Story vs RPG part Appendix: Emma - RPG to Story Conversion using Psychology and Sociology Theory

Story vs RPG Series

Story: Elements

Story vs RPG Part 2: Main Characters - Protagonist, Antagonist, PC, NPC

Story vs RPG Part 3: Character Information

Story v RPG Part 4: Potential Pitfalls of using a RPG session for a Story.

Story v RPG Part 5: Personality Types

Story v RPG Part 6: Alignment, Morality, and Ethics

Story vs RPG Part 7: Character Needs
Story vs RPG Part 8: Character emotions
Story vs RPG Part 9: Lies - Our characters darkest secrets
Story vs RPG Part 10: Setting - cultures
Story vs RPG Part 11: Pair Dynamics
Story and Game Structure: Storylines
Story vs RPG Part 12: Larger groups - conformity & deviance

If you like this series support it by buying it today for kindle all in one file and without advertisement. It's also available in most countries that Amazon supports. 

Example of an RPG to Story Conversion using Personality Theory

For more practical purposes, lets try making a story character that is based on a fantasy character. Most of this process will help to develop backstory.

Picking a name

I'll pick a popular names in the US 2015 for character names - Emma.

Gaming information

Emma a Lawful Good alchemist

Emma is e a Lawful Good character in a game that is a alchemist - someone who works to transmute material into magical items. To move that character to a story I begin with what I know about the character. In this game maybe the alignment is the only indicator of character personality. I'll use that information to try creating a hopefully more interesting character by adding small backstory and character details.

Conversion

As mentioned yesterday, I think that Lawful Good is similar to Jung's Hero. Let's compare them.

Lawful Good - Crusader
Core Concepts: Duty, fairness, honor, property, responsibility, right, truth, virtue, worthiness

Jung - Hero
The Hero (Heroine, Champion) - Defender, guardian, rescuer, sacrifice, win, arrogance, confront

And then compare this information to the first enneagram.
1. Reformer (Perfectionist) principled, purposeful, self-control, thinks they are always right

If I agree to this comparison, I begin to see character weaknesses of arrogance, confrontational, and maybe sacrifices themselves beyond what most people do.

Converting Class to Profession

And maybe I want take this character to move over to more modern terms, changing the world and setting slightly.

To me a alchemist might be some sort of scientist, maybe like a CSI type crime scene investigator. She's someone who uses technology to work with the material in crime scenes to reveal what happened by various methods. In a different fantasy world, that might by using magic powers to analyze stuff. In this modern world, rather than magic it will be technology and procedures.

Character Behavior

Emma wants to know and tell the truth about these crimes. She does her job well and tries to tell the truth, even if less desirable people accused of crimes or a bad person in general has evidence that supports their innocence. Because of this I give her Kantian Ethics.

• Kantian Ethics - right is determined by intent, reason, and type of action, not the consequence. "Tell the truth even if it causes harm."

From the Jung - Hero archetype, they also sacrifice themselves - in this case I will translate that into relationships. Emma doesn't spend time to develop romantic relationships. Instead she fills her time with activities that reaffirm her sense of truth. It might be a religion, working for a cause, or maybe trying to find new advances in crime scene investigation.

Character Needs

Because of her needs are strong in some areas and weak in others.  She has strong sense of law and order for safety, yet might be threatened somewhat by helping to put away dangerous people. Here biggest relationship weakness is an issue of social love, belonging, and sexual intimacy. Along that line which might affect the balance of affiliation, autonomy, and dominance needs should be used occasionally in any story created, while the weakness is still open. If that weakness ever is filled, another weakness should also emerge.

Character Emotions

Having looked at character personality, ethics, and needs emotions will now be more predictable.

Emma will be courageous when facing the results of brutality within a laboratory. However with relationships, then may be fearful a begin to feel threatened when in casual situations dealing with relationships. The biggest surprises may come when she thinks she knows the truth but finds out later through investigation that it was all an illusion or wrong. From these basic emotions they can easily be turned into backstory of actual events - one for every major emotion.

All of these examples show that once you know your character's personality, ethics, and needs the other details flow much more smoothly out from backstory. You can just create events that would created the emotion. A list of several emotion creating events would help to round out the character, and make them more whole and less one dimensional - even if you don't actually write that information into the story.

Character Lies

Any number of lies depending on Emma's earlier experience, may be creating or maintaining her relationship weakness. Something probably happened in her childhood or adolescence.

