So when it comes to RPGs, I am the bad guy. I am always the bad guy. I think this has something to do with the fact that I am not the bad guy in real life. I've almost always been the "good" kid. I was the churchy kid. I was the kid that didn't ever have to refuse drugs, because someone else would always do it for me. Someone else saying "he doesn't do that stuff" is a pretty easy way to deal with peer pressure.
But in RPGs, it's different. I am the Sith Lord that force chokes wookiees so that I don't have to try to talk answers out of them. I choose the red saber. Preferably two of them. And I put them to good use. In Fable (and Fable 2) my character has nasty looking horns. He is also rich, because he owns everything he can buy and exploits people. This may even be why I play Horde. (Yes, I know that Horde isn't "evil," but when you compare them to the Alliance, they are at the very least "not as good!")
When you consider all that with the title of this post, you might wonder: "is he evil?" It's a good question, but I humbly express that the answer is "no." However, that is because in those games I am simply fighting (killing, lightninging, roughing up, etc) NPCs. They are lifeless and soulless. They are a bunch of numbers that somehow put together make a graphical representation of Artificial Intelligence (usually not very much). There is nobody on the other side of the screen. I am not hurting anybody's anything. In fact, I am playing the game how it was meant to be played. I am enjoying game mechanics that somebody spent time to create. I am experiencing their art.
The same cannot be said of an MMORPG, though. In a Massively MULTI-PLAYER Online Role Playing Game, almost everything you do affects someone else. There are people behind the pixels. Those people have varying reasons why they are playing this game. Some of them are playing to get away. They had busy and stressful days. Some of them are playing for fun. They enjoy this game and want to experience all of the great things it has for us. Some of them are playing as a "second life" (thankfully not playing Second Life itself).
None of them are playing to be grieved. None of them are playing to have their loot ninja'd. None of them are playing because they want to spend a whole instance reading you complain about how they are undergeared and you are holding your group back. They don't want you to tell them how stupid they are for tanking as Unholy.
This can be difficult for me. I am used to being the bad guy in my RPGs. I am used to doing whatever I need to do to finish the quest and get the loot. If I translate that into WoW, that means if kicking the slightly undergeared healer in my random will get things done faster, I might as well do it. If I translate that into WoW, it means that ninja'ing that T10 piece from VoA is just an effect of my "being the bad guy to get things done" attitude.
Now, I don't honestly struggle with a ninja'ing problem. To me, ninja-looters are a plague on WoW. I despise them, so it is not difficult for me to avoid it. However, I do have a tendency to get annoyed with undergeared (or underinformed) players. I have a tendency to want to go back to my "jerk" methods of getting things done. It is a video game. It is an RPG. That is how I play RPGs. But if I can do my best to remember there is a person behind that toon, I can gain a level of self control.
As you may have noticed, up to this point, this article has focused on not being "bad." However, there is more to character than what you don't do. The positive things you do can reflect positive character as well. Maybe it means you shoot a few gold to the person who you can tell is truly new to the game. Maybe you give them advice/show them where to complete a quest/take them for a ride on your mammoth.
A situation happened like this with my wife the other day. She was in STV, and there was a lowbie trying to do a quest that she had done a little bit back. She remembered how irritating the quest could be, with multiple mobs aggroing. So she decided to help the guy. She healed him through his multi-pulls and was able to give him a few tips on how to get it done. When I got home, she was so excited at what she had done. She was also a little bit embarrassed at her excitement. After all, should she really be that excited after having helped a pixel in a videogame? The answer, in my opinion, is yes. She helped that person enjoy this game for whatever reason they were playing it. She made their day better.
In church we have a saying: "character is what you do when nobody knows you're doing it." Honestly, that saying doesn't really carry many religious connotations. It could be said of anyone. In a game like WoW, there are always opportunities to treat people poorly or well. Those people have no idea who you are. In general, you could be a complete jerk and nobody in your real life would ever even know about it. In that way, I think how you interact with others in WoW says a great deal about who you truly are. That's a humbling thought for me, and I hope to try to do better from here on out.
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
ReplyDeleteThe way I see it, who you are on the inside and how the world sees you can be two completely different people. A character can be just like a mask. Hiding the superficial characteristics that define who we are day to day can reveal the underlying inner workings of a person. As our thoughts, hopes and dreams are no longer bound by the limits of society, the end result is not merely a reflection of ourselves, but a reflection of our true selves as we really wish to be.
Interesting perspective on this. I'm similar to you in the whole "good guy irl" thing; I put up with a lot and greet it with just a smile or a laugh, and do or don't do things because I feel they are right or wrong.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I find it hard to be evil in video games when presented with the option, at least in RPGs where I have some sort of actual emotional investment in my character. Oh sure, in games that fail to make that connection to me I'll be the one pushing people over and murdering people in any number of hilarious ways, but that's because I understand at that point that I don't care about this character's story or what happens, and devote myself to enjoying the game in a way that doesn't necessarily involve the story.
However, when really truly playing an RPG as just that, a role playing game, I have a hard time roleplaying the bad guy. It's not that I don't want to experience the game from that other perspective; it's that sometimes I simply don't want to nuke Megaton.
"It's not that I don't want to experience the game from that other perspective; it's that sometimes I simply don't want to nuke Megaton."
ReplyDeleteWhich is the first thing I did out of the vault in Fallout 3, by the way...
Lol.
someone once told me: If I could use the force, as soon as I got my lightsaber I'd be chopping away trying to lop off Yoda's head. I can see this to some extent in video games, but I also agree, when there is another person on the other end, be nice, unless they are a tool.
ReplyDeleteThat said, after my teenage years I started to not want to kill npcs on sight for those LOVELY dark side points, and grew happier while helping that pixel find his lost kitty.
All though...is it more evil to kill the boy outright, or find his kitty, then kill the kitty infront of the boy?
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ReplyDeleteI always want to play the good guy in RPGS. Go go alliance, Jedi, and may the Force be with me.
ReplyDeleteYou iterate the double-edged sword that games represent. In one sense, you don't want to be a jerk and boot a guy from the group because he's under-geared and underpowered. On the other hand, it is a game, and half the point of the game is winning... (the other half is the social interactions).
I loved my time on the alliance and I would interact and even RP with random people to get my kicks. At 60, with nothing to do, I wouldn't mind spending a few hours each night riding through Red Ridge helping people do their quests, and generally be the nice guy.
So if I hid my characteristics behind a veil of goodness, and you Spencer tell me that you are nothing like your character...does that make me truly evil inside?
I do like watching kittens suffer.