Playing Games For Fun
Once upon a time, the gaming world was far different. Once upon a time, the worlds were bright and colorful. Once upon a time, Good was Good and Evil was Evil. Now, that world is gone.
Once upon a time, the gaming world was far different. Once upon a time, the worlds were bright and colorful. Once upon a time, Good was Good and Evil was Evil. Now, that world is gone.
Not completely gone, mind you. But it is going, and it is all going due to a fad. Is the death of fun games a good thing? Should mature games reign?
Every form of gaming I can think of, save war gaming, is drastically different now than it was in the beginning. Evolution of the form is to be expected, so of course it will be different over time. Game systems get more sophisticated, code gets better, and graphics get more powerful. This is, of course, expected. Without growth, it will stagnate.
However, this type of growth is not what I am talking about. I'm talking about the movement to "mature" style gaming that seems to be so pervasive in electronic and traditional gaming. Think of your first gaming experiences. Do they involve stealing cars? Or playing a Vampire who struggles with bloodlust and drug addiction? I doubt it. My first electronic experience was playing Duck Hunt with a light gun on the NES. My first traditional experience was getting "stuck" playing DM because it wasn't "any fun" and dealing with PCs who should never touch dice. The first adventure I ran was in a 2nd edition boxed set. The adventure involved some old haunted mansion and a silver heart.
Anyway, back to the point. Somewhere gaming has changed. Now for a game to sell, and for it to sell well, it must be "mature."
What do I mean by "mature"? Look at the PS2, and look at the Gamecube. (Or look at V:TM and Hackmaster.) The PS2, with games like Grand Theft Auto 3 and the Final Fantasy games is what you would call "mature". The Gamecube, with games like Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is not what would be called mature. Most people call it "kiddie". In fact, thisis one of the major reasons why the Gamecube is where it is today: people perceive it as a Kiddie console. While it may not be exactly the same for V:TM and Hackmaster, the similarities are there.
Some games are timeless; some games are untouchable by fads. Dungeons and Dragons is probaly the largest example. The editions, the art, & the game mechanics all change over time. This has, however, hardly stopped D&D. It is still the biggest name associated with roleplaying by far. The same goes for the Zelda games on the console side of things. Zelda might change from console to console, but that does not mean it will not sell millions. There are alot of other examples on the same page: Star wars, Doom, and Star Trek are just a few. Some names just have this mystical quality about them that keep them going strong for years and years. I don't know about all of you, but when I was in the electronic store and saw Doom 3, I couldnt help but wish I had a proper computer to play it on. After all of the years, all of the controversy, and virtually no one left at ID that made Doom, that mystical calling still came to me. With all of my reservations of the quality of the game, I still had the music in my head and visions of slinking around an empty moon base strike me. This is a perfect example of the timelessness of a franchise and how fads cannot touch them. Strong names create the fads, they do no succumb to them.
Back to the point. Does a "mature" game make a fun game? When was the last time you laughed out loud playing a "mature" game? The only "mature" game I remember having fun playing would be Fallout 1 or 2. If you took out the cursing, gore, prostitution, and general "maturity" of the game, would have I still had fun? Yes, I would have. I didn't play Fallout, or any other game for that matter, to be "mature". I play them to have fun. I play games to have fun. That is, in my opinion, the ultimate purpose of a game: to have fun. It isn't to be mature. It isn't to further the art. And it definitely isn't to show people how brilliant I am or how well I can act.
So what's wrong with having fun? Some say the audience the games are being sold to is growing. Sure, that's a reason I guess. How old were the people in the first electronic arcades? How old were the first roleplayers? I'm willing to bet not all of them were adolescents. Others say it is the evolution of the art. Another semi-valid point, I suppose. Games exist as a recreational activity, which most of the time means to have fun. If you're no longer having fun, what does that mean? Where does that put the game?>
One of the casualties of this "mature" gaming rise is the loss of extremes. To me, extreme characters in games are the most fun to play. If my character is good, he is going to be Good. If he is evil, he is going to be Evil. Doing unrealistic things is apart of what used to be make gaming fun. Saving a kingdom of pure good from the forces of pure evil is great. It's fun. Saving the kingdom because it is the lesser of the two evils? Not fun. If you want to do that, get involved in politics. Human politics, that is. Not the politics of Vampires.
Without a doubt, mature gaming has dulled the world of games. If you want shades of grey, participate in real life. Watch the news. Vote. Go to protests. Whatever works for you. That's real life. If you want to get away from all of that, game. Get rid of those shades. Give me black, and give me white. Give me Good, and give me Evil. Give the extreme fantasies of life we can only live out on paper or in front of a screen to yourself. That is where the fun is. That is gaming.
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While I agree that shades of grey for grey's own sake can be a bad thing, particularly once they begin to crowd out black and white, I think the author is overlooking an important point. For some people, shades of grey ARE fun, and some ways they'd like to play with them just aren't good ideas in real life. I'm all for the chaste heroic paladin type who has never told a lie and always helps innocents and puppies, striving nobly against the forces of pure evil; but I'm equally for the bitter assassin disillusioned by the betrayal of former coleauges, turning his brutal merciless skills against the villains he once called friends to fight fire with fire and evil with evil.