Maybe she saw something between her parents and created a vow not to ever get herself into that situation. In her teenage years, maybe her early relationship went really bad and she was hurt in the process. Or maybe her interests kept her from forming any teenage relationship with someone else.

Whatever it may be, using lies can help create a dark secret with is great for storytelling.

Character in Society

Her job as a CSI scene investigator is going to come with many role expectations. Some conflict can occur when her relationship weakness my interfere with her social role expectations. Conflict that other characters might attribute wrongly to her own reason and cause.

Character Pair Dynamics

Interesting dynamics can occur between her and investigators that interact with her. Especially if they have very conflicting personalities, needs, and ethics. She might despise a rule breaker at first. But then when their rule breaking leads to the truth faster than her objective evaluation the dynamics of the relationship may change as she begins to respect and trust the rule breaker.

Character Group Dynamics

Emma probably begins with conformity to the CSI rules, procedures, and regulations. As she tries new methods of investigation, she may begin to have innovative goals. With her relationships and dating, she may be in rebellion or retreat at first.

Summary of Emma from the Lawfully Good Alchemist

I believe this is much more usable and better for story writing than just knowing alignment and class.

All of these details I tried to create just based on RPG alignment of lawfully good and the class of alchemist. I'm just showing one way that details can be found just by expanding background using tools and interpretation to expand those two descriptive data pieces.

Emma is a CSI type crime scene investigator. Here personality believes in duty, fairness, honor, property, responsibility, right, truth, virtue, worthiness, defender, guardian, rescuer, sacrifice, win, arrogance, confront, (perfectionist) principled, purposeful, self-control, thinks she is always right. She's someone who uses technology to work with the material in crime scenes to reveal what happened by various methods. In this modern world, rather than magic it will be technology and procedures.

Emma wants to know and tell the truth about these crimes. She does her job well and tries to tell the truth, even if less desirable people accused of crimes or a bad person in general has evidence that supports their innocence. Because of this I give her Kantian Ethics. Kantian Ethics - right is determined by intent, reason, and type of action, not the consequence. "Tell the truth even if it causes harm."

From the Jung - Hero archetype, they also sacrifice themselves - in this case I will translate that into relationships. Emma doesn't spend time to develop romantic relationships. Instead she fills her time with activities that reaffirm her sense of truth. It might be a religion, working for a cause, or maybe trying to find new advances in crime scene investigation.

Because of her needs are strong in some areas and weak in others.  She has strong sense of law and order for safety, yet might be threatened somewhat by helping to put away dangerous people. Here biggest relationship weakness is an issue of social love, belonging, and sexual intimacy. Along that line which might affect the balance of affiliation, autonomy, and dominance needs should be used occasionally in any story created, while the weakness is still open.

Emma will be courageous when facing the results of brutality within a laboratory. However with relationships, then may be fearful a begin to feel threatened when in casual situations dealing with relationships. The biggest surprises may come when she thinks she knows the truth but finds out later through investigation that it was all an illusion or wrong.

Any number of lies depending on Emma's earlier experience, may be creating or maintaining her relationship weakness. Something probably happened in her childhood or adolescence.

Maybe she saw something between her parents and created a vow not to ever get herself into that situation. In her teenage years, maybe her early relationship went really bad and she was hurt in the process. Or maybe her interests kept her from forming any teenage relationship with someone else.

Her job as a CSI scene investigator is going to come with many role expectations. Some conflict can occur when her relationship weakness my interfere with her social role expectations. Conflict that other characters might attribute wrongly to her own reason and cause.

Emma probably begins with conformity to the CSI rules, procedures, and regulations. As she tries new methods of investigation, she may begin to have innovative goals. With her relationships and dating, she may be in rebellion or retreat at first.

Story vs RPG Part 8: Character emotions

Story vs RPG Series

Story: Elements

Story vs RPG Part 2: Main Characters - Protagonist, Antagonist, PC, NPC

Story vs RPG Part 3: Character Information

Story v RPG Part 4: Potential Pitfalls of using a RPG session for a Story.

