I would answer yes to both questions.

Virtually all non-one shot characters I've played have changed over the time I've played them. In some cases it's because as the character became more fully developed, I realized some of my original envisionings of the character were flawed. In other cases it was character growth as events and relationships changed the charactr over time. This rarely surprises me though. Like most good works of fiction character development is key to the story remaining interesting.

As for the second point, I have also learned much "from" many of my characters. While I take a certain amount of pride in trying to have a wide variety of character types, certain elements my own personality always get introduced into the character. Watching the character gives insight into things I like and dislike about myself but from a safe distance. The flip side is that LARP is also a great way to see the other side of a point of view. Playing characters I radically disagree with has on many occasions helped me to understand, if not nescesarily agree with, positions on certain things that I previously had a great deal of problems with.

Great topic btw.

I'm very much with Eliel on learning from one's character. I tend to play only concepts that I am interested in exploring and from each one that I have gotten to play out to some measureable degree I have learned a lot. That isn't to say that I don't occassionally default to a concept I've already used when I get into a new game setting, some tricks are the best tricks for finding out what I like or don't like about a system or setting. Each of my characters have a core that remains fundamentally unchanged from concept start to end but that doesn't say that they don't change dramatically in how or what they do or think like.

One of the difficulties I've had with exploring a character in a larp environment is that monthly games often mean years of real-time commitment to see through what would likely happen to someone over months if I was to be in character more often. We all spend time thinking about our characters between games, some even have the luxury of side-scenes on a regular basis which greatly enhances the time we do get to play our characters. But the real-time commitments aside there is also something about how quickly people run through things in character development that I have often found off-putting for a story and a game. Change is good. Too much change too quickly results in unreliability for everyone else in the game.

I'm an old man and don't have nearly as much time for gaming as I used to. As a result I tend to be more and more picky and elitist about the games I do join and the players I choose to interact with. This isn't to say I wasn't elitist and picky before, just that I'm moreso than I was. New gamers in general, or people new to a setting are always rushing to explore. They are like bulls rushing into the pasture trying to find every cow in sight. This is to be expected and encouraged to a point and the older I get the more I wish to savour certain mysteries or endure certain hardships longer. So with all you young bulls out there try not to change too fast for this old stallion to see, he likes seeing the change progress, that's his way of seeing the story. Well, and sometimes so he can control it. Dance my onions, go forth and do my budding.

Oh yeah, Johnathan. You're an old man.

Sheesh.

"And at that LARP, I wore an onion on my belt...as was the style of the time..."

The combined age difference between me and the other players is over a century. That's a very long time.

Pffffft.
The combined age difference between *any* of the players and the other players is over a century. For that matter, six of the players in this game together have over a century of experience. That doesn't make us them OLD. It makes them cooooool.

Old has always been cool once it becomes retro. We've survived the dark age and see the re-emergence of our youth in others. If that doesn't qualify as old then I don't know what else could.

What qualifies as *old* is when your *liver* comes out your poop chute when you sneeze. THAT's old.

That happened so long ago I thought I had managed to erase said event from the communal reality of all...

I'm not going to believe you until I see your liver in a jar. The selfsame liver you pooped out when you sneezed.


Erm. Dan, as you can see, I have learned very little from my characters over the years.

Also, that is a complete lie.

In conclusion, do everything I say because all my ideas are good ideas. Change is good when it is paced to make a good story. Which is about the pacing required proportionally for good sex, only on a different scale. Now gaming is more fun. Enjoy.

I always make my characters with possible paths of evolution in mind - usually based on some kind of paradox in their personality or something that is going to eventually come out and cause them to think about themselves in relations to the issues around them. There's always their sense of self, or how they see themselves as they think others do/should, then there is something that is really railing against that which might be triggered in the course of play.

These sort of internal conflicts tend to be based off of questions or conflicts that I can see in myself or that I see other people going through. So I think that in that way I play through the progression of conflict and tend to figure out the question or learn how to face it in a different way. The trick is not going through it too quickly so that you can't portray this sort of progress to your audience, the fellow players. It doesn't have to be bludgeoningly obvious (but it could be), and it doesn't have to be so loud that everyone hears about it. But it's nice to be able to give one or two other characters/players a peek into what is going on so that they can get in on your narrative. It's one of the many beauties of live action roleplay; the ability to share stories and tell them collectively.

I do admit that a lot of the time I really can't hold on to plot secrets of my own and often let out clues to the long term internal conflict that is in development, but one of the most exciting and rewarding things for me in roleplaying is finally having that big moment where you reveal the conclusion of events out in the open and savor that bit of spotlight you've been planning for for however many months. Or better yet, one of the characters who you've been involved with in their conflict (or even set off ) finally reveals the end result of whatever chain-events that you have been a part of.

It's these moments that are great to witness in a game. It's these evolutions from the original idea we have of our characters that make coming out and playing each month a treat because when our characters change and grow through their experiences, whether they are successes or losses, we have an end product that is different then what we could have imagined ourselves creating in the very beginning. And I guess to conclude this all, I have had characters that have felt like they made themselves. And through playing through their sometimes radically foreign outlooks I get to see different viewpoints and even facets of myself.

Characters are like chia pets. You gotta be patient, but it's fun to watch them grow.