"Without a doubt, mature gaming has dulled the world of games. If you want shades of grey, participate in real life. Watch the news. Vote. Go to protests. Whatever works for you. That's real life. If you want to get away from all of that, game. Get rid of those shades. Give me black, and give me white. Give me Good, and give me Evil. Give the extreme fantasies of life we can only live out on paper or in front of a screen to yourself. That is where the fun is. That is gaming."
This could've been worded much better. I don't fault the author for strong feelings about his style, but I do resent the implication that because mine is much different, it is not gaming. I think "game" is a very broad term and what is a game to one individual might not be a game to another, that doesn't make either of the people wrong.
I encourage the author to continue thinking and writing. I don't agree with everything said here, but then forums are places for thought and debate, not blind agreement. Keep on keeping on.
P.S. I too played Duck Hunt as one of my first games... and Star Trek and the Legend of Zelda series kick ass.
I agree and disagree with you on some of this.
"Saving a kingdom of pure good from the forces of pure evil is great. It's fun. Saving the kingdom because it is the lesser of the two evils? Not fun."
This is a pretty blanket statement.
Perhaps not to you, but to someone else.
Going to monster truck races is fun for some, personally I don't like it.
You seem to imply that the only way to have fun is to play a one (or at best two) dimensional character. Back in Ye Olden Days of Gaming, there never really were any "flawed" characters because the mechanics of games back then couldn't support that sort of thing adequately. Basically, characters in any game had very little personality. Take Link, for example. He is defined by his equipment and appearance. He has no personality.
Personally, in a table top RPG, I would not want to play a singularly Good or Evil character. They are practically static. I like to think when I game, and single-mindedness eliminates that.
I guess I, and I imagine the same for most other gamers, are not overly fond of extremes. I dislike V:TM and other overpoweringly "mature" games, but the constant goody-two shoesness of many HM player characters bugs me just as much. I suppose I just like layered, three dimensional characters. And I think most gamers would agree with me.
Shades of grey make plots more interesting mentally to me. Combat is combat, but motivations are different. Killing the head priest because he's been possessed by a demon is one thing. Finding out he made a deal with said possessing demon to save his daughter's life is another. This also allows for more creative solutions than Sir Bob saying "I slash his head off with my shortsword. What do I find on the body?"
Perhaps the down side of greyshades is the new sterotype, instead of shining knights and evil rulers, is the lone wolf ex-assassin. the difference is that unlike shining nights and evil would be rulers, is that lone wolves absolutely SUCK in team games.
I see where you're coming from, but I disagree. It wears on me after a while to constantly be Saving The World From Evil, usually by rescuing a princess or disarming a nuclear bomb or somthing. While Zelda is a blast and all, the plots get tiresome and repetitive before long! Now, you certainly don't have to go the way of GTA to not be tiresome; but being formulaic is, to my mind, a much greater sin than being 'mature'.
I tend to agree, but I think that the problem might be better defined in terms of the "seriousness" of today's games. Not that I seriously believe that the world is full of blood sucking fiends in states of dire moral quandry, but I can't help but feel that the tone of a lot of the leading game systems today is too serious, and that they take themselves too seriously.
Certainly there's plenty of blame to go around, certainly while you can find most of the old Avalon Hill tactical board games, some of their best stuff, like the enormously funny and very fun "Tales From the Floating Vagabond" and its array of humourous adventures, featuring Space Nazi's and gian electric penguins and the like, are sadly long gone. I believe you can still get yourself a copy of "Toon," and I strongly advise doing so, but be sure to watch some old cartoons before running it, not that modern stuff or you may miss the point and an exercise in pure slapstick may degenerate into seriousity.
On a more positive note, there are things out there you just shouldn't touch if seriousness in your only mode, "Paranoia XP" has just come out, and "Macho Women With Guns" is now available as both a humorous RPG and a tactical battle game.....
Hmmm...there's nothing like a good old fashioned hack n' slash once in awhile, just for fun. One and two dimensional characters can be alot of fun, kill the monster, save the village, collect the loot. The problem with a game like this is that it lacks scope and can become run of the mill after awhile.
Some of the more "mature" games add alot more scope to role-playing...why the heck can't a fighter type pick a lock for god's sake! Find the monster, capture the monster, save the village, study the monster and it's origins, try to understand the monster, save the monster, it really isn't a monster after all. Sometimes people can become too bogged down in "role-play" and it can get a bit boring, especially for the characters that aren't currently involved in the role-play. Sometimes it's nice to just roll the damned dice and DO something other than talk, talk, talk, talk!
The best thing to do is to strike a happy balance between the two styles of play.