Story v RPG Part 5: Personality Types

Story v RPG Part 6: Alignment, Morality, and Ethics

Story vs RPG Part 7: Character Needs
Story vs RPG Part 8: Character emotions
Story vs RPG Part 9: Lies - Our characters darkest secrets
Story vs RPG Part 10: Setting - cultures
Story vs RPG Part 11: Pair Dynamics
Story and Game Structure: Storylines
Story vs RPG Part 12: Larger groups - conformity & deviance

If you like this series support it by buying it today for kindle all in one file and without advertisement. Available in most countries that Amazon supports. 

Readers identify with characters through expressed character emotions. In gaming, many times the player's emotions substitute for the character's emotions.

When I was learning about the need for writers show emotions of the characters in stories, this of course assumed that I knew what emotions mean and how to show them. In my daily interactions with neighbors, friends, and even strangers I noticed that different people show different emotions even for the same event, movie, or tragedy.

This is something I did earlier this year.

When the local sports team were one minute from winning a world championship, I walked outside into the dark night and listened. At first a I heard a few shouts. When the minute passed by, suddenly the entire town was bursting with a chorus of chants, curse words, and outbursts. Fans were expressing their emotions, because their team had won - the best in the world.

What are emotions? Why do people experience different emotions? And how can I see a big picture on covering what people experience?

Emotions - a natural state of consciousness caused by an arousal (stimulus) like situations, moods, and others where one experiences a change in physiology, expression, poster, gestures, and strong subjective feelings.

Feelings - are subjective experience of emotion.

Mood - a temporary, low-intensity, and long lasting emotional state.

Affect - experiencing a mood, emotion, or feeling.

What are the ingredients to an emotion?
Stimulus - event or object
Response - includes instinctual reaction including physiological, gestures, and facial expressions; emotional including internal dialogue, dialogue, and reaction, thoughtful reaction, action

Something happens. The team wins the championship. Joy begins to spread through their body. Unable to contain their excitement, they must do something. They get up get up out of their chairs, walk outside, and let out a cheer and scream. "Yeah team! Go team!" They are beyond happy - ecstatic even.

Note: I removed all reference to the team name in order to help let the example go beyond this sport and feelings for this team by opposing team fans. Also it could apply to any championship team in any important sport or competitive activity across the world.

Different experiences, different emotions, same event

Emotions can have a positive or negative influence on characters. Characters have different personalities, ethics, and needs that interpret events differently. Each event has individual meaning to various characters all experiencing that same event.

Lets take a car of a few people driving past a house. One person might remember happy feelings playing with her friends there many summers in the past. Another might remember being afraid of a dog that chased him one evening. And another might be suspicious of someone living there ... because she blames on him the loss an item of hers, the ring that she thinks he stole a year ago, which was given to her by her best childhood friend.

Showing Emotions

Several tools have been created to help out showing emotions, rather than telling. A tool such as Ackerman and Puglisi's The Emotion Thesaurus - A Writer's Guide to Character Expression is a great tool to help show emotions. I have that book, but I wanted to know the underlying reason why people feel different ways - even considering different experiences. Knowing how to show emotion wasn't enough. For this I began looking at the basic emotions. And with these basic emotions,  I looked at the reasons behind them.

Basic Emotions

Several categories of basic emotions have been created.

Robert Plutchik (shown here) and W Gerrod Parrot (shown here) each categorize emotions further. All emotions are categorized and considered degrees of the basic six or eight emotions.

Reasons for Emotions

Most interesting to me and maybe to some others is Plutchik explanation of the reason for emotions.

He explains functions according to purposes which I will change a bit for simplicity sake.
stimulus > evaluation > feeling > behavior > goal
stimulus - event or situation that triggers emotion
evaluation - thinking about what the stimulus can be thought of symbolically
feeling - subjective thinking good or bad and the meaning to the individual; the emotion
behavior - the involuntary behavior that results from the feeling
goal - the function and reason the has caused a reaction

I like how he explains that there are reasons for most emotions. A cause and effect relationship helps explain the basic emotions. If you mix this process with the one I showed earlier the stimulus & response - especially considering the emoted gestures, facial expressions, and physical sensations happening before the evaluation and subjective feeling - emotions come alive with purpose. Especially they come alive when used with tools like lists of emotional responses.

Plutchik's basic eight emotions stimulus and goal.

Joy - gain of valued object; gain resource
Trust - member of one's group; mutual support
Fear - threat; safety
Surprise - unexpected event; gain time to orient
Sadness - loss of valued object; reattach to lost object
Disgust - unpalatable object;  eject object
Anger - obstacle; destroy obstacle
Anticipation - new territory; knowledge of new territory

So how can I use this list.

