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Mechanical vs. Fictional Character Attributes Self Expression vs. Role Playing

Self Expression vs. Role Playing

Players are always asking for more story. Many players - especially in the CRPG field - claim to be tired of one-line throwaway stories seemingly written only to justify the game's existence in the first place. ("You're the last living person on a space station filled with hostile robots and mutants and you must fight your way to the exit or die!") However, players who make this request often miss the fact that more story ultimately means less freedom. Stories need to be told, and being told what happens can preclude determining your own fate.

I believe that computer games, as a medium, should play to their strengths rather than merely attempting to bring the elements of traditional media to the computer screen. In other words, computer games should provide the player with an interesting environment, over which she has some measure of control, and that environment should be interesting and interactive. This, rather than traditional story telling, is the unique power of the computer game as an art form.

If computer games are a vehicle for user self-expression, the lightweight, one-liner story used by so many games is in many ways a brilliant convention. It is just significant enough to allow the player to immerse himself in the context of a game, to suspend his disbelief, and it is free-form enough to allow the player to dictate his own story through his actions. ("Your father has been murdered. You must find the killer. Enough said.") Too much story can be restrictive.

There is a similar trade-off with character definition. If a designer provides lots of backstory for a player-character, the game's fictional world is made richer and the player-character fits into that world in a more integral manner. On the other hand, this level of backstory can hamper the player's ability to immerse himself in a game, since a strongly defined player-character identity is probably at odds with the identity of the player himself. If the goal of the game is immersion - that is, if it's the sort of game where the experience is most powerful when a player forgets he is playing a game and feels as if he is actually in the game's environment - then excessive back-story can act as a nagging reminder that it's not really him exploring the world, but rather, "Gordon Freeman, MIT graduate."

Player-characters come in many forms, and in many levels of complexity and completeness. In some games, the concept of character is only vaguely present. For instance, there may only be an assumed character, sitting perhaps in the pilot's seat of a helicopter but never actually seen. In a situation such as this, character back-story is completely unnecessary.

Despite his long-lasting fame, very little about Mario's personal life is actually known.

In other games, such as tactical games and certain RPGs, character is nothing more than a set of numbers. (HP, MP, Speed, etc.) In this case, back-story serves only to explain the state of these numbers, to serve as a bridge between a player (who is not made of numbers) and the character on the screen (who must be.) In other games, the character is a fictional individual, but still only loosely defined. Mario, from Nintendo's well-known series, is a good example. He's short, wears overalls, has a mustache, and is Italian. But barring a few family ties and rivalries, that's essentially all we know. Who his parents were, where he was educated, what sort of drinks he likes and what motivated him to go into plumbing are details that are meaningless for in scope of that character's games, and would seem a little silly if revealed.

Other times, such, as with Gabriel Knight, a character is highly defined and fits perfectly into his fictional world. New Orleans is his home and he is an archetypal Southerner. Lara Croft, perhaps to a lesser extent, represents this sort of approach to character - she is a wealthy English woman. These characters have obvious marketing benefits, and it is easier for the public to come to "know" such a character - or to covet her body - but these elements still only contribute to overall experience, and not to game-play. And there are trade-offs for using such well-defined characters. Taking on the role of another, someone with predetermined characteristics, is directly odds with expressing one's own selfhood through gaming. This is all good and well if you're into role playing games for their own merits, but if you're playing a game for the game-play itself, and are forced into another person's shoes, you might find that they're not a perfect fit.

People who prefer the RPG experience seem to do so for one of three reasons. These enjoy a well-integrated story; they like stepping outside themselves and being someone else for a while; or they simply don't want to merge their gaming experience with their owns selves. (From an intellectual standpoint, I believe that making choices based on the motives of a simplistic fictional character is easier than making choices in accordance with one's own, more complex self. The predetermined persona is, of course, usually simpler than the real person playing the game.) But being yourself within the scope of a game requires a level of commitment and personal sincerity that is often removed by substituting a fictional character for a projected version of the self. An undeveloped back story truly does have advantages.

Conclusion

Years ago, as a writer who loved video games, I thought of games as an offshoot of fiction, imagining that the two were closely tied. I no longer consider this the case. The more I work as a game designer (and the more I play and analyze games), the more I conclude that this perceived connection between fiction and games is an illusion. They are superficially similar because people, being storytellers, wrap the game experiences in a story-based context. At the root level, the experience of taking in a story of some sort is very different from the more active nature of playing a game.

Predefined roles in games have great merit in certain situations. But such characters can also violate one's sense of self and detract from the gaming experience. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, dropping the need to define a player's character, and letting the player travel through a game world in the vehicle of his own imagination, creates an experience that is often missed in today's gaming world.

During his hellish early years on the Texas Gulf Coast (surrounded by evil shrimpers and gloomy chemical plants), Harvey's sanity was (narrowly) preserved through years of non-stop gaming and subcultural pursuits. Only through this massive assimilation of SF/Fantasy books, computer/video games, paper RPGs and mope rock did he manage to evolve into the fey being he is today. He makes his home in Austin, Texas because he has a lick of sense. He eats nothing but Tex-Mex and fried seafood, and he is a 6th generation Texan. Harvey can be reached at witchboy@io.com.