What Kind of Player Are You?

[calithena]

I took this over on quizfarm; it's based on Robin Laws' categorization of playstyles. Turns out I'm a drama queen, though I had to answer a tiebreak question to get the answer:

You Scored as Method Actor
You think that gaming is a form of creative expression. You may view rules as, at best, a necessary evil, preferring sessions where the dice never come out of the bag. You enjoy situations that test or deepen your character's personality traits.

Here's my breakdown:
Method Actor 67%
Storyteller 67%
Butt-Kicker 50%
Tactician 50%
Specialist 42%
Casual Gamer 8%
Power Gamer 8%

I actually don't know what a Specialist is.

Is this useful at all?

[makofan]

FWIW

You Scored as Character Player

The Character Player enjoys creating in-depth characters with distinct and rich personalities. He identifies closely with his characters, feeling detached from the game if he doesn’t. He takes creative pride in exploring different characters, often making each new one radically different than others he’s played. The Character Player bases his decisions on his character's psychology first and foremost. He may view rules as a necessary evil at best, preferring sessions in which the dice never come out of their bags. For the Character Player, the greatest reward comes from experiencing the game from the emotional perspective of an interesting character.

Character Player
80%
Tactician
60%
Storyteller
50%
Casual Gamer
50%
Specialist
45%
Weekend Warrior
40%
Power Gamer
30%

[brumbar]

You Scored as Comedy Gamer
You like games to be funny. If you arn't able to tell jokes and have a laugh during the game, what is the point? You'll like: Red Dwarf, Toon, HOL and Paranoia



Comedy Gamer
75%
Cyberpunk Gamer
60%
Horror Gamer
55%
Fantasy Gamer
40%
Beer & Prezels Gamer
35%

[kesher]

You Scored as Character Player
The Character Player enjoys creating in-depth characters with distinct and rich personalities. He identifies closely with his characters, feeling detached from the game if he doesn’t. He takes creative pride in exploring different characters, often making each new one radically different than others he’s played. The Character Player bases his decisions on his character's psychology first and foremost. He may view rules as a necessary evil at best, preferring sessions in which the dice never come out of their bags. For the Character Player, the greatest reward comes from experiencing the game from the emotional perspective of an interesting character.

Character Player
80%
Casual Gamer
65%
Storyteller
60%
Specialist
60%
Weekend Warrior
50%
Tactician
45%
Power Gamer
20%

While I wouldn't necessarily disagree with these results, I'm not sure how useful this is. It seems to be slanted towards a pretty particular idea of what gaming is, one which runs counter to most of what we talk about on this site.

For ex: One statement reads something like, "Diplomacy and Knowledge skills are just as important as combat skills." I actually smiled and thought, now if you had worded that "Diplomacy and Inquisitiveness are just as important as combat", I'd have answered differently...

Am I making sense? I can't tell.

[dwayanu]

Many (most?) of the statements to assess seemed pretty opaque to me. If I don't know what I'm "indicating," I doubt that the program does. Judging from Brumbar's and Kesher's posts, I got a different set of "questions." My result was:

You Scored as Tactician

You're probably a military buff who wants to have the chance to think through complex problems. You want the rules, and your GM's interpretation of them, to match up what happens in the real world or at least be consistant. You want challenging yet logical obstacles to overcome

83%, followed by Method Actor at 67% (tied, IIRC, with Character Player); I forget the rest.

I think that's in broad strokes a fair assessment. I expect that the weighting was strongly influenced by the fact that my single extreme response was affirmation of the importance of my choices in play as determinants of outcomes. Being so often unclear on just what was meant, I kept my other answers in the middle range (high or low based on my best guess).

So much depends on the definition of terms! The other day, a friend suggested (based on my saying that miniatures and a battle mat were not essential equipment) that OD&D was "more of a narrative game, then?" The context made his meaning clear, but it's not what I normally associate with the term (narrative as "story telling" in the sense associated, e.g., with the Dragonlance and Ravenloft modules).

It's hard to assess the weightings without definitions of the types. The designer throughout seems to assume that usages have objective referents ... and (without some prior instruction) that's just not so!

[dwayanu]

The example Kesher gave begs the question of what "skills" mean in this context. Is the subject actual player skill, or the "stats" of characters?

I think interpretations in many cases would be different if informed by the 1st edition AD&D books than if informed by 3rd or 4rth edition.

One might get a more practically useful quiz by simply having players rate the "types" directly! This trick of pretending to "reveal a type" when the process is really just one of obscuring assumptions (in a quiz) or equating wordiness with profundity (in an article) is a stock in trade of "women's" magazines.

[calithena]

Discussing playstyles is the tower of babel. I was talking to Ron Edwards about this the other day. He's realized that whereas when he talks about 'traditional gaming' he has in mind 80's to early 90's gaming, from the crunchy GURPS/HERO system wonk end to the railroady 2e/Vampire 'storytelling' end. He criticizes that stuff pretty strongly in many ways, but he actually has a good deal of fondness for the OLDER traditions we talk about here. So what's traditional gaming? Old-school dungeon-crawling? Old-school freeform sandbox? Old-school experimental gaming? Post-Runequest simulationism? 2e/White Wolf storytelling games? It's kind of a hopeless question.

Similarly with a term like 'narrative'. I associate this kind of gaming with old-school story-driven rules-light play and with some 2000's games coming out of the Forge and elsewhere. Fixed story arcs like you get in the Dragonlance/Vampire style leave me cold and I have no interest in them, because I want the players to be substantial creators of the story. But it would be totally reasonable given the big events in our hobby to associate 'narrative' or 'story gaming' with the era of the Rail Barons.