If in the story something important has been lost - like a person, position, living space, or important item - I need to find some way of showing sadness in the story. Everyone can't be stoic statues. And the greater the importance, the greater that emotion needs to be. It may even be very hard for me to relate to the character that suffered the loss. The character could be a personality type that I don't care for. But still, to that character had something important which is now lost. I need to let that character share and express that emotion in a fitting manner.

What about more complex emotions?

For other more complex emotions, Plutchik shows how they are combined out of the basic emotions which he divides into dyads: primary, secondary, tertiary, and opposites. Here are just a few of those emotions to which I put in parentheses the stimuli.

Love = joy + trust (gained an object + member of one's group)
Submission = trust + fear (member of one's group + threat)
Aggression= anger + anticipation (obstacle + new territory)
Optimism = anticipation + joy (new territory + gain of valued object)

So, if I am writing a situation where submission is the main emotion I want running through a point of view character, by ingraining into the story a threat (or multiple threats) into some member-of-group type situation plays off of the instinctual affectional drives that everyone has to some degree. The threat should be appropriate for the situation. It may be dramatic. Will the character give in to the demands of the group? It could even be a friend, lover, boss, or family member making the demand.

You can see more complex emotions beyond the four that I wrote in Plutchik's theory such as: disappointment, remorse, contempt, guilt, curiosity, despair, envy, cynicism, pride, fatalism, delight, sentimentalism, shame, outrage, pessimism, morbidness, dominance, anxiety, and conflicting emotions.

So in light of what events mean to a character they can react in different appropriate ways. And maybe they react in an unexpected manner because the facts haven't been revealed yet showing why they react in that way.

Summary

Readers need emotions in stories. Characters need to differ in the expression of emotions to show that they have individual lives. Knowing who the character is, how they act, and why they act the way they do can help bring out their unique and personal emotions - emotions that readers can identify with.

Next post may be about internal conflict - defense mechanisms. That would serve as a great transitioning out of character and into possibly the topic of plots - or maybe setting first.

Story vs RPG Part 7: Character Needs

Story vs RPG Series

Story: Elements

Story vs RPG Part 2: Main Characters - Protagonist, Antagonist, PC, NPC

Story vs RPG Part 3: Character Information

Story v RPG Part 4: Potential Pitfalls of using a RPG session for a Story.

Story v RPG Part 5: Personality Types

Story v RPG Part 6: Alignment, Morality, and Ethics

Story vs RPG Part 7: Character Needs
Story vs RPG Part 8: Character emotions
Story vs RPG Part 9: Lies - Our characters darkest secrets
Story vs RPG Part 10: Setting - cultures
Story vs RPG Part 11: Pair Dynamics
Story and Game Structure: Storylines
Story vs RPG Part 12: Larger groups - conformity & deviance

If you like this series support it by buying it today for kindle all in one file and without advertisement. Available in most countries that Amazon supports. 

This post is being made to fill in more information concerning character needs. The writing instruct I received mentioned character have needs as well as wants, however they did not go into details concerning where needs come from and how needs differ.

My Character Motivation model

The prior two posts in the series looked at character motivation in terms of personality type and morality/ethics. This third part of the character motivation portion of the series addresses the needs and drives. Together, with the other two perspectives, many character actions can be explained in terms of personality type, ethic view, and motivating needs.

I like to relate those three to the parts of the person - the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious desires of id, ego, and superego which I mentioned in the last post. Writing instruction sources normally mentions characters "needs", "wants", and the "lie" that keeps them from getting what they need. I believe that they correspond approximately to needs/drives, personality type, and ethics/morality.

Needs - Id - needs & drives, "What one really wants"
Ought - Superego - ethics & morality, "What one ought to do"
Wants - Ego - personality type & justification, "What one wants to do"
Lie - Defense mechanism, "What limits the character personality type to trying to get what they want rather than from doing what they need"

How do needs work?

The common progression of motivation is a need(s) cause a drive(s) to motivate a response(s) to attain a goal(s) that will hopefully satisfy the need through need reduction.

Need - means internal deficiency
Drive - energized motivation
Response - action or series of actions
Goal - the target of the motivated behavior
Need Reduction - how well attaining the goal satisfies the need or causes the drive to try a new or different response.

