A few thoughts on Role Play games

Well, although this week we have been talking about cool i would like to throw something completely different into the subject ring.



Role Play games and the grip they seem to hold on many people. My boyfriend being one of them, a couple of nights ago, (i can only admit this because heather has given me the leway by re-iterating in our seminar that geek is now apparently cool- i'm always the last to know these things!) after playing the same gam for almost the entirity of the day when i got into bed that night he was still playing. After asking him if he could save the game and stop playing it (the clicking of the keyboard and mouse is enough to send anyone trying to sleep completely crazy!) he explained that as he couldn't save the game mid-battle he would have to spend a few minutes running the battle through, although to get it done quickly he would have to submit to a few extra casualties.



As a woman who's love of computer games stops at sonic the hedgehog (the original, and even then only the first four levels because i have never had that desire to finish the game) i could presumably be forgiven for hurrying him along to grasp every moment of his attention before sleep took hold. Although instead i immediately told him that he shouldn't harm his game, or more iportantly the character he has worked so hard to build and mould. This surprised me as i was unaware that it was possible for me to feel sucha deep seated sense of empathy for a character in a video game, even if that character is a form of personification of the man i love.



This empathy has definately come from a greater understanding of the ability and time that role play games require for successful outcomes. Across the internet one can find a multitude of sights that hold online dungeons and dragons games (a game based aroung chance in the form of dice rolls.) many role play video games are based aroung the logics of dungeons and dragons and there is a surprising amount of effort put in to make them play more and more like a real D&D game, with the amalgamation of the interests and imagination of it's players.

The point i am making here, is that there is a strange sense of empathy i feel towards my boyfriend's virtual characters. There is no real reason fort his except the fact that i love him and somehow these characters have become a part of him, or have been created from him (dependent on the game and how much the character can be produced by the player). This empathy can also be seen in 'American Dad', an american tv series spawned from family guy. In the second series there is an episode called 'dungeons and wagons' in which we as an audience are able to explore steve's world within internet role play games. The episode begins with steve and his friends playing the game within reality and remaining in character. When Steve's sister Hayley dumps her boyfriend Jeff he gets drawn into Steve's world as a form of escapism. This produces a form of jealousy within Hayley as if she has lost her ex boyfriend to a virtual world that is more interesting than the real. Hayley destroys her brother with the help of the family fish, but then feels so bad about ruining his life and making him start all over again with his character that she works with Jeff to go on an extensive journey in order to revive her brother's character. The main part of this episode that effected me was the fact that Hayley was so cut up about Steve's character that she felt the need to spend her time givin her brother back what she took form him. Within teenagers i have the feeling that this empathy would have to be double that in an adult for the fact that often siblings become rivals within teenage years.

I don't know quite how to deal with this realisation that i actually care about a fictional character i know nothing about. I am an avid reader and so i am used to the idea of caring for a fictional character. Although i am also not exactly a virtuality kid. Before this week i seemed unaware of the reality of the extent that virtual performance in the form of gaming has already infultrated my life.