A #ttrpg thought. I think managing bleed is valuable. I don’t think it is great if you over-identify with your character. Over-identification can lead to all sorts of problems. It can lead to being defensive about one’s character when they mess up (everyone messes up).

It can lead to taking it personally out of game when people in game have a problem with your character. It can lead to lots of problems. As a person with a theater background, I always see myself as playing my PC, not being my PC. I am very emotionally present. I care about my PC

But I’m not my PC. If people hate or love my PC, or bad things happen to my PC, I feel things, but I don’t take it personally. Because I am not my PC. No matter how much I embody my PC, I don’t get swept up in them, I keep a separation. I also prefer my fellow players do the same

Why? Because it is hard for me to relax and have fun playing if I have to worry about everyone else’s bleed. If I know someone can’t handle bleed, then I have to play my PC differently to avoid OOC conflict. I can’t have my PC hate or love that other PC.

My PC can’t even disagree too strongly without the danger of the player thinking I hate them. It is exhausting. I’ll do that emotion labor behind the scenes because I don’t like games falling apart. But if people could separate themselves from their PCs a bit, it would be great.

Overidentification and indulgence in heavy bleed where everyone else at the table has to tiptoe around you isn’t good RP, it is selfish. And it often goes hand in hand with and unyieldingness that can be hard to play with. “My PC would only do this!” Really? People are complex.

You don’t have to make the character choice to make the party dysfunctional. Characters are complex and can react multiple ways. But the claim a character can only respond one way often, ime, comes from a lot of bleed. That is how the player would respond—not the PC.

So a tip: One thing I think is good to help practice separation is creating a character that wants things for themselves different than what you want for them. Create a PC you disagree with. Embody that PC and feel with them, but that point of friction will keep the separation.

I just finished playing Dev, for season 1 of The Purloin Guild. And I love Dev as a character. But Dev has got problems. And Dev makes mistakes. And Dev has qualities and world views that I disagree with. I know a lot of his faults...faults that audiences don’t even seem to see.

He, for example, just never looks at things structurally, everything is personal. He has such a strong need to believe in himself as a good person and the people around him as good people he just refuses to see reality. He makes bad decisions based on this blind idealism.

He’s stubborn and unyielding while also being far too passive. He is willingly naive as a way to avoid reality. Oh, there is so much about him that if I knew him in person I’d have to have a serious conversation with him about. I know him and I embody him, but he isn’t me.

I want good things for him. But what I think would be good for him is not what he thinks would be good for him. The light conflict between us keeps my separation. And it is a fun RP challenge. And then I get to be surprised with how Dev developes because he isn’t a standin for me

And despite his stubbornness, as a player there were choices I made for him that I made for the good of the group, because my Dev is not more important than the fun of the table as a whole. I decided that Dev just wouldn’t notice x thing so there wouldn’t be unproductive conflict

Or for the party to work, Dev would need to be fine with some action that seems to go against who he is? I found a way to make it work with who he is. Because I know I’m in control of PC, my PC is my character I control, it isn’t me.

And the priority I have is to play with the other players and make sure we all get to shine and have fun. Getting lost in over identifying with your PC and not managing your bleed can really hamper that goal because you can become myopic and lose the meta view.

And when everyone controls their bleed well, then you can get super intense RP, because it creates a safe space to do so without worrying the intensity will carry on once the session is over.