#16: The pronoun game, I vs Bob

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/nextlevel/nextlevel16.phtml

Summary:

How to best react to players based on their roleplaying objectives.

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/nextlevel/nextlevel16.phtml) for more information.

[hemflit]

FWIW, in my humble experience so far, pretty much everything you said here has been absolutely true... except the chief dichotomy, the thing from the title.

That is, you have it spot on with identifying these two categories (or perhaps ends of a spectrum) and the stuff in which they differ and what a GM can do with it, but I've just never seen the actual "I/Bob" phrasing thing work the way it did in your experience.

Or maybe I just come from a very "I" gaming subculture, where even the boardgame pieces are rarely "Bob".

[Praetorian]

FWIW, in my humble experience so far, pretty much everything you said here has been absolutely true... except the chief dichotomy, the thing from the title.


Yeah, its part of the thing I worried about when writing this article- how universal my expirience has been. I asked a couple other GMs and they reinforced the dichotomy I noticed- so I ran with it.

I think "I vs Bob" is a symptom of the overall situation and not really the focus, so if you can still get worth out of the article even when it is not 100% your situation, then i am still a happy writer.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Nitrosyncretic]

A discussion at Story Games has come up with a bunch of different reasons for use first or thrid person description, and even some suggestions for using it as a technique.

A GM can prompt a type of response based on whether he asks "What do you do?" or "What does Bob do?" One will prompt the player to think in character, the other will prompt for a response from a wider perspective. Also, someone suggested switching to third person when you want to skip over more time or set a scene.