My guess is that the author's real problem is immature gamers with elitest attitudes, you know the ones I'm talking about: the ones who wouldn't be caught dead playing AD&D and sneer at you if you do, the ones who think that Player Killing is a their right regardless of how it affects group dynamics, the ones who always play evil or neutral characters so that they can do whatever they want with no moral consequences whatsoever. These people tend to think that playing a simple black and white game like AD&D is "immature".
The games themselves are what you make them, they aren't "mature" or "immature". Most of us play to have fun regardless of the genre we are playing, so kick out the psychos and have fun.
Hm...just a few musings on the subject.
Pretty much regardless of the system/setting/tone of their first game, peoples' first characters tend to be fairly simplistic and one-dimensional. Naturally. There's hardly any shame or anything that associates with this, a new player just doesn't have the experience to know what he can do with a character, doesn't yet know what makes a character really "good" or "bad."
The next stage is somewhat more surprising. Almost every veteran player, even if just playing a dungeon crawl because the regular GM's sick, will make a more fleshed-out character with motivations, objectives, and ambiguities. This has to do with the fact that there are more opportunities to interact and make decisions with these more developed characters, there is more drama in a person fulfilling a personal quest than earning GP.
Well fine, one says. We now have "mature" characters. So what? We can just have games of Dungeons and Dragons that aren't purely the stereotypical fantasy world with stereotypical fantasy plot hooks. And yes, yes you can. No problem.
So why do the "mature" games have a stranglehold on the market? Market forces, naturally: people want them and buy them.
It should come as no great surprise (although I haven't done any fact-checking here, so tread carefully) that veteran gamers should buy the most RPG's. And if they have, on one level or another, decided that the more ambiguous, "mature" characters are more fun to play, then they should probably instinctively seek out games that support these characters.
Basically, if I wanted to run a game of "Kill Bill: The RPG," then I would have one h*** of a time trying to resolve everything in terms of D&D. If The Bride is bearing down on you, do you put up a magic circle versus good or versus evil?
Bear in mind, too, that this is just an analysis of why the games are more popular. Remember: "more popular" does not equal "better" (as an illustration, remember that Jimi Hendrix was the opening act for the Monkees for a while). There might be a little more "intellectual" pleasure in playing a morally gray and disturbing game like Vampire...but remember that the one fallback of almost every gaming group is still the visceral pleasure of the hack'n'slash.
Personally, I like games that mostly avoid the morality issues, like Mage: the Ascension, because I have trouble with any game that has "good" and "evil" as part of the rules (and therefore implying an objective way of judging, so that the rules work right). And I have a problem with both the elitists and the people who play completely flat characters. But one cast-iron rule I've found for RPG's definitely is: if you let either the talk or the dice-rolling fall completely to the wayside, the players fall asleep. And that last sentence is my real analysis of the situation.
The truly sad thing is that when shades of grey become the norm, it rather stops being fun trying to be completely neutral or some such. Intentional balancing of good and evil becomes the same as unintentional with the current level of sophistication. Takes the fun out of that.
One of my first memories of games was crawling behind enemy lines to undermine a country's sovereignty (spelling?) to brutally unravel their government (regime change).
I'm talking Commando here.
Another involved librating POWs from godless communists by placing my knife in their evil bodies (Green Beret)
To me, mature simply means more means to an end - afterall, in the early games, all you could do was kill an enemy. Now, not only can you kill them, you can take their uniform and mingle with them and quietly kill their leader. Lower body count, increase the peace! (Spy Fiction)
But of course, you can go too far - GTA's planned "eating" mechanism, and how it makes your character slow and fat, and "Sims 2" character death-from-aging are a bit much - "mature" should mean more allowance for freedom of interaction. Morality is a personal thing, I believe.
I honestly have trouble finding the old black and white plots interesting or entertaining. To me, they're as boring as the greys are to the author of this article. I'm sure some people love them, but...they lack the ability to have depth. Angst for the sake of angst is annoying, I agree, but so is the character who unthinkingly justifies murder by 'well, all those guys were sith, so it was okay to kill the desk clerk and such, too. I'm a hero'. Simple games with simple characters feel a little too much like picture books, compared to novels. And Fallout wouldn't have been as much fun without the off-the-wall violence and such. I mean, who DOESN'T love spattering a raider all over the next wall with the 5mm assualt rifle? :p
I wouldn't worry at all about the people playing "mature" games. This is largely a substitute for their real lives lacking maturity or accomplishment. They want to see the game world in shades of grey so they can justify their failures in the real world.
Just like in high school where some kids thought they were more mature than others because they listened to The Cure while I jammed out to MC Hammer. In fact, these may actually be the same group of people!
I'm with you 100%! Gaming should be about fun first.
A few points on the article.
"Not completely gone, mind you. But it is going, and it is all going due to a fad. Is the death of fun games a good thing? Should mature games reign?"
...and right off the bat, you set up a false dilemma. The problem here is that "fun" isn't the opposite of "mature", as you yourself admit later on in your Fallout example.