Needs and Goals in Scene and Sequel

This series can find it's way into the scene-sequel series.

In a scene, after establishing the setting briefly, the need that causes the viewpoint character to drive towards the scene goal is revealed. Most of the scene will be the response. This is through action, dialogue, description, and internal dialogue as the author shows how the viewpoint character continuously try to achieve the goal. Most of the time failing and having to try a different response. The scenes end with disaster or success with a twist.

Mary was starving and had no money. Her stomach rumbled in defiance, one that neither rubbing it nor cradling her belly could sooth. She looked out from their makeshift shelter at the menacing moon in a pained stare. She couldn't sleep. The more she curled into a ball the more her arms and legs trembled. 

"John, I've gotta eat," she said. "I can't take another night without any food."

John just turned over and pulled the blanket over his head. "Whatever," he said. He then yawned and repositioned more comfortably.

"I'm going"

A return grunt was all that John mustered. 

Her weak arms pushed her up to a half sitting position. Soon she slid out into the night. Looking around, she tried to think of any nearby food source, her head swam in weakness. She might be able to find food in one of the large garbage dumpsters behind McDonalds. She looked towards the road leading three miles down to the golden arches. She then began her moonlight walk.

In this scene, hunger and despair drives Mary to leave the comfort of their shelter alone to walk through the dark three miles in hopes of finding food in a garbage dumpster. She was willing to leave behind John, whom may be one of her important social circle of friends, a family member, a complete stranger, or an intimate partner. Deciding and assigning 'who' John is may reflect more social need conflicts. Setbacks can confront her along the journey. She may not even find food there. Or something can cause her to sidetrack, and change her method of satisfying her hunger.

Maslow

Perhaps the most commonly known system for needs that a person knows is Maslow's hierarchy of needs they teach it in education, business, advertising, nursing, psychology, and sociology among other knowledge areas. The golden pyramid above shows my version of that model. Criticism of the model is mostly based on it's self-based assumptions, which the model doesn't address social selfless acts which morality can explain more fully. It also doesn't explain the repetitive behavior preference that personality type tries to explain. Maslow says the lower needs must be satisfied to progress to the higher needs.

Hull

Clark L. Hull explained motivation as drives and needs needing to be reduced. People can have different degrees of drives, especially the acquired needs which corresponds more towards personality types. For the drives and needs, I tried to correspond at the same level on the graphic above which drives and needs go along with Maslow needs. They are indicated with up arrows.

Character Differing Needs

Characters have individual needs and drives. These contribute to differing motivation even when trying to achieve a similar goal. A supporting character my differ in reason why they are helping the main character to achieve the goal. If they become a viewpoint character, those differing reasons can come more to light. Conflicting methods for achieving goals may also occur among friendly characters. The protagonist may prefer to act one way (which will not lead to success). The other characters may be trying to get the main character to try a different action - one which the protagonist isn't equipped to perform.

Many Needs Unspoken

Many needs may not be explained in the story. Most stories assume that the characters eat, sleep, and have shelter. Only in stories were these basic needs are amplified do these needs make their way into the prose. A homeless person searches for food and enter into a story plot. Survivors floating in the deep chaotic ocean strive to catch fish and collect rain water while waiting to be rescued. A tornado threatens those seeking safety possibly turning the shelter into a wind-blown deadly weapon. I watched the movie Gravity, where safety and breathing were the primary basic needs of the characters throughout the movie.

Most stories dwell in the area between basic biological needs and self-actualizing needs. What needs are emphasized might be determined by genre. Crime tends to focus on safety needs. Romance might pay more attention on affection needs.

The Higher Needs

One thing that is apparent, the higher up on the pyramid one focuses on, the smaller the reading market may become. The needs of the characters become more specialized and focused. A story which the main need focused on is the achievement of self-actualization through creating art is only going to attract readers who can identify with that type of self-actualization. The story might need some more lower need plots in order to keep other readers interested. Maybe that artist earlier in the story is struggling to live, pay bills, and earn enough money while selling art pieces. Or throw in a intimate partner with whom they can argue, fight, and conflict about financial stability.

Complex Needs

Having shown the list of basic needs and drives, more complex and intertwined needs can be created by overlapping needs.

In the example I showed above, not only is Mary  hungry and apparently homeless, she also has security needs - no money.

Next post in the series

In the next post, I may go into character emotions based on psychology theory.