I don't spend much time talking theory on the internet any more - the nice thing about doing Fight On! is that I can show it rather than try to say it now, along with like-minded folks who contribute. But our language is a total disaster, and there's less prospect of fixing it at this point than ever.

The good news is that if we talk to people as individuals and play our games the way we like to we can gradually learn what we need anyway.

[brumbar]

What was the exact name of the quizz? based on the examples given it seems I took a different test.

[dwayanu]

quizfarm.com/quizzes/Fashion/ellydragon/laws-game-style/# is the one I took.

My impression (based on only four visits) is that it presents the same 21 queries each time but in a random order. I'm not seeing anything to do with comedy, horror, fantasy or cyberpunk, though!

[makofan]

Ah, I took the wrong quiz. Here is the result of the quiz posted by Dwayanu

You Scored as Butt-Kicker

You like a streightforward combat character. After a long day at the office, you want to clobber foes and once more prove your superiority over all who would challenge you.

Butt-Kicker
100%
Tactician
100%
Power Gamer
100%
Storyteller
33%
Specialist
33%
Casual Gamer
25%
Method Actor
0%

[brumbar]

What sort of Gamer are you? WAS THE ONE I TOOK.

[dwayanu]

Those look like strikingly different assessments! Which is closer to the real Makofan?

[snorri]

Storyteller
75%
Tactician
67%
Method Actor
67%
Specialist
58%
Casual Gamer
33%
Butt-Kicker
25%
Power Gamer
17%

I guess it's true

[premmy]

Using dwayanu's link, I got:

Tactician - 75%
Storyteller - 58%
Power Gamer - 42%
Butt-Kicker - 42%
Casual Gamer - 25%
Specialist - 25%
Method Actor - 17%


I guess I can agree with that, by and large.

[sham]

Hmm

I think the results do depend on the context in which you read the questions. The author probably could have used more specific wording in some of the questions, but all in all it's not a bad quiz. Short and fairly accurate. I'd say that Butt-Kicker and Method Actor are in ther right order (first and last) but the others I am not convinced of. Then again, I read many of the questions as a referee, so I can see why Power Gamer scored a bit high.

You Scored as Butt-Kicker
You like a streightforward combat character. After a long day at the office, you want to clobber foes and once more prove your superiority over all who would challenge you.



Butt-Kicker
100%
Tactician
67%
Power Gamer
67%
Storyteller
33%
Casual Gamer
17%
Specialist
17%
Method Actor
0%

[brumbar]

My results with the proper test.
You Scored as Power Gamer
The Power Gamer wants to make his character bigger, tougher, buffer, and richer. However success is defined in your game, that's what you want. You want the "game" put back into "roleplaying game," and you want the chance to add shiny new abilities to your character sheet.



Power Gamer 83%
Tactician 75%
Butt-Kicker 67%
Storyteller 58%
Casual Gamer 50%
Specialist 33%
Method Actor 33%

[chgowiz]

I was surprised at my results, I never saw myself this way...

You Scored as Tactician

You're probably a military buff who wants to have the chance to think through complex problems. You want the rules, and your GM's interpretation of them, to match up what happens in the real world or at least be consistant. You want challenging yet logical obstacles to overcome.

Tactician 83%
Method Actor 67%
Butt-Kicker 50%
Specialist 50%
Storyteller 42%
Power Gamer 33%
Casual Gamer 0%

[trollman]

You Scored as Butt-Kicker

You like a streightforward combat character. After a long day at the office, you want to clobber foes and once more prove your superiority over all who would challenge you.

Butt-Kicker
100%
Power Gamer
67%
Specialist
50%
Method Actor
25%
Tactician
17%
Casual Gamer
17%
Storyteller
0%

[gsvenson]

This gives me a new perspective on my gaming style. I should ask Dave Arneson if he agrees with the survey's assessment of my gaming style...

You Scored as Method Actor

You think that gaming is a form of creative expression. You may view rules as, at best, a necessary evil, preferring sessions where the dice never come out of the bag. You enjoy situations that test or deepen your character's personality traits.

Method Actor 92%
Butt-Kicker 83%
Storyteller 83%
Tactician 58%
Specialist 42%
Power Gamer 42%
Casual Gamer 25%

[Finarvyn]

I used the quiz in the link earlier. Dunno where to find the other quiz.

You Scored as Tactician
You're probably a military buff who wants to have the chance to think through complex problems. You want the rules, and your GM's interpretation of them, to match up what happens in the real world or at least be consistant. You want challenging yet logical obstacles to overcome.

Tactician 83%
Butt-Kicker 67%
Storyteller 67%
Method Actor 67%
Specialist 58%
Power Gamer 50%
Casual Gamer 25%

[katana]

Interesting quiz...pretty well thought out, but I always figured into the character..

You Scored as Character Player

The Character Player enjoys creating in-depth characters with distinct and rich personalities. He identifies closely with his characters, feeling detached from the game if he doesn't. He takes creative pride in exploring different characters, often making each new one radically different than others have played. The Character Player bases his decisions on his character's psychology first and foremost. He may view rules as a necessary evil at best, preferring sessions in which the dice never come out of their bags. For the Character Player, the greatest reward comes from experiencing the game from the emotional perspective of an interesting character.

Character Player
85%
Storyteller
60%
Casual Gamer
60%
Specialist
55%
Tactician
55%
Power Gamer
35%
Weekend Warrior
20%