I had some ideas after reading the other responses so far (and you should read them too; linked below), but I scrapped that post in favor of this one based on this last weekend's NIGHT SHIFT game.
The discussion came up about computers. It went a little like this (paraphrasing to get to the point).
Andy (character): "I send Larina the file."
Me (GM): "Ok. How?"
Andy (laughing): "Oh shit, how did you do it in the 80s?"
Me: "On disk. Assuming you have one of those."
Andy: "Well. Andy's family is rich. He certainly has one."
Me: "Yes, we can say that Andy has a floppy drive on his computer."
Andy: "Great. I put the file I found on my disk, and I drive over to Larina's house."
Me: "No problem. You put it on your 5¼ disk. Get into your Camaro (I mean "your Bitchin Camaro!") and drive over. Larina answers the door. Looks at your disk and asks you 'what the hell am I supposed to do with that?' You have a state of the art IBM-PC 5170-339*. Larina has the much cheaper Mac 512Ke her dad could afford because he is a teacher."
This turned into a discussion about how computers weren't compatible with each other in 1986, the Internet wasn't even a sparkle in Al Gore's eye, and dial-up was 1200 baud on a good day. Then everyone wanted to figure out what their computers were back then. With me showing off my vintage computer collection.
Needless to say...there is a bit of a gap between the players (mid-20-somethings living in the Chicago suburbs) and the characters (high school kids in the mid 1980s in downstate Illinois).
Your Character Was There. You Weren’t. (But That's OK.)
The guy playing Anderson Thompson in my 1980s Jackson game has very little in common with his character. Anderson is a rich African American kid who plays on the football team, is in the marching band, and whose girlfriend, Rowan, is the town's mystical protector. The player is...not. He’s a guy in his mid-twenties playing someone whose circumstances are very different from his own, in a time he never experienced. Andy would have been 30 when his player was born.
But they both love Asia’s "Heat of the Moment."
So that was where I started.
There is a lot the player doesn’t know about Anderson’s world. There is also something he understands immediately: this song makes him feel something. That gives us somewhere to begin.
So in the theme of this Blogwagon, I want to address the players out there directly.
Hello Player.
Playing someone different from yourself can sound like an assignment. Research the period. Understand the social context. Learn what people wore, what things cost, and which expressions haven’t been invented yet. Then, somehow, become a person. Oh, and figure out the tech, the trends, and if you pull out a hundred bucks for lunch, are you going to get looked at?
I am suggesting starting smaller.
Find something you and your character can both care about. For Andy and his player, that's a song. Once you have that connection, ask questions.
Where does Anderson listen to it? In his car (the "Bitchin' Camaro")? With friends? Alone? Does he turn it up when it comes on, or does he pretend he’s tired of it because someone else thinks it’s overplayed? Has he attached it to a particular person?
Andy, as it turns out, loves to play it on his trumpet.
We haven’t answered all those questions. They’re possibilities. Each answer could tell us something about Anderson that "rich kid" or "football player" doesn’t.
Two people can love the same song for different reasons. Discovering Anderson’s reason is part of playing him.
Ask What Your Character Would Know
Your character has lived in this world for years. You’ve been hearing about it for a few sessions.
That gap is going to show up.
You won’t always know what counts as expensive (the dropping $100 for lunch in 1986), which places welcome you (well, its Andy, so everywhere), how to get hold of someone, or whether a particular situation should make you nervous. Your character may know all of those things without thinking about them.
Ask.
- "Would this seem strange to Andy?"
- "Would someone like him have been here before?"
- "What am I taking for granted that he wouldn’t?"
- "What does Andy take for granted that I don't?"
Those are useful contributions to play. They help establish the situation before you make a decision. You can describe your intention, too: "I want to find somewhere we can talk privately. What would Anderson think of?"
You don’t need to supply every piece of local knowledge yourself to make a choice that belongs to your character. Andy's player doesn't need to know how a payphone works (he didn't) just that a payphone was needed.
Let the Differences Matter
Finding common ground gets you started. Eventually, you need to follow the character somewhere you wouldn’t go yourself.
Anderson's money, race, and experience on a football team could all affect how he sees a situation. None of them supplies an automatic answer. Does Andy experience racism? Yes, it is still 1985 Midwest small town. Is it the same as Kyra's experiences? No. Andy's family owns most of the downtown Square and they have a ton of money. Kyra is a lower-middle-class preacher's kid.
Having money might make him generous, careless about costs, protective of his possessions, or embarrassed when his friends have less. We need to discover which, and under what circumstances.
His experience on a team might shape how he responds to pressure or obligation. But "played football" doesn’t tell us whether he loved the camaraderie, hated the expectations, or mostly enjoyed being good at something.
Ask a specific question, then let the answer affect a decision.
Who does Andy call when he needs help? What does he assume his family can fix? Whose disappointment would actually hurt him?
How does he interact with Valentino, his best friend; Rowan, his girlfriend; or Stephanie, the girl from the rival family in town?
Those answers give you something to play with.
Take His Present Seriously
It’s easy to treat a past decade as a collection of things we recognize: songs, clothes, cars, movies. Or, as I have said, a foreign country.
But your character has to live there. They wake up every day, and at least till December 31st it is still 1986.
He doesn't know what will become nostalgic. He has immediate concerns, incomplete information, and expectations about the future that might turn out to be completely wrong.
Give him something he wants next week. Give him someone he wants to impress. Let something that looks trivial from our side of history matter to him. What is he getting his dad for his birthday? What is he getting Rowan? What are he and Val going to do after practice?
That helps the period become a place where things are happening.
Bring Something Small
Here’s my player advice: bring one detail, ask one question, and let the answer change what you do.
You can start with a song you love. Ask what place it has in your character's life. Follow whatever that reveals. When did Andy first hear Asia? 8th grade art class. Ok great! The player didn't do that, but he was in 8th grade; he remembers hearing this song for the first time. Put those two together.
You won’t understand everything about someone whose life is different from yours. You can stay curious, accept correction, and keep making more specific choices.
Anderson’s player knows what it feels like to want to turn that song up. So does Andy.
I can work with that.
What happened with the song?
Andy's player decided that was the song that let him know when he was in love with Rowan. Back when he was still a spoiled rich kid, and she was just the awkward "horse girl." That's not who they are now, but it was as good a place to start.
*Andy has the IBM AT 5170-339, which would have cost his dad about $6,000 in 1986 dollars. Larina's dad is just a college professor at MacAlister, so her Macintosh 512k E retailed at about $2000, he got it for a little over $1600.00. Still a chunk of change in 1986.
After spending a few minutes trying to figure out 5.25" vs 3.5" disks, Andy decided to just tell Larina what was on the file.
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