So You Want to Be an SPC

So you want to be an SPC. You know that as soon as you're cast as a "Special Player Character," you'll be able to let your real roleplaying skills shine. You'll finally be important, and have a real impact on the game, and be able to make it cool! And everyone will pay attention to you and will remember you because you were so awesome! Right?

Please tell me you didn't say, "Right!" There's a common misconception in Westfinder that being an SPC means being important, and I'm afraid we haven't done enough to dispel that. Let's start with the basics.

1) SPC does not stand for Special Player Character. Maybe it did once, but it doesn't anymore. For now, we say it stands for "Story Player Character", but it would be more accurate to call them "Responsibility Player Characters" (too bad that doesn't fit the initialization). More on this as we progress. (We could also go with "somewhat scripted player characters", but that gives a little bit of the wrong impression.)

2) SPCs are not necessarily important. Sure, the big speechifying villain is an SPC, but so is the one person who turns out to know where a specific macguffin is, but has no real "center stage" moments for the rest of game. And the people who stand up to the big demon, or make a valiant last stand while the rest of the PC team escapes? A lot of the time, they're not SPCs. They're "normal" PCs who decided to be brave and valiant and play their character in a way that meant that they had a last stand moment. They created a moment of pure awesome, and it was all their own doing.

3) SPCs are not the people who make a cool game. Or at least, not for themselves. The reason why "Responsibility Player Character" fits so well, is that SPCs guide flow. For the ones who know where a macguffin is, and not much else, that's not so big a deal. But for the big shouty bad guys, that means that they are not allowed to deep-end into their characters. They spend all of game making sure that everything happens more or less according to flow, while still making sure that characters have their freedom. SPCs make the game cool for everyone else. And a lot of the time, if they're doing it right, you won't realize because you're so in character. Because the SPC helped you realize your character's feelings and actions within the structure of the game.
Anyone can be a big shouty bad guy. That's not what makes an SPC. A real SPC is noticed for being shouty, but not noticed for being an SPC and making the flow work. That's the whole point.

4) If your goal is attention, an SPC is the worst thing we can assign you. Because, if we do, you will make the game about you. And that is the exact opposite of what we want to happen. Everybody needs to have a good game. Everybody. So if you brush aside someone else's goal or character arc in favor of making game go the way you want, you have just devalued that player, that character, the gamewriter who created that character, and all of staff who worked hard to make this a good game for everyone.

Now, all of this isn't to say that playing an SPC isn't cool! I personally love playing SPCs because I don't deep-end into characters. If I don't have responsibilities or goals that I know are helping game, I feel absolutely useless, and wander around bored for most of the time. When given the structure of playing an SPC, it means I get to help everyone else have an awesome game, even when I sit out of character for the first half before making my dramatic entrance as the big bad. Helping other people feel intense emotions is one of the most gratifying aspects of playing here at Westfinder.

Guiding flow can also be super rewarding! Like, this one time, I know I talk about it a lot, but it was super cool, guys! I was defeated as the big bad, so I put on my spirit costume, but the next thing that's supposed to happen is taking a while, so I go find out where my fellow SPCs are. Well, they're busy doing something else, so I come back, have Boss Battle 2: Electric Boogaloo, and by the time I'm defeated again, the people are there, and everything works! It's great! But what was so great was not the gasps or the reaction as I pulled off my spirit costume and said, "You thought you could defeat me that easily, did you?" (although that was pretty gratifying). The real awesome part was that I was able to keep everyone else from having an anticlimactic endgame, and keep it building straight to the end. What was so cool was that I made it so cool for everyone else.

If you want a cool character arc, don't ask to be an SPC. You often don't have the luxury of losing yourself in your character. If you want attention, please don't ask to be an SPC. Find a way to make your character important to those around them without trampling all over everyone else's storylines. But if you want to help other people to have an awesome game, maybe you're thinking along the right lines. Just think it over before you ask to be an SPC. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.


-Erin