When to Use “It’s What My Character Would Do” in a Game

By: Trip

There are many common phrases used within the TTRPG community that are largely considered taboo for any number of reasons. A few examples would be “I roll to seduce”; “How big is the room?”; “I have Dark vision”; and “I’m gonna loot the bodies.”

But above all of these stands one phrase which is almost always the prelude to a character taking actions which are not only stupid in the context of the game, but more often than not rude or hostile to other Players at the table:

“It’s what my character would do.”

This is a phrase generally understood to be reserved for Players who want to do something they know they shouldn’t–stab an innocent NPC, cast Fireball in a small room containing half the party and a handful of combatants, or steal from another player. But rather than own up to these actions, they would rather blame their character, which they created and are in complete control of. Sounds a little silly when you put it that way, huh? In my humble opinion, it’s the flimsiest of excuses made by Players who never learned how to play nice with others and do not care if their fun ruins anybody else’s night. 

Now, this article is not about how to handle Players who use such excuses in your games. I’m sure there are plenty of GMs far more eloquent and experienced than I am who have talked that particular issue to death. 

No, what I want to talk about is this: is it ever socially acceptable to use “it’s what my character would do” as a motivation for your decision-making in a game? 

After thinking about it for a bit, I believe the answer is… Yes. 

Specifically, when your character‘s motivations and instincts will drive the plot forward better than your Player’s instincts would. 

I’ve used this example in a previous article, but I feel it fits here extremely well. I was in a sort of sci-fan game with space elves, spirit dragons, and evil galactic empires several years back. My character (an elf) had just cornered a dark elf–my people’s sworn enemy–in the command center of a space station. They just hit the self-destruct countdown before diving off a ledge, free-falling hundreds of feet to the docks. Behind us, hostile robots were pouring into the command center. My Player instincts told me to stay and fight. The smart decision would be to help my allies fend off these attackers so that we could abort the self-destruct sequence. 

But Tor Meldilorn could NOT let a dark elf assassin escape this facility! 

So he dove off the balcony after her. 

After some epic midair combat and a very creative use of my cloaking device, I not only managed to plunge my dagger into the dark elf’s skull, but I also managed to throw a tracking device onto the ship she had attempted to board that was now leaving, giving us a lead on where she had been headed and to whom she was reporting. 

As for my allies, they were fine. They managed to fight off the robots and abort the self-destruct sequence without issue. If I had followed my personal instincts, as I am a fairly risk-averse person, I would have stayed up on the balcony with my party and let the assassin escape. But because I had done what my character would do rather than what I, the Player, would usually be inclined to do, now we had a lead on where to go next AND there was one less dark elf polluting the universe (yes, Tor was a little bit prejudiced against dark elves. But he grew beyond it later in the campaign and actually ended up unifying the two races after millennia of war. But that’s a story for another time. 😉) 

And while I’m sure the GM would’ve found a way to guide us to the next story beat even if I hadn’t thrown a tracker on the escaping ship, letting Tor do his daring heroic dive off the balcony made that session into something I can still vividly recall nearly a decade later. In a way, I was able to overcome my lifelong flaws and traumas and, just for a moment, truly become the hero that I long to be deep down inside. And really, that’s the most we can ask for from an RPG, isn’t it? 

So there. Evidently, there actually is an edge case for “It’s what my character would do” in TTRPGs. Although I guess since it kinda depends on how well you, the Player, understand the goal of the game, and whether or not you built your character to have motivations and goals that align with the themes of the campaign. TL;DR (too long; didn’t read), Make good characters and then do what those characters would do and everything will be hunky-dory. 

(🤔 Hunky-dory? I don’t think I’ve ever used that phrase in writing. Looks odd… Eh, I’ll leave it. 😅)  

---

About the Author

My name is Trip and game design is my passion. I started out with D&D about 10 years ago, but have played a few other systems like Fellowship and Monster of the Week. I’ve even tried my hand at designing my own TTRPG a few times (maybe one of these days I’ll actually finish one?) I love both playing and running games, but I also love the oft-overlooked joy of learning new game systems. It always sparks my imagination seeing a new take on mechanics and rules, and I’m always excited to test the boundaries of those rules to see if they work as-intended and whether they can be improved upon. And who knows? Maybe someday I’ll successfully create my own game and become a household name in the TTRPG sphere? A boy can dream. 😅