"Anyway, back to the point. Somewhere gaming has changed. Now for a game to sell, and for it to sell well, it must be "mature.""
Then why is Buffy the Vampire Slayer a big business? Why do we watch shallow sitcoms? Why are shows like Farscape and movies like Dark City ignored in favor of Seinfeld and Adam Sandler and the Simpsons (which is many things, but hardly "mature")?
"Back to the point. Does a "mature" game make a fun game? When was the last time you laughed out loud playing a "mature" game?"
I laughed long and hard at the various sarcasms in Knights of the Old Republic. I consider that fairly mature humor, yet... do games have to come with laugh tracks to be considered fun? Do I have to chortle hysterically for a game to be amusing to play? Of course not. Laughter is not a prereqisite.
"One of the casualties of this "mature" gaming rise is the loss of extremes. To me, extreme characters in games are the most fun to play. If my character is good, he is going to be Good. If he is evil, he is going to be Evil."
Except that "good" and "evil" aren't extremes. They are viewpoints. A diehard secular humanist would consider "good" wholly different from a bible-schooled fundamentalist creationist. I do not object to people playing such characters, but I would find it beyond boring to play something that isn't even a character trait so much as an ideal. I might as well have a character defined solely as "radiant" or "big" - it sounds about as interesting.
"Without a doubt, mature gaming has dulled the world of games. If you want shades of grey, participate in real life. Watch the news. Vote. Go to protests. Whatever works for you. That's real life. If you want to get away from all of that, game. Get rid of those shades. Give me black, and give me white. Give me Good, and give me Evil. Give the extreme fantasies of life we can only live out on paper or in front of a screen to yourself. That is where the fun is. That is gaming."
This is, I feel, almost insulting. If we followed your logic, the merits of a game are defined by its lack of maturity. One can be charitable and assume that what you're advertising is that gaming could do with a little more color. That would be a valid point. Too bad doesn't really seem to be what you're saying.
"Without a doubt"?
Here's my doubt. Here's my doubt in the ability of anyone to create anything engaging or interesting without some shade of gray, some uncertainty, some... connection to reality. I personally need to be stimulated by gaming.
I know what I want. Give me characters rather than cardboard cutouts labeled "good guy" or "evil gal"! Make me think rather than follow the dotted line. Make me escape the mundanity of choices that don't matter into a world where my choices do. Make me invest emotionally in a story, make the stakes astronomic, make me care.
But don't create a candyland where everyone sings happy songs and bunnies hop away into the sunset. Because that, I can get by watching Teletubbies.
"I wouldn't worry at all about the people playing "mature" games. This is largely a substitute for their real lives lacking maturity or accomplishment. They want to see the game world in shades of grey so they can justify their failures in the real world."
That's a... fascinating statement. Really. Of course, it's incredible offensive to anyone not adhering to your subjective opinion, and equally insubstantial. Speaking as someone who prefers to think when gaming, I have to question your logic. The real world does come in shades of gray, that much is correct. Someone seeking to escape that reality commonly fashions a fantasy world more suited to their preferences. This is basic psychology.
Someone fairly well-adjusted, who doesn't have that much of a problem with their reality, would need fairly minor changes in order to be happy, while a greatly maladjusted person would make huge changes.
Thus, we are led inescapably to the conclusion that people who fail in reality would tend to group toward your own end of the spectrum - the black-and-white fairytale palace devoid of substance or depth. Or that's the conclusion we have to draw if we take your wild statements seriously. *shrug*
Jeeze Eleas, you really shattered this whole article... and you did it thoughtfully. Good argument. You said a lot of the things I would've been thinking if I hadn't been in one of my fleeting charitable moods.
"But don't create a candyland where everyone sings happy songs and bunnies hop away into the sunset. Because that, I can get by watching Teletubbies."
That cracked me up. It's good to see I'm not the only one in the world who uses Candyland as a metaphor for any game that's all colour and no substance.
I'd like to see the article author post a comment here. It would be interesting and informative to see how much of what he said was fully his opinion, and how much was poor wording that he might wish to rephrase or elaborate on.
Thanks, Shaggy. I will admit that my reply to Burn was... not as well-considered, though. :)
Anyway, the author does seem to lead up to something. I think what he/she might have meant to say is that too much anal-retentive realism can smother the fun of gaming. If so, I might conceivably agree. :)
I think when he says "mature" he's refering "mature" as in "rated mature", it seems that the current trend in gaming is towards playing, not in a world of greys, but in a bleak, dark world where everything that is generally wrong with our society becomes the 'norm'. You know...all the fun stuff...pride, envy, gluttony, lust, wrath, greed and sloth. That would be the seven deadly sins.
VTM, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Tank Girl.
I see. I guess it's like the World of Darkness as interpreted by self-proclaimed members of "the Nihilistic Youth". I've seen that kind of stuff played before. While it desperately strives to be "gritty" or "edgy", it frequently leaves one cold. Just as I don't think we can identify with a happy-happy-joy-joy paradise, I doubt we can connect emotionally with a world where everything comes in shades of pitch black...
