Animal Characteristics

In this game, each player uses as animal as the inspiration for their character.

Although the technique of creating characters from animals is an old one, and a good one, this can be a surprisingly difficult game. Players often feel a strong urge to “display” their animal rather than playing it, and may cross the line from an animal-inspired character into a mere animal imitation. It’s briefly amusing to see the human cat jump on a table and crawl along it, but makes it difficult to sustain a scene.

Whatever animal you’re given, imagine you’re human with 10% animal DNA.

If a dog-based character is eating a sandwich, he might bolt it down with large open-mouthed bites. But if he grabs the sandwich between his teeth and shakes it apart, he’s gone too far into doghood.

A person with lizard characteristics can stare with mouth agape, slowly lick his lips, move quickly from place to place and then stop, but these activities should all be performed in a believably human way. (I once had a professor who was like this!)

You can play Animal Characteristics as a private game (that is, one where you don’t tell the audience). It is a useful tool to generate interesting characters. Choose an animal in your head, or decide beforehand with your team, and use the characteristics as the basis for your character without letting the audience in on it.

Alternatively, if you want more of a game element, play the scene with animals you’ve chosen privately (perhaps from a random list), then reveal at the end that each character was inspired by an animal, and ask the audience to guess what each one was. This reduces the pressure to gag during the scene.