, the insane me went around gathering all the best items of power throughout the multiverse, making me the big bad guy for everyone to fight. The PCs followed, with one weird encounter after another (at one point they took the Enterprise to the Dreamlands (where all high-tech stuff changes to low-tech stuff; sorry Data!)) until finally the PCs were allowed to set up their final confrontation... which they won despite making a hash of it.

And then they were free to pursue their own goals. One became a king in the Dreamlands. Another spent his time researching the nature of the multiverse. Another just wandered around at random, hoping for adventures. And the PCs fought against each other sometimes (often due to temporary insanity), while having various other quests to go on.

The "sandbox" nature of this setting really appealed to the PCs and the fact that they could use a lot of what would normally be OOC knowledge probably helped. (Having read DC comics, for example, they would know Superman is really Clark Kent.)

This was a successful campaign that ended as the playing group began to dissolve. Shortly after each PC made their own universe, one player basically suicided himself because his girlfriend/wife wasn't too happy with him playing himself with a wife who wasn't her. And so he got a new character. And a new player showed up who only played himself briefly before getting a new character. And by this point, things weren't the same anymore. The game got even weirder after that, but that's probably not important.

(2)The Mosaic World Game

This game started off with the PCs on the run. Basically, a magic crystal had given "us" all the powers, skills, and equipment of our favorite characters. However, it also made us evil, under the thrall of a Big Bad Guy. So, a dying wizard saved the day by pulling out the "good" parts of ourselves, meaning our normal non-powered non-controlled selves. So, there was a good us and a bad us. And the bad us could kill the good us in a split second.

Well, the wizard was doing all this during a special time stop like spell, so the good us was sent to a "mosaic world", where there were sections stolen from different worlds, each with a different set of rules under which they operated. The time stop like spell lasted long enough for the good us (the PCs) to get away and have some adventures before the bad us would come looking.

In each square of the mosaic world, there was one crystal that could power up the PCs, giving them a fraction of the power that the bad us already possessed. And it had to be used just right or you might end up with more than you bargained for (maybe I want the powers of Supergirl, but not her body!). And of course, there were opportunities to gain powers that not even the Bad Us possessed.

This was another highly successful campaign. The heroes beat the bad guys and some went back home to the real world, while others stayed in the mosaic world.

This game *did* have a character death, but it was kind of funny. While waiting for the next round of a martial arts competition, they were ambushed and one of the PCs died. That's not the funny part. The dead PC's opponent had already been selected for the next round. However, once the surviving PCs revealed that the dead PC's opponent had been in on this ambush, that opponent was disqualified, so the dead PC won his match (by default!). And then he later got resurrected.

laeZ1
2013-04-12, 03:51 PM
Two of my most beloved (by the players) campaigns were of this variety. (I've done this at least three times.)

I just finished reading through the two examples you gave, and I really like both of them. If I ever try to run a self-insert game myself (I've only ever been a player of one, always too afraid to DM that style), it would appeal to my sense of story to have "me" go insane and end up being one of the large obstacles, as would the premise for the second story you listed.

As you can all probably tell from the OP, I haven't had great luck from the self-insert games I've been in. Things feel off. The one I had enjoyed the most was a zombie-appocolypse game (d20 modern system). I enjoyed it until we began gaining levels and being able to use some of the magic in the game. Also, balancing roleplay vs gameplay has never been an issue for me in any other style of game. From a player's perspective, I really want to jump those looting bandits... but roleplaying myself, I'd rather watch my back and leave them be.

SowZ
2013-04-12, 04:30 PM
Most fun self insert game I've played was a PvP Hunger Games situation where we had a TON of players and we played all weekend, getting knocked out one or two at a time. We used NWoD to create ourselves. It was a blast, and when I was finally offed, (outnumbered me three to one. Still managed to kill one of them, wound a second, and bring the third down to one hit point.) I was satisfied with my kill count.

Jay R
2013-04-12, 09:24 PM
I played a GURPS campaign once, in which the GM gave us characters based on our actual abilities.

All I can say is that it was wonderful that the GM had an unfairly high estimate of my abilities.

OverdrivePrime
2013-04-12, 09:54 PM
Love those game descriptions, SimonMoon!

I've been playing and running a lot of self-insert campaigns since the mid-90s. My friends and I really tend to enjoy them, perhaps because of the opportunity to explore aspects of ourselves that we don't normally get to exercise.

