The evolution of the RPG... and me.

A year or two ago, I (rather infamously) drew my line in the sand: I do not like party-based games, I declared, and never had.

Following this assertion (brought on at that moment by disliking Dragon Age: Origins), I've played both Mass Effect games, am currently in the midst of Chrono Cross, and just devoured the entirety of Dragon Age 2 in a few