musing on droppage;
So, I was just musing on the nature of character drops following all the discussion in Maddie's post, and I realized something that I hadn't noticed before: I don't think I've ever dropped a character before. I'm not sure if it's something to be proud of or not, but it was sort of illuminating, for me. Anytime someone drops a character, it freaks me out. I get all up in arms and upset, even if it's a character I don't know that well - there's just something about the idea of dropping that I can't seem to process.

I know it's not because I'm more attached to or invested in my characters than others, because I know most of you put a lot more depth and emotion into your playing than I could even hope to. Yet some people can pick up and drop characters like trying on shoes, and it just baffles me. Not that everyone is all capricious about it - I imagine dropping has got to be a pretty weighty experience. Maybe I just have some deep-seated, inherent fear of change?

Or maybe I'm just a lot more comfortable with the idea of having characters on the backburner. I know people drop because they're not getting enough interaction, or don't have enough plot, or what-have-you. Despite appearances, most of my characters don't have much plot in any ongoing, charted out sense; but that lack never bothers me. What matters to me has always just been the ability to use that specific voice at any given time - to slip into the character in that moment, irregardless of what future or past events are supposed to occur around them. And if the voice isn't working for me, then they get shelved till I feel it again, elsewise I know for a fact I'd miss being able to use it.

Maybe this makes me selfish, that I don't worry about SLs or let my characters go quiet for whatever periods (especially at MH, which I'm notoriously bad about). I feel like I should ask if it bothers anyone, but I can't see myself making the effort to change the playing style that works so well for me. I guess the point of this is, I'm sorry to everyone that's received my sulky, petulant reaction to an announcement of a character drop. You know who you are!

Heh. I think this is probably the first time I'm actually used a CDJ to ramble about this sort of thing.

EDIT: TO CLARIFY, I have dropped games in the past. I haven't dropped characters in a game that I kept playing in. Quitting =/= Dropping, imho.