The best was a 7-year campaign run in the Immortal: the Invisible War system with three DMs and at it's peak had 10 players.

I ran another PBP game of immortal (which is designed with self-insertion in mind) with 12 players and though everyone had a blast, I just couldn't handle the level of involvement required to run that big of a game with a sufficient level of verisimilitude, so I wound up wrapping it up after about 9 months.

I'm currently running a self-insertion Pathfinder game with 7 players (5 at home, 2 remote), and it's going great - though things are getting a little weird now that some of the players have access to 5th level spells. This one's been going for about 2 years now.

I think the key to success is to make sure your players are all mature and secure. You probably already know which people you might have maturity problems with. Talk to them ahead of time. If they can't handle it, don't invite them to the game. Don't let insecure players ruin the fun for everyone else.

kardar233
2013-04-12, 11:14 PM
I had an idea for a self-insert campaign set in the Game of Thrones world, where the players would compete for the Iron Throne and supremacy over the others in the goal of some sort of prize. The reason I chose Game of Thrones is because it has a very detailed timeline and a ton of secrets, so not only can the players make maximum use of their knowledge of the series I can also adapt on the fly to changes they make. Unfortunately, the idea didn't go over well with the group. Some other time.

Hopeless
2013-04-13, 05:50 AM
There was a Gurps Sliders game which gradually evolved into playing godlings that floundered and stopped a couple of times especially after an attempt to runa similar game under 4e Gurps.

It eventually evolved a subplot but given there was three different gms it got problematic when the game changes hands and whilst one PC grew dramatically more powerful whilst his player was the gm he didn't like it when I tried to make use of dnd information on the oriental gods to explain why all of the gods were at war with each other whilst some great nihilistic entity was opening attacking all of them (He'd rather we not think too much about it since he being an anime fan thought the east would survive whilst the west including the Norse gods wouldn't... I of course disagreed on the grounds Kevin Sorbo would have wiped the floor with the lot of them!:smalltongue:).

Must admit when one player used an illusion of my mother against a doppleganger of my character I had to award him xp for catching me completely by surprise!:smallbiggrin:

Tried a D&D variant based on the cartoon series but it barely lasted a session after the players stole my notes and read up on what their artefacts could do!:smallmad:

Really wanted to restart a weg star wars game using the new fantasy flight games rules but as it was a rebel game have to wait another year for the details... almost tried it anyway!:smallwink:

On the plus side there's no Jedi to mess things up on the bad side I can't use the Rebel Alliance... well everyone has their favourite characters don't they?!:smallsmile:

scurv
2013-04-13, 09:58 AM
I avoid these now for the most part. I have been professionally driven in my chosen fields sense i was about 12. And most people I game with tend to do just enough to get by. It won't work for me. It is hard to say that briefly with out sounding arrogant. But Even under the best of situation people(my self included) get a little to upset when they see their self insert PC suck at life or die.

Jay R
2013-04-13, 11:26 AM
One of my friends, a top-level SCA fighter, was playing a first-level 2E Fighter when an ogre appeared. He put down his dice and said, "I quit. Why should I spend my free time pretending to be somebody who is right now quaking in his boots wishing he were me?"

He then started playing Champions, so he could pretend to fly and lift cars and do other things that he could never really do himself.

I recognize that one of the joys of a self-insert game is to see how I might do in a situation I can never really face.

But it also loses one of the joys of role-playing - getting to play somebody stronger, more dexterous, or more charismatic than I am.

Slipperychicken
2013-04-13, 11:29 AM
I wouldn't go on a dangerous adventure IRL, so it'd be kind of awkward justifying it. Also, I'm pretty sure those ranks in Perform(Stringed Instruments), Craft(Writing), and Knowledge(History) aren't going to do me much good in a dungeon. Maybe the Knowledge (Tabletop RPGs) might help a little :smalltongue: I guess I could be a Bard if we handwaved my alignment (LN) and were quite generous about estimating my Charisma score (11 or 12 instead of 9).


But the main thing is that I want to play an escapist fantasy. Playing a self-insert means grappling with reality, which I don't want to do during the game.

Jay R
2013-04-13, 01:34 PM
In an early Dragon Magazine (or late Strategic Review; I forget which), there were rules for generating your self-character. The only one I remember was how to generate Wisdom.

20 minus the number of hours a week you spend playing or working with D&D.

