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Friday, July 20, 2012

A Character is More Than His Riffs - Er, Stats


I was bouncing around YouTube tonight and I came across this awesome video where a guitarist does 100 classic guitar riffs in one take. It amazing to listen to, not just because he is very talented, but because the riffs are so much less than the songs they are a part of even though they are what "define" the songs in question.

100 riffs and I could identify at least half, and recognized to some extent nearly all of the other half. All that and I was left unsatisfied. Why? Because these riffs on their own lack the depth of the songs built around them.

I think that can be applied to RPG characters. In many ways we define them by their stats, but for them to actually come to life, to sing, those stats have to be part of something deeper.

The best stats in the world don't mean much if the character doesn't have some depth to go along with it. Or maybe I just heard the hooks of a hundred songs and now I want to listen to them all, as the hooks leave me feeling empty on their own.


1 comment:

  1. Stats only seem to matter to me during character creation. Sure I get a bit disheartened if I have a few bad rolls, and excited if I get a max result, but two weeks later, I'm playing to my strengths, and the stats are only there to add some random element to a dice roll. From that point on, it's all about playing the whole character.

    ReplyDelete

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