Dramatic Interactors - Computers as Theatre - page 137

the norm; players must fi ght and can be attacked at nearly any time. Those
characters constrain their players to develop combat skills, create alliances,
and acquire battle gear and powers. The PvE realm (Player versus Environ-
ment) allows players to choose whether or not their characters battle with
other characters. WoW is much more complicated and subtle than this, but
the mode of play as well as affi liations and commitments among characters
constrain players' choices and actions in both simple and complex ways.
It is not surprising that many players run multiple characters in different
realms to experience different kinds of play.
Persona and Character
In social media, people construct personas , both for themselves or for other
participants in the system. “Persona” and “character” are closely related,
but they differ in subtle ways. The word “persona” has its origins in Latin,
meaning “mask.” The Oxford English Dictionary 's (2013) fi rst defi nition of
“persona” is “the aspect of someone's character that is presented to or per-
ceived by others.” Most of us have a panoply of personas that we have
honed for different situational contexts. I present one persona to the audi-
ence at a speaking engagement, another at a party where I know few of the
guests, and yet another to a gathering of close friends (I fancy that the latter
is closest to my “true self”). 13
“Character” has two meanings that problematize things further. The
fi rst meaning is one's authentic moral or ethical nature, as in “he has a good
character.” The second meaning is drawn from drama and narrative—the
way we have used “character” in this topic—to mean representation that is
made up of the material of thought and performs actions that contribute to
the plot, or whole action. I have tried to make the case that an interactor in
a non-game environment is performing “character” in essentially the same
way. Persona comes about in a different manner. Persona creation consists
of acts of collage in social media. Even in multiplayer games, a player may
have character (in both senses of the word) as well as a persona. For ex-
ample, I may perform a very bad-assed, tough-guy character (dramatic
sense) in a multiplayer game, but because I don't cheat or camp or behave
13. One of the hardest personas to shake is the one a parent takes on when children are young.
As the children grow up, there is a strong pull to change the persona to one that is more equal
or genuine, complete with bad behavior. A fi ne line is walked by parents who are also tugged
at to protect and advise their grown children.