At the time, that measurement gave me a Wisdom score of about -10.

whydoibover
2013-04-13, 02:44 PM
When I ran this campaign, I got everyone blindly to rate everyone else out of 10. Then I worked out the proportions of scores people were given (ie, if someone was given all 2s and one 10, that 10 was worth a lot, is someone was given all 10s then they were all worth as much as all ones) and scaled those up to the point buy we were using. The leftover points were added by people themselves as extra points. This went pretty well until everyone went off to uni.

Angel Bob
2013-04-13, 06:01 PM
I remember one of my friends was applying one a PbP self-insert campaign, and the stats were based on the results of some internet tests/quizzes to determine one's D&D stats. He ended up getting high enough stats that the DM had to nerf them to let him in, I think. I just remember talking to him about it, since he thought it was hilarious that, according to the test, his actual stats were a lot better than those of his epic hero in the PnP campaign we were playing in. "Like, ****, why aren't I just wasting dragons erryday in real life? I should get a book on magic or something."

Since he never did slay a dragon, at least not to my knowledge, I think the real lesson to take from this is that those tests should be taken with a grain of salt.

Fact of the matter is, those surveys can't magically stare into your soul and tell you exactly what your stats are. They can only tell you what YOU think of yourself. Because YOU are the one putting in the answers.

So basically, this friend of yours has an absurdly high view of himself. :smalltongue:

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2013-04-13, 11:23 PM
Well, to some extent, but I was under the impression they were based more around providing relevant facts or demonstrating the relevant ability. In other words, answering questions about how much weight you can lift for strength, solving math problems or logic puzzles for intelligence and/or wisdom. I don't really know how charisma would be done, but I'd imagine the others, at least, aren't just "Are you, like, really strong?" or "Are you the smartest guy you know?"

TuggyNE
2013-04-13, 11:34 PM
Well, to some extent, but I was under the impression they were based more around providing relevant facts or demonstrating the relevant ability. In other words, answering questions about how much weight you can lift for strength, solving math problems or logic puzzles for intelligence and/or wisdom. I don't really know how charisma would be done, but I'd imagine the others, at least, aren't just "Are you, like, really strong?" or "Are you the smartest guy you know?"

Dude what are you talking about? I'm totally the smartest guy I know! And I'm, like, a computer programmer, it doesn't get any smarter than that. 18 for sure!

Slipperychicken
2013-04-14, 12:05 AM
Well, to some extent, but I was under the impression they were based more around providing relevant facts or demonstrating the relevant ability. In other words, answering questions about how much weight you can lift for strength, solving math problems or logic puzzles for intelligence and/or wisdom. I don't really know how charisma would be done, but I'd imagine the others, at least, aren't just "Are you, like, really strong?" or "Are you the smartest guy you know?"

Easier to just have people rate their ability scores in order from highest to lowest, then hand them an Elite Array. I might be biased because I once estimated my ability scores (using an IQ to INT conversion chart for INT), and it corresponded precisely with an Elite Array which was pretty good for a Wizard.

Weirdlet
2013-04-14, 12:28 AM
I'm enjoying one rather a lot right now- we were each asked to stat ourselves as best we could according to our perceptions of our strengths and weaknesses, and peer-reviewed until we agreed that it more or less fit- we weren't gonna drive ourselves nuts over every little thing. We've been effectively kidnapped by Hallister to Undermountain, into alternate bodies that have the stats and classes we picked (and in some cases race- I play a halforc, there's a werewolf and a winged elf, the young son of our barbarian is a halfling rogue. We all have our favorite memes, and the conceit of the game is that we were making up ourselves as our ideal characters, and then got sucked in).

I think the trick is that you set out with the mindset of we're doing this for fun, not to snipe at each other. That's the big thing that people miss in every genre of game and sport. The GM's DMPC is the werewolf, and not only do we see his rolls and watch him take his lumps, but he's pretty good at separating GM's knowledge from character knowledge (although any previous knowledge PCs/players had of the Forgotten Realms is fair game). And he actively tried to remove his character from the limelight/get him out of the way for a while- it didn't work because we wouldn't let our friend be kidnapped/poisoned into berserk insanity without expending major effort to get him back/keep him from getting away (and he failed to take into account that his lady could fly and had grappling hooks for feet).

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2013-04-14, 12:31 AM
Oh, sure, I'm not advocating Internet quizzes by any means, just noting that my buddy got ridiculous stats from those quizzes because they were poorly made, not because he's super arrogant.