Now for a game to sell, and for it to sell well, it must be "mature."
Bullshit. Games suitable for kids far out-sell games with mature themes for the same reasons that "G" rated films sell more tickets than those rated "R". Taking a walk through the aisles at any place that sells console and computer software will reveal plenty of "E" rated titles for every platform. Similarly, most FLGS continue to exist because of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh sales -- not Vampire and the D20 sex manual.
The paper and pencil RPG market is greying, however most games can be played in the style you endorse. Besides, as you pointed out: The 300 lb. gorilla (D&D) is designed specifically for "good vs. evil" style games.
So what's your damage? Honked off because there are people in the world enjoying gaming in ways you do not? I'm fairly sure that the term "role playing" was used to describe sexual activities long before D&D was invented but nobody who plays RPGs feels the need to come out against S&M on the grounds that they aren't doing it right.
Say it with me: "Different strokes for different folks"
Now get out there and find some 12 year old kids to game with, tiger!
Rider,
I kinda hate to jump on what seems to be a bandwagon here...but, I'm gonna have to join the crowd and largely disagree with what you're saying.
The games I play today are far and away better than the games I first started playings. And it is largely due to the fact that there are shades of gray and mature content (no, I don't mean sex n' drugs). The games I play today are an evolution of what I used to play...they're more complicated in terms of plot n' such...but they're also much more fun.
Stagnation generally leads to death. If there's no development or progress or change to the status quo...then what's the point? Nostalgia will only burn the wick for so long.
I do, however, agree that injecting maturity into a game can be a disater. It's like anything else...if you don't do it right, it just don't work well.
That pretty much sums up what I'm trying to say...too bad the author hasn't replied to any of the posts to clarify what he IS trying to say.
"Now get out there and find some 12 year old kids to game with, tiger!"
This is exactly why D&D is not my choice of game systems, most of the people tend to be waaay to young for me to play with. On the other hand, I've found alot of older gamers, like myself, waaaaay too jaded to play with. The last group I gamed with put absolutely NO emphasis on dice rolling and waaay too much emphasis on "role-playing". Role-playing is fun but if you don't roll the frickin dice once in awhile you take the element of chance (risk) out of the game and it becomes alot less fun. There's nuthin to get the heart beating without the element of chance.
I went trough a 3-5 year period where the gang and I didn't use dice. We'd become jaded by rules lawyers and decided to just chunk everything. The quality of our games took an upward swing...
...for a while. You get to a point to where you can only account for so many things in a game that doesn't involve dice. And, we'd weeded out all the rule's lawyers by this point. So, to re-introduce chance and risk...we threw the dice back in. We don't rely on it as much as the old days...but enough to guarantee that nobody knows what the final outcome of the game will be.
Well, to each their own, I suppose. My opinion differs from those you state Rider but you are entitled to go right ahead and play any damn way you choose. After all, isn't the point to have a good time and play it however you want?
On an partially unrelated note some of my first gaming experiences were with Shadowrun and there happened to be alot of car theft and gunplay and blowing shit up for the sake of blowing shit up.
Yowza.
I enjoy seeing feedback when I write an article, be it good or bad. I had a pretty healthy feeling it would be bad when I submitted this.
For what it is worth, it was not the best written article. I did contradict myself a few times, and my point was not always too clear.
But that isn't any reason to be insulting. I apologize if I insulted anyone, it was not intentional. I also apologize for my lateness to respond here. Having internet access and being a resident of Florida have been hard to keep together, hurricanes and all.
Anyhoo, let me elaborate more clearly as to what I meant.
Yes, when I said mature, I meant "Mature rated," as in the GTA series. My example of VTM probably was not the best one. I am disdainful of the type of mature rated games that seem to be "mature" for "maturity's sake." What do I mean? I mean games like the above mentioned GTA. Or these purposely "dark" or "moody" role-playing games. Things in those examples are being done for the sake of doing it. Now, let's use another example...Fallout. The first 2. Not the tactical game, and sure as hell not the console game. These games had very mature elements, prostitution, foul language, and murder, all of that fun stuff. However, I rarely felt while playing these that it was done for the sake of doing it. Fallout wouldn't be fallout if you weren't called dirty words by NPC's. Nor would it be fallout if you couldn't blow someone's head off if you felt like it...Nor would it be fallout if you couldn't talk your way out of a situation. So some games easily have mature elements that are easily seperable, while others do not.
I was advocating a complete separation from so called "realism." (How real can you get with a Vampire, anyway?) What I was advocating is a return to the roots of gaming. As the gaming population get's older, it get's more jaded, and it get's stuck in certain ruts. What I tried to say was depart from these ruts. Rut's suck. Let me explain some more. Those kind of games are fun. Good old fashioned fun. Laugh out loud fun. Smile on your face fun. Realistic things, usually, are not that fun. If I want realism, I can go outside and experience it. If I want fantasy, I have very few ways to experience that.
So to those of you who commented on how a poster (and probally myself as well) couldn't "Deal with real life," I see it as just the flip side. Why play a game of realism if you can go do it? Now, admittedly, if you are playing, let's say, Advanced Squad Leader, I can understand the lack of doing there. Realism in that would mean getting 5 of your buddies and shooting 5 of your other buddies. But then there is paintball...Anyway. A dislike for real world gaming does not mean you are a failure in life. Forum posters sure are quick to look down on others for certain things and make very base assumptions. Does that not kill good, honest, discussion?
Anything I missed to clarify on?
WoW! The ability to discuss in this forum has drastically increased. Most of the comments here were well thought out and respectful of other posters. That is not something I used to associate with Gamegrene.com. I used to think of this as a site where threads degenerated into flaming a few posts down. You folks have proved me wrong with this article. Keep up the good work! Healthy discussion is good!
Rider
First off, I hope the hurricane didn't treat you or yours too badly.
Second, I'm really glad that you responded to the feedback you recieved, I could kinda see where you were going with it but it wasn't 'completely' clear. I'm with ya on this one, I've been gaming for 23 years and have been in several groups and it seemed that the older the players the more 'Jaded' they had become. The more jaded people became the more and more bizarre things had to get to satisfy them.Sometimes you just have to get 'Back to Basics' just to put peoples feet back on the ground.
The traditional good vs. evil gaming systems still exist. It's just the gaming genres have expanded just like the literary and media genres. Science Fiction, for instance, used to be fairly pro-technology and pro-humanity. When it became a highly profitable mass-market, a lot of would-be writers without a tech background jumped in and a sudden flood of 'technology is evil' stories appeared on the market. When the environmental movement took off, a lot of science-fiction and fantasy portraying humanity as inherently evil or destructive or portraying either a purely agrarian society or even pre-agriculture gathers as ideal societies appeared on the market as well. You have a lot of 'causes' that muddle up the previous good & evil clarity these days. The 'barbarian horde' threatening to topple the kingdom is now sometimes written from the barbarian's side.
"Good and Evil is just a viewpoint"
- You need to get out more. Go and be a social worker in child protection for awhile or a copper. Yep there are shades of grey, but there is a heck of a lot more black and white. You do know that, don't you?
Or introduce your 13 and 9 year old sons to gaming. Then see if you want to teach them right and wrong in the game or "it's all relative".
And why would running a campaign around absolute good and absolute evil be 2-dimensional. (My French grandad fought absolute evil in the shape of Nazi occupation in WW2 Paris. Running guns sewn into fur coats....not too boring or 2-D for him. By night a plucky resistance fighter, by day a furrier....)
All games have supported as much black and white or grey as the GM and players have wanted since day 1 of gaming.. It's always been the campaign which mattered. The mechanics are irrelevant to this.
Why do older players buy more games -its simple, we've generally got more spendable cash on hand. Why do they go for 'mature'games. Well do they? Or are 'mature' games just the majority of the market they can dip into when they try something new.
Shades of grey can always be obtained in your real life:
the grey of 'down-sizing' or should it be the black of screwing up peoples lives to make the bosses payout bigger. ENRON anyone? Or for the Brits: the whole Margaret Thatcher disaster. (Congratulations USA, you've got GW instead. My theory is there is an evil political entity which cannot be killed, isn't very clever at maths, English or economics but can only be dispelled to its own plane for about 5 years at a time. Buffy, save us!)
I say bugger mature realism. In my 'immature' fantasy worlds, I can be Robin Hood, Lancelot, Clark Kent, Merlin, Circe, The Marquis De Sade or anyone else I want to be. And I will definitely have more fun than all those greys. Because I will enjoy having made a stand for good (or evil).
Bwaah-hah-haah-hah!
- Not quite sure what the catch phrase would be for greysters - "Careful or I will vaguely disapprove of you..." or even "Tut , tut!"
And I love rolling dice too. Lots of them. All the time. Possibly loaded if the GM isn't paying attention. Cos cheating is fun too. My gaming buddies of 20 odd years think the same way too. You'll stop us rolling when you prise them from our cold dead hands.
- Greyshirakwa
Gotta agree with you for the most part, Greyshirakwa. Don't really know the dirt on Thatcher, but if she was as much like our Georgey as she sounds, please: send out that call for Buffy! I'm so mortified Americans are seriously considering giving this thing four more years at the helm.
I do think the shades of gray are more abundant in real life than you seem to. Every story has at least two sides, and that's the side of the story I'm stickin' to. But...
I'm one of those people you're talking about who's been in the trenches of society, and seen how black the human soul can get. Not as a soldier or a police officer, but as someone who was constantly getting told by police officers they'd never, ever want his job.
To make a long and complex story short, I've seen -- up-close and personal -- exactly what becomes of kids who never get taught right from wrong, and it soooooo ain't pretty. I've also had brushes with the home lives that produced those kids, and usually they're even uglier. The family of one girl I worked with had made national headlines for the things they did to their kids.
