How do you view yourself as you are gaming? It's a rather philosophical, cerebral question, and I'm sure everybody will have a different answer.

Like in my case, I've been starting to see myself as an 'omnipresent presence' in comparison to my characters. It's kinda like playing God I suppose, especially now that I've been modding Cyrodiil, except I don't see myself as a God or Goddess. I'm not ever going to strike wrath upon Lady Saga for instance if she decides to start eating meat. Nor will I use the PC's console to add a disease to Snaat Rayag because I don't like what he's doing.

It's rather like being able to see into their worlds, and perhaps causing subtle variations behind the scenes at times. Small influences here and there. By the way, I am talking about PC stuff now (console commands and mods), but the same question applies to vanilla gamers as well.

I was a pure vanilla gamer for 5 years, and I'm still going to have some vanilla games here and there. How did I view myself back when I was purely vanilla? I think I started as a rather exasperated gamer during those first few months. It was purely Gamer / Character back in those days (late 2008). I was a Tomb Raider gal, you see, and I was playing Elder Scrolls in a similar way to the way I played TR.

Then (April 2009) I re-discovered roleplay. RP changed everything.

During the next few years, I began seeing myself as more of a presence behind-the-scenes. I began building more of a relationship (but a passive one) in their lives. If my paladin, Dyan phor a'Cauz, would go to pray in chapel on Sundas, I would often go do something else for awhile (make a snack, surf the forums...), as she prayed in real-time. I wouldn't just press the 'Wait' button. Because there's something about the way she'd slow her life down for that particular day, attempting to reach out to hear guidance from the Nine. She would take her time with prayer, and though I had little interest in spending this time watching her pray, I felt it would cheapen the experience if I merely pressed the Wait button.

THAT's what I mean. It's a philosophical thing, maybe for some a metaphysical one as well. I know some of you view yourselves as friends of your characters. Some of you get the sense that your characters know you as well.

By the way, if you also want to talk about how you believe your characters see you, feel fee to do so. In my mind, mine cannot grasp the concept of the 'Controller Goddess" who spends time with them.

I’ll let Buffy answer this one with an excerpt from Episode 151 of her Journal – ‘Into the Jaws of Oblivion’:

***

The mare now nickered softly as my fingers busied themselves with imagined tangles in her mane. “My paladin, I have made provisions for Superian, but what will happen to you if I die?”

“I have long wondered when you would ask. The answer, however, is likely to change how you think of your own life. Are you sure you wish to know?”

“Damn it, Acadian! I may get us killed today so don’t pull that with me. I willingly share every aspect of my life with you. When you kept your history with dragons a secret until Peryite revealed it, I thought I made it quite clear that I don’t appreciate you keeping things from me. Now, out with it.”

I could feel the paladin deliberating until finally, more of his words surrounded me, “As long as we enter the Dreamsleave together, we will emerge together. There is no telling what form we might take.”

“B-but I thought I was simply one in a long line of hosts that has sustained you over the centuries?”

“And I must confess that I have not taken steps to dissuade you of that notion,” he replied. “In truth however, you are the long line of hosts. We have taken many forms and identities, often blended together as we are now, other times side by side.”

I scratched my head, feeling more than a little overwhelmed. “You mean we could end up as a pair of Ayleids enslaving humans in the First Era?”

“Yes, or serving them in the Second astride a dragon. Roles, times and places you cannot begin to imagine.”

“A white-bearded wizard and his apprentice?” I asked, unsure why the image popped into my mind.

“Or a sorceress and her black cat familiar,” he replied.

“I don’t remember any of that.”

“Nor would you, Buffy. Your memories begin anew with each form we take – in that regard, you are very mortal. I am the repository of our history, which spans time, distance and even worlds. Although of different species, we have evolved into mutual dependence.”

***

I see myself and my character as a party of two. I alternate between being a follower and being a leader of this party. This is one reason why I have to play in 3rd-person. I am not my character. I have no desire to see the world through my character's eyes. I accompany my characters on their travels.

I often make suggestions that are 'rejected' by my characters. I'll suggest going into a dungeon and feel a reluctance from the character. It honestly feels like we argue sometimes. I have started arguing with characters while we are still in character creation. I have selected a hair color and heard a loud voice in my imagination, telling me to get rid of that awful color.

When we travel, I feel as though I, Pseron Wyrd, am in the game too, walking slightly behind my character. If I'm in the mood I hold conversations with my character. This is what we do when we have to travel long distances. I don't fast travel, so when we travel the same road we just traveled an hour ago (thanks, Bethesda) I'll sometimes pass the time by striking up a conversation with my characters. We gossip, we bicker, we tell tell jokes to each other.

I do the same thing in real life. I walk about 30 miles a week in real life, and once in a while I'll take one of my characters with me on my walks. Instead of gabbing about things in the game world as we would do in Cyrodiiil, we gab about things in the real world. Conversing with your character as you go about your daily routine is a great way to bring that character into focus in your imagination.

I guess I'm pretty similar in my approach to my characters.

I'm the selfish puppeteer with a nasty habit of rewriting history and molesting the same individuals across all eras of Tamriel. I do like getting new puppets and living in Tamriel through them from time to time, but I always go back to my favorites and relive their stories, each time a little different than the last. Though I also try to be more hands-off with my characters. I'm trying to see the world through their eyes, not assume their identity entirely. "Waiting" in-game tends to be me shutting off the omniscience and giving them privacy.

My Dragonborn, who liked to refer to me as "The Distant Gardener" (among other less polite things) is the only person so far to notice me. GIven how much he hated the idea of being Akatosh's plaything, it probably would have been for the best if he didn't. But Shadow Mages tend to be very curious.

Elise might one day come to discover me too, especially given how many times I've played with her already. Maybe in one retelling of her story, in which she doesn't get the ending she's most happy with (as Sheogorath), she'll notice the strings leading back to me. I'm not really sure how she'll react.

Hopefully she won't end up as a horrible Shadow monster that preys primarily on Nord souls like my Dragonborn did. That wasn't fun for either of us, especially since that meant neither I nor the gods could touch him anymore.