Rhynn
2013-04-14, 12:51 AM
Oh, sure, I'm not advocating Internet quizzes by any means, just noting that my buddy got ridiculous stats from those quizzes because they were poorly made, not because he's super arrogant.

I'd have a hard time even buying the idea that there is (or, indeed, can be) such a thing as a well-made Internet quiz for "your RPG attributes"... some (Cha, Wis) are flatly impossible to measure usefully, and some (Dex, Con) are too vague to measure well. Int can only be measured if you accept that it corresponds to IQ (and accept that IQ in any way reflect intelligence, which it really doesn't), and then you're dealing with poor IQ tests (any online IQ test that doesn't give you the average of the scores it's given so far is, IMO, bound to be one that over-rates everyone using it). Str is the one you can sort of measure ("how much can you bench" is a question that your Str value can answer, after all), but even that one is more complicated (weightlifting ability doesn't necessarily translate to hitting things ability).

... sorry, kind of off-topic.

AttilaTheGeek
2013-04-14, 06:53 AM
Str is the one you can sort of measure ("how much can you bench" is a question that your Str value can answer, after all), but even that one is more complicated (weightlifting ability doesn't necessarily translate to hitting things ability).

(emphasis mine)

I think this is a problem with the STR attribute in general, just from the way it's designed. I've always thought that everyone should get DEX to hit and STR to damage, with high DEX granting additional attacks.

Slipperychicken
2013-04-14, 10:48 AM
(emphasis mine)

I think this is a problem with the STR attribute in general, just from the way it's designed. I've always thought that everyone should get DEX to hit and STR to damage, with high DEX granting additional attacks.

I think it's an acceptable sacrifice for simplicity and ease-of-use.

Frozen_Feet
2013-04-14, 10:51 AM
Roughly every 10th character I make is essentially me on steroids. No-one has even noticed it without me pointing it out. :smallbiggrin:

Slipperychicken
2013-04-14, 10:53 AM
Roughly every 10th character I make is essentially me on steroids. No-one has even noticed it without me pointing it out. :smallbiggrin:

To be fair, it's not the kind of thing people usually track. After ten characters, people a) forget most of them, and b) think you're just trying something new.

Jay R
2013-04-14, 09:59 PM
(emphasis mine)

I think this is a problem with the STR attribute in general, just from the way it's designed. I've always thought that everyone should get DEX to hit and STR to damage, with high DEX granting additional attacks.

I tend to think of STR as athletic ability in power sports, which includes strength-based agility, like an American football running back or a rugby player.

DEX I translate as ability to do precise moves.

So the brilliant skating of a hockey player is STR-based, and the brilliant skating of an ice dancer is DEX-based.

Similarly, as much as possible, I prefer to consider INT to be ability to use arcane forces, which is related to, but not identical to intelligence.

One of the advantages of this kind of approach is it allows the players to use their own intelligence. It's the only way to justify a INT 18 character run by somebody who cannot think strategically.

Tanuki Tales
2013-04-14, 10:05 PM
If you haven't read it yet, this is a cautionary tale of how bad a self insert can become....


Especially when the GM thinks he's a clone of his self-insert.... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=275152)

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2013-04-15, 03:24 AM
Oh, also, I totally forgot my buddy who rolled those scores posts/posted on here. Everyone make fun of "Vacant" about it, if he's still around. :smalltongue:

Edenbeast
2013-04-15, 05:22 AM
I'm assuming we're merely average people. Many tests on the internet are not only broken but also easy to predict. If you think yourself stronger than the average person, just answer the questions "correctly' et voilà, you have strength 18.

I think the basic thought of self-inserting should be that players being Ordinary Joe with maybe just a few talents that bring them a bit above average. I see that as point buy 5, so you can raise one or two characteristics that you think you are really strong at. That would make realistic and interesting characters.

I don't see the point of using the standard array for self-insert, because then you're basically making Spiderman or Doc Ock or whatever superhero you always pretended to be. Self-insert means you play yourself where you suddenly wake up in a world of fantasy, much like the group of friends in the Dungeons & Dragons TV series from the 80s: you're just normal people with most of your powers derived from magic items.

OverdrivePrime
2013-04-15, 09:09 AM
I'm assuming we're merely average people. Many tests on the internet are not only broken but also easy to predict. If you think yourself stronger than the average person, just answer the questions "correctly' et voilà, you have strength 18.

