For centuries, humans have designed and played games - from
the mentally engaging game of Chess to the physically demanding game of
Football. Games such as these provide a venue for competition and stimulate
growth in the players, whether it be intellectually or bodily. In 1974, Gary
Gygax and Dave Arneson published a new type of fantasy tabletop role-playing
game (RPG) called Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).
Games like D&D depart from traditional mass-battle war games
and, instead, assign each player a specific character to represent. A player’s
character then embarks upon an adventure within an imaginary fantasy setting. A
story teller, also known as a Game Master or Dungeon Master, serves as the
game's referee and moderator. He or she maintains
the setting in which the adventure occurs, as well as role-playing any
non-player characters (NPCs). The players’ characters form an adventuring party
who interact, individually and as a group, with the NPCs and each other.
Together they solve dilemmas, engage in battles, and gather treasure and
knowledge. Over a series of game sessions, players’ characters earn experience
points to become increasingly powerful. Through it all, players constantly
evaluate what is the best course of action, practically and ethically. To help players
make these choices, the game provides a character attribute called alignment.
Richard Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds noted that
alignment is a way to categorize players' characters, along with gender, race,
character class, and sometimes nationality. Alignment was designed to help
define role-playing. A character's alignment categorizes their outlook on life.
A player decides how a character should behave by choosing an alignment and
should then play the character in accordance with that alignment.
Alignment is a guideline to a system of values. These values are what the character believes are
the definition of “good”. Alignment is
the guideline to vices that define “evil”.
RPGs give players the perfect set of tools to adopt a value system that
is like their own, or slightly different. All the variations of alignments use
the human template as the reference point. For example, a lawful good character
is compared to the righteous knights of Medieval times, or the noble Police
officer of today. Even with the
deviations of race in RPGs, the values exercised by those characters are the
same values we understand from our human
experience. The further a character’s
race gets from this human reference point, the less meaningful their alignment
is. As players, how can we relate to the
value system of a rock creature whose ideals have nothing to do with anything
from our experience as human players?
There is no exercising of the soul when said rock creature makes a
choice in the game. It doesn’t impact us
as players, it becomes only a trite mechanic.
The conflict of good versus evil is a common motif in
D&D and other fantasy fiction. Although players’ character can adventure
for personal gain, rather than from altruistic motives, it is generally assumed
that the players’ character will be opposed to evil and will tend to fight against
evil creatures. However, there should be
more to the game than a black and white approach to the moral dilemmas. If choices were easy to make, they would not count
as dilemmas at all. Nor would the act of choosing really exist. As a player,
one would be strictly following the alignment of their character with little
freedom to deviate. If that was the type of game one wanted to play, there are
much better systems in which to do so. Namely, video games.
The true potential of RPGs is found in the vast number of
conundrums in which a character finds themselves and for which there is no
easy, right answer. Tension is created around the table when players realize
their character must suffer the consequence of making a choice that will result
in a difficult future. Making the hard
choice is the epitome of what makes a hero heroic. True heroism isn’t running fast, climbing
far, or even sticking a sword into the gut of the raging monster. Heroism is
making the choice to perform a “good” deed with full knowledge of the potential
harm to oneself. In the US ARMY, a few
Soldiers are decorated with the Medal of Honor, the highest award
possible. The Soldiers who have earned
this recognition didn’t do so because they were super strong, exceptionally
fast, or brilliantly intelligent. They earned the Medal of Honor because they
made choices and acted upon them with the knowledge of the potential deadly
consequences and consistent devotion to a value system. RPG heroes should be
the same.
To do so, the Game Master should design an adventure to include
difficult situations focusing on moral decision making. While many games allow us to experience the
joy of vanquishing a foe, only RPGs allow us the experience of questioning
whether or not we SHOULD vanquish the foe. And, if we should, what are the myriad of
consequences to doing so?
“And they lived happily ever after” isn’t the conclusion of
true heroics.
Consider the game Dark
Souls. It’s a challenging video game
that pits the player against the minions of evil, culminating in a fight against
the grand boss. Dark Souls is much like the table top board games Dungeon Saga, Descent,
Wrath of Ashardalon, and numerous others that depict a dungeon crawl. The satisfaction of killing evil monsters is
entertaining, for sure. Sharing the
experience with the other players around the table also heightens one’s
enjoyment. Yet, at no time do we experience
the level of moral complexity that a RPG provides.
In a role-playing game, we should share the experience of not
only adventure, but the angst of moral dilemmas. THAT is a truly bonding experience!
That is the dynamic which separates RPG groups from other gaming groups. The
role-playing game celebrates the act of being “heroic”, where as other games
celebrate being “efficient”. On the moral battlefield, efficiently slaying all
that stand before you is rarely the “good” course of action. If there is no morality to explore, we might
as well play one of the many games that expertly provide the black and white “kill
all the things” dynamics.
Imagine the adventure dynamic as lived by the modern-day ground
troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. Superimpose
the concept of “adventuring party” with the terms patrol, squad, or fire team. It is common for a patrol to travel in
hostile territory, while armed with deadly weapons and body armor. Much like a
wizard, able to shoot magic missiles to kill whatever opposes him, the modern-day
Soldier points his M-4, squeezes the trigger and, most likely, kills whatever opposes
him. Yet, the Soldier doesn’t have the
freedom to just point and shoot, even when surrounded by hostile villagers, or
unarmed enemies. In his case, the “bad
guys” look just like all the innocent NPCs that inhabit the area. Additionally,
he is keenly aware that killing someone has huge repercussions, not only to
himself, but to his squad, his ARMY, and his nation. Every single day, the modern-day Soldier lives
a life of an adventurer and yet doesn’t run around “hobo-killing”, like we often
see in RPGs. This tension, this danger,
this moral restraint, could, and should, be pursued in role-playing games.
Using a common situation in Iraq, let’s contrast what happens
in RPGs vs. real adventures. Imagine
your adventuring party enters a town that is known to serve as a refuge for
local “evil” war band. While a few of the town’s inhabitants are happy that you
are there to provide security, and enforce law, most them resent that you are
projecting your own values on their culture and occupying their town by force.
Then, there are the members of the war band themselves; they don’t want you
there and are dedicated to not only pushing you out of town, but want to kill
you in the process. Imagine that the
members of these factions look the same to you. You can’t tell who is the
friend and who is foe.
While on a standard patrol through the town, one member of
your adventuring party is mortally shot by a man who sniped from a second story
window. The sniper is able to duck
inside before anyone in your party gets a good look at him. But, you know which house he is in. Your first choice is, what do you do with
your slain party member? Second, do you
assault the house of the shooter, or do you leave the area? If you assault, what do you do when you burst
in the house and see a family with numerous women, children and elderly? What do you do when you discover a crossbow,
and other weapons, (all legally owned)? What
do you do when everyone in the house swears they didn’t shoot anyone and they
love that you are there to save their town. You are now is a situation where
your actions will have great consequences no matter what you choose to do. Imagine if the shooter of the crossbow was
actually a 13-year-old girl.
It is this type of moral dilemma that reveals heroes from
the “hobo killers”. Sadly, a typical
group of gamers would think nothing of slaughtering the whole family. And, even
worse, the typical game master would fail to describe the consequences of that
action. The game master should answer the question, “to whom are the characters
held accountable (besides their own moral compass). To which institution do they have to answer?” Paladins have their holy military orders,
Clerics have their churches. Even thieves might have a powerful guild that judges
their every move.
Role playing games should be more than rolling
D20s. They should be more than accumulating experience points, +1s, and
leveling up. Role playing games have a
potential that no other game system can offer.
It is our obligation to utilize that potential.
