phoenix9lives:
"What would my character do, if given this choice?"
And that's the truth.
I write a bit
(Unpublished, semi-fan fiction, but my readers love it. Both of them.) and after creating a protagonist / antagonist you need to have them act according to their character or establish a really good reason why they didn't. For me it's equal parts fun and frustration when this happens.
Likewise any character I roll up for a game follows the same ethos. They might evolve over time, but having them change from say 'Reckless and impulsive' to 'Cautious and Thoughtful" between scenes just because it's the best way to play the game is something I'm not going to do without a lot of fast talking and fancy footwork.
Deliberately breaking character in order for a better outcome is poor Roleplaying from the Player.
"My Dwarf character hates Elves, but they're going to be nice to the Elf Queen as she might give us a magic doodad."
If the GM knows a Character (or party) almost always act in a certain way, putting them in a situation that will result in their death unless they break character is pretty poor on the GMs part.
"Your character always kicks down locked doors, so I'm going to trap the next door with a massive bomb."
But as the GM is God of the game, I tend to place the onus on the GM to ensure that if this situation ever occurs, they provide some way out provided the Player isn't a complete moron. However if the character is
written as a moron, things can get really interesting; I had this once where I played a character who was cool as an iceberg and about as smart, the GM set a situation where my characters reaction was..unwise but utterly predictable and not behaving in such a way would be out of character. Ultimately it cost him his life (which I'm still a bit salty about as two other PCs decided the best way to deal with my character was to kill him and the GM let it happen), but he was still in character when the bodybag was zipped up.