Eh, I'm fully aware that most of my friends and I do not fall into American 'average'. We know each other well, and assume a high degree of knowledge, attributes and skill when do self-insert games.

The game I'm running now is a "Some jerk of a demigod magicked you guys from around our game table in real world into a D&D fantasy world. She picked you because you're pretty great and can get stuff done that the heroes from her world don't know about. Now deal with it."

A minor brag list on my posse:Of my regular group of 8 - ranging in age from 33 to 42, six of us have been practicing martial arts for at least 5 years, four of us have been practicing martial arts for over 20 years, 4 of us have at least one master's degree, one of us has several battle tours in Iraq under his belt and is also a published novelist, one spent 12 years as an opera singer in Europe before becoming a senior project manager for a fortune 100 company, another of us is an absurdly talented web programmer currently interviewing at Google, another lifts weights daily, works construction and is a stay-at-home dad, two of us speak five or more languages fluently, three of us are long-distance runners, three of us were in local bands with regular gigs, one is a talented painter and novelist, and the list goes on.
I feel like the slacker of the crew as a some-time athlete and aspiring novelist, full-time web marketing specialist and martial artist. Even though I've got the shorter resumé, it's pretty cool to be surrounded by awesome people.:smallsmile:

Edenbeast
2013-04-15, 10:21 AM
Eh, I'm fully aware that most of my friends and I do not fall into American 'average'. We know each other well, and assume a high degree of knowledge, attributes and skill when do self-insert games.

Not to sound offensive, but I think that goes for everyone. We all believe we are above average, our kids are better than the neighbour's, and we're surrounded by totally awesome people we call friends. Besides, I'm not american, and I didn't mean american average.

SimonMoon6
2013-04-15, 10:27 AM
Not to sound offensive, but I think that goes for everyone. We all believe we are above average, our kids are better than the neighbour's, and we're surrounded by totally awesome people we call friends.

This is the Dunning-Kruger Effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

In a nutshell, people who are bad at something are often *so* bad at it that they don't recognize how bad they are at it and assume that they must be above average.

OTOH, some people really *are* above average. As someone who always scored in the 90-something percentile on every standardized test, someone who was put in special programs for people whose IQ's were above 130, someone who went on to get a Ph.D. in math... I would say that I'm above average in intelligence.

And on a completely unrelated note:

One of the first RPG games I got to play in was a superhero game run by one of my friends in his home-made game system (loosely based on Villains & Vigilantes). Well, one of the stats for the game was Luck. But you didn't simply get Luck like any other stat, no. Instead, you rolled percentile dice when you made your character and that was how much Luck you had. And Luck was reasonably important because you could spend it in battles.

Well, since we were playing ourselves, I tried to tell the GM that I was actually a pretty lucky person in real life, but he wouldn't listen and made me roll anyway. I rolled a 100. Well I guess I showed him.

Then another player rolled for his Luck. This particular player is renowned for having terrible luck when it comes to die rolls (honestly, he can't roll well even when handed loaded dice!). Well, he rolled something abysmally low, like a 10 or a 5. The rule was that you could reroll your first Luck roll and take the second result. So, naturally, he re-rolled. He got a 1. :D

Slipperychicken
2013-04-15, 11:55 AM
I don't see the point of using the standard array for self-insert, because then you're basically making Spiderman or Doc Ock or whatever superhero you always pretended to be. Self-insert means you play yourself where you suddenly wake up in a world of fantasy, much like the group of friends in the Dungeons & Dragons TV series from the 80s: you're just normal people with most of your powers derived from magic items.

It's a question of what the array means. Whichever array represents "slightly above the average person" in the system should be fine.

OverdrivePrime
2013-04-15, 12:35 PM
This is the Dunning-Kruger Effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

In a nutshell, people who are bad at something are often *so* bad at it that they don't recognize how bad they are at it and assume that they must be above average.

OTOH, some people really *are* above average. As someone who always scored in the 90-something percentile on every standardized test, someone who was put in special programs for people whose IQ's were above 130, someone who went on to get a Ph.D. in math... I would say that I'm above average in intelligence.

Heh. The problem with Dunning-Kruger is that it's pretty challenging to make a case against it over a web forum without looking like more of an arrogant SOB than I've already made myself out to be. :smallwink:

If we want to go by testable things like Strength, Tested IQ (not intelligence, and not some garbage web-based test), Endurance, Education and Martial Prowess, then yes, the crew I game with compares favorably against the general population.

