table top discussions, in character and out of character Options

[djinni]

my thoughts came after an over the table discussion that arose from my character being upset that his team had a cyberarm implanted while he was injured, the injury made his left arm completely useless (advanced severe injury rules).
out of character I don't really care I just come to play, but the character is upset. he's an adept
I realized while we were discussing it that all of the points they were bringing up were as if I personally was upset. and that they couldn't decipher between my play style (numbers, rules, and statistics) with the opinions of the character (I can't see astral anymore you jerks!)
during the game we have hand signals to tell the GM what is and is not out of character, what is sub vocal, what is text message etc... but this was an out of game discussion, so it just seemed stupid to have to use those signals to explain the opinions when I could just say "the character believes..." however it appears that it was not enough.

what after game discussions have you had that result in miscommunications, or understandings that the players ignored in game because they thought it was you and not your character?

[DireRadiant]

Try having a player suffering from severe schizophrenia... that gets really confusing.

For a IC/OOC signal, try having hats, hats on for IC, hats off for OOC. You can be the SR RP gang.

[WalksWithWiFi]

I like the hats idea, its funny.
At our table we just announce "OOK!" and that seems to work just fine, along with the
occasional hand motion like the international time out sign.
If there is a misunderstanding, i make a dorky rewind sound and we take up before the
misunderstanding.

[otakusensei]

Generally our in character speak is distinctly different than personal speech. I frequently use accents for NPCs and try to give each one a voice. Players follow suit and it's spread pretty wide. The game where everyone was eastern European was great and hosted some of the worst accents ever, especially when I was outed as a french spy. My french accent is Monty Python awful.

There have been a few situations like the OP had, and sometimes they stem from out of game misunderstandings being projected on in game events. I chalk a lot of it up to metagameing and I'm not afraid to call someone on it and ask them to bring up any grievance with me or between players out of game. No matter what's going on there's no reason to cause that kind of static around others who just showed up to play.

The major issue we have though is cross talk. Players talking at the table during game and causing the game to go off track or getting so loud that it drowns out play. Seems to happen with the games at comic shops and games with more than eight people. We have one GM that "Shush"es players, complete with hand signals. He's done it for years and I suspect he has no idea that there are a few folks that may end up beating the crap out of him in the parking lot one of these days. It's not really his fault, there's a lot of cross talk.

[Maelstrome]

Try having a player suffering from severe schizophrenia... that gets really confusing.

For a IC/OOC signal, try having hats, hats on for IC, hats off for OOC. You can be the SR RP gang.

i suffer from schizophrenia and im the gm and sometimes player.

i hope you arent implying that schizophrenia is multiple personalities.

[Wesley Street]

Get a little index card and write "OOC" on it. Hold it up when you're out-of-character. It avoids confusion.

[Celt IMC]

We indicate ooc statements by holding up a thumb to our head with the fingers spread wide. We call this moose-earing. During the premilary planning for shadowruns our conversations tend to drift in and out of character though so we're a bit more lax there.

[Squinky]

i suffer from schizophrenia and im the gm and sometimes player.

i hope you arent implying that schizophrenia is multiple personalities.

Shadowrun has a lot of generalized dramatic concepts for players to grab ahold of and use for furthering their players story. I'm sure he wasn't intending to offend, just using an old concept of what schizophrenia is based off popular media.

[djinni]

Get a little index card and write "OOC" on it. Hold it up when you're out-of-character. It avoids confusion.

this was an after the game discussion, where out of character we were discussing the ramifications of the gaming night. and the players began to get the opinions of the player and the characters confused, since all of the talk was out of character, the player was giving the opinion of the character that the group took as the opinion of the player...
which seems kind of silly to keep the IC/OOC signals that we have which are all hand signs like sign language

[DireRadiant]

Change your "voice".

"I felt it was a great session. Murdering Maurice felt the team was betraying him and wants to get even."

Though it would be confusing if your character also spoke in the third person.

[The Jake]

We use hand gestures or occasionally say "out of character". We have no problems.

- J.

[Squinky]

I play with folks that get deeper into role playing than I typically do, and there have been times, although only a few, where an in-game argument has confused me...

And they use voices, something of which I have never felt all that comfortable doing.