So, yeah: don't go telling me (or my kids!) there's no such thing as evil in real life, because it's there, and it can get as bad as any villain that ever came out of a horror writer's twisted little mind.
Greyshirakwa: I'll assume that you're quoting me. Took me a fair bit of time though, given that you neither said who your were quoting nor quoted correctly. I'm not criticizing this so much as pointing out that you should quote properly if you want answers. :)
""Good and Evil is just a viewpoint"
- You need to get out more. Go and be a social worker in child protection for awhile or a copper. Yep there are shades of grey, but there is a heck of a lot more black and white. You do know that, don't you?"
I know that evil exists _as I see it_, Grey. I believe I made that fairly clear. Because "evil" _is_ a viewpoint, your attempt at being patronizing nonwithstanding. The word "evil" means something very very different to, for example, a religious fundamentalist than it does to someone like me. I have had the thoroughly unpleasant experience of friends of mine declaring homosexuality evil. Why? Because they deemed it a sin in the eyes of God. Other people gladly attack minorities because that's what has to be done - that's "good" in their eyes. Yet other people simplify their worldview in order to paint all people they disagree with as "evil".
And this last group frequently use your arguments, by the way. "Can't you see? They're evil! It's so OBVIOUS!"
"Or introduce your 13 and 9 year old sons to gaming. Then see if you want to teach them right and wrong in the game or "it's all relative"."
...now you're getting unpleasant. The fact that you can't or won't understand how people find different things evil will have to stand for you and you alone. That you want to infer that I see all things "relative", and that this inescapably means I think it's all OKAY to do... that's just insulting.
No. Sorry. I prefer something called "ethics". I have a set of my very own. This is what I would teach my children, too - I'd tell them what I felt was good and evil, and if they opposed this viewpoint too strongly, I would attempt to reeducate them strongly.
"And why would running a campaign around absolute good and absolute evil be 2-dimensional. (My French grandad fought absolute evil in the shape of Nazi occupation in WW2 Paris. Running guns sewn into fur coats....not too boring or 2-D for him. By night a plucky resistance fighter, by day a furrier....)"
No. Your grandfather fought people, who performed acts he and I would call evil. It was the Nazis, to their mind, who fought "absolute evil". That was at the core of their beliefs. That was what made it right in their eyes to exterminate, to torture, and to conquer. That... is the philosophy of absolute good and absolute evil in a nutshell.
Evil isn't a tangible thing. To me evil occurs when actions, either mine or that of other people, clash with my ethics. That is when I draw my sword, and if that happens, I make damn sure my aim is true.
Because broadly painting all opposition as evil because they have instigated atrocity is, well, infantile, fascist, and overly convenient. The last part being the most detrimental to an interesting role playing session.
"All games have supported as much black and white or grey as the GM and players have wanted since day 1 of gaming.. It's always been the campaign which mattered. The mechanics are irrelevant to this."
Of course not. The rules have always served to emphasise aspects of the game and steer it in a direction desired by its designers. Examples abound - the fighting system in D&D is designed to promote teamwork, giving rise to the "party". And in D&D we have... the alignment. It cuts away most of the dilemmas associated with not knowing the right course of action when encountering people. In other words, it affects black and white contra grayscale DIRECTLY.
Black and white does not mean absence of depth, even at the extremities. Motivation is depth. Reason for being is depth. Most of this talk of Mature gaming is ridiculous. It is puerile (look it up) at best and headonistic at its worst.
Mature is just the new buzz word for rape, murder, pillage and loot, without consequence. Its just big explosions and do what ever you like until you die. Don't worry you'll respawn in 3... 2... 1... Back to the carnage!
How difficult is it for a palladin to make it through life without succumbing to temtptation... every single day? What is it like for a Lawful Evil person to have to live in a predominately good kingdom? For that matter, just how long do you think it would be before the city watch or a group of civically minded citizens tracks down the party of "Mature" chatacters and puts and end to them?
Immagination is the key. Consider concepts from another angle. Don't be a cynicall know it all, be your character. Get into it. Your first level character might not know that good is dumb and boring. Fighting to save your home from maurauding monsters isn't boring, it's survival.
So much of gaming depends not on the game, but the ability of its players to actually play the game and the DM's ability to move each chapter of the story to its logical conclusion.
We've all been there. Some skilletheaded montyhauler wants to be billy badass and the smallminded rulesmongers have to try to take him on instead of letting the DM lay out some serious consequences on ol' billy boy for his actions.
More games/gameing groups have died because of people who were more interested in trying to compensate for their real life inadequsies by creating godlike characters (hello 3.5 Half celestial paladin pc)and lording it over the other players than actually playing the game.
Mature gaming is fine... if everyone you're playing with is mature enough to understand what the word actually means.
Sorry, but I still can't see what you're on about. Your article seems to focus on three separate dichotomies:
- Mature themes/setting vs. "all ages" themes/setting
- Moral absolutes vs. moral ambiguity
- Fun vs. not-fun
None of these has any particular correlation with the others, but you mix them freely, claiming that mature games are also morally ambiguous and not-fun.. claims that are obviously false.
Here, your views on realism and its place in gaming are puzzling, to say the least. Aside from trying to defend your legless correlation between maturity, moral ambiguity, and not-fun, your assertion that such games are too much like real life to represent an escape is ridiculous.
In my real life, I am not a mercenary assassin, a selfish wizard, or a down-and-out spacer with artficial arms struggling with survival and drug addiction in a Martian slum. I don't kidnap people, blow shit up, or masquerade as a security guard. The games I play, while they may have realistic elements, are nothing like the "real life" that I experience, and are certainly more interesting than my own personal quests (which include such epic fodder as "find a new job", "try to see my very busy girlfriend", and "decide what to make for dinner").
Even if I were to play a game that was completely mundane and much like my own real life (and leaving out the question of *why* I would play such a game), the fact that it's a game affords me the opportunity to do things and behave in ways that I wouldn't do in my own life. That in itself would satisfy the demands of escapism.
Seriously, gamers are an aging population. Look at comics, video games, any escapist media... all of it is "growing up".
Yeah, you need to get out more.
Is the drug dealer, who deals to the coke addicted dancer , who was abused and neglected, then abused by her stepfather then kicked out by her alcholic mother for being raped by her latest boyfriend evil??
Which one of them are evil? Any? All? None? The coca plant growers? Their masters? The Columbian Cartel? The drug running Trafficantes? The whiskey distillers? Jerry Springer for Showing the girl's story, and profiting from it?
All a point of view, you say. View down the barrel of the dealer's gun, and tell people there's no evil, in the millisecond between when the trigger is pulled, and your brains see the light of day, because standing there, figuring where you stand in your relativist viewpoint, he figures you for a narc, and smokes you.
The world is grey. And there is evil. It doesn't have an alignment sign, too bad.
And the fighting system in D&D was not designed to promote teamwork, it evolved from Lord of the Rings, and wargaming, so that there could be a Gandalf figure in the napoleonics minutres sand table.
Grey, except for the part about cheating, I totally agree with you.
(Former Soldier, 100% disabled in Gulf War I, fighting the evil that you say doesn't exist.)
i don't get it. are you saying that evil exists because drug dealers kill narcs?
narcs kill drug dealers, too. does that make them evil?
Games are for children some might say, but today's games make adults out of children sometimes faster than they should. Parents have to be cautious in what they allow there kids to play. There are plenty of good games on the market for all age groups.
Simple movies like The Neverending Story are good for childrens imagination and help them be creative.
Parents, take time out for the kids.
I've been a gamer for many years now, first computer games and then roleplay, online and table-top. My favourite characters have been the morally ambiguous ones, both PCs I played and others' PCs or NPCs. I like to be drawn into a story, to grow to love the characters, not because they're 'good' or 'evil', but because they are characters. I can't love characters that are completely one way or the other because there's something inhuman about them. One of the things that makes us human is our flaws, and when I come across a character who is totally good, I immediately suspect he had something to hide.
I want my characters to have flaws that they struggle with, vices that get them into trouble from time to time. I want them to develop through campaigns so that by the end they're more than just a set of stats on a sheet of paper.
For example the character that I enjoyed playing the most was a character that a fan of black and white morality would put firmly in the evil slot. He was a sadistic war veteran, who had tortured and killed enemy combatants during the war. Now the war was over, he had stopped doing it to people and found animals to get his kick from seeing others in pain. As the game progressed parts of his back-story came out, that he was the product of his upbringing. His father used to beat his mother in front of him when he was young, and when he came of age his father had made him beat his own mother. At the end of the first campaign he ended up on a prison world, and after walking away from the buildings (it was a cold wasteland, and there was no way off, so there was no need for the guards to chase him) he ended up living on his own in a cave. By the next campaign he had learned to control his sadistic urges, and had found companionship in the form of a wolf. Over time he found forgiveness from his mother and tracked down his sadistic father. When he died I was cut up in a way I hadn't been for my other characters. I think this was because unlike my other characters, who had mainly remained unchanging, he had overcome his flaws, and had become, I would say, a good person.
On another note, why are people so hooked on the idea of GTA being a mature game with no humour? The series has always had a wry humour underlying it, which is one of the reasons I buy GTA games, and more than likely one of the major reasons that it out-sells games like The Getaway and Driver. Yes its mature, its rated '18', but its still great fun.
I'm pleased to see the idea of 'good-guys vs bad-guys' fade away in gaming as well as in films and television.
As a child I learnt that there was good and there was evil, and some people were good and some evil and that was all there was to it. Imagine how surprised I was when I started to understand a little more about the world we live in. There are good acts and there are evil acts, and there is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, and doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, and there is black and there is white, and there is a sliding scale all the way between them.