But anyway, before I completely insert my other foot into my mouth, I'll strongly agree that self-inserts are the most fun for us to see how we'd think and fare in a fantasy environment, and the married couples get to have a little extra fun pretending to exist in a world without in-laws or other responsibilities horning in on their lives.

Rhynn
2013-04-15, 12:58 PM
This is the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Actually, it's a slightly different one. It's a possibly related but separate fact that most people think they're above average, even if they're average (rather than below average, which is D-K). This is true of, say, college professors (who certainly are above the general average, but also mostly rate themselves above average in their peer/profession group).

OverdrivePrime
2013-04-15, 01:56 PM
This is true of, say, college professors

...or 95% of people when asked about their driving ability. :smallwink:

Narren
2013-04-15, 03:53 PM
We did a Vampire game that was set in our home city with ourselves as the characters. We were 15 or 16 at the time, so we set it 10 years into the future so that we could justify whatever stats or background we wanted to create. Considering the whole theme of the game can focus on your decent into a monster and losing who you once were, it was actually pretty fun.

It's funny....more than 10 years later, only two of us are doing what we said we would be doing. That's normal, I guess.

Rhynn
2013-04-15, 10:59 PM
...or 95% of people when asked about their driving ability. :smallwink:

Well, my point was that members of a group already above average (they average something like 110-115 IQ, for instance) largely (I think 80-90%? I forget) consider themselves above-average within their group. Driving ability in the general driving population is probably a prime example of Dunning-Kruger: bad drivers are so bad they don't realize it and think they're better than average. In fact, in the case of driving, they probably think the bad things they do while driving are what make them better than others, they don't follow the rules because they're better than average, etc.

prufock
2013-04-16, 07:55 AM
I'm planning to run a "semi-self-insert" superhero campaign (up to 11 sessions) later this year. I've had this in the works for a while, but just haven't had a break from our main campaign yet. Basically, the players create PL 2 (30-point) mundane characters with no powers or fantastical abilities. They will gain powers over the course of the game. I've pre-generated their power suites, somewhat randomly (they voted to do it this way rather than make their own).

The characters are meant to represent themselves, but don't need to be exact replicas. They will be put into a fictional town very much like our real residence. The idea is not to be 100% accurate, but just to play out the question "what would you do if you had super powers?"

Dienekes
2013-04-16, 09:12 AM
I've done one, it was an interesting campaign. I think I stole the idea from someone on these boards, but anyway. First, I said we were going to play a zombie apocalypse game of what would happen if it struck right now.

We all agreed to make the characters together and argued over each others stats and where they should put their skills and whatnot. There was arguing and bickering of course but it smoothed out in the end, and everyone was happy enough with their characters.

Then I told all my players to give their character sheets to the guy to their right. What happened was one of the most confusing, insulting one-shots I have ever run. I would ask Derek what he was doing and two guys would answer. We had one combat where Fred said "Since I'm Jim I will try to think up a strategy to the best of my ability... I will drop my gun run up and punch the zombie!" One friend is known for saying a pun every now and again, so his player searched for the worst list of puns he could find on the internet and tried to squeeze one into every sentence he could, turning him into easily the most annoying character there. Every fault was hounded upon, every quality was turned grotesque. Thankfully since we mostly communicate by insulting each other anyhow we had a great time.

Jay R
2013-04-16, 10:07 AM
Then I told all my players to give their character sheets to the guy to their right.

That sounds wonderfully chaotic. This is the first really good idea for a self-insert campaign I've heard in decades.

phlidwsn
2013-04-30, 10:49 AM
I both tabletop and LARP. I've always wanted to sit folks down for a tabletop zombie apocalypse, and then hand them LARP stat cards of themselves as zombie NPCs wielding boffer claws start beating on the doors and windows.

A Tad Insane
2013-05-01, 08:30 AM
It is occasionally fun to make a character with your exact morals and ideals for simplified rping, but my friends and I generally think flat self insertion is not only awkward, but defeats the point of a fantasy game to some extent.

Geordnet
2013-05-01, 09:55 PM
I both tabletop and LARP. I've always wanted to sit folks down for a tabletop zombie apocalypse, and then hand them LARP stat cards of themselves as zombie NPCs wielding boffer claws start beating on the doors and windows.

Oh, that's a nice twist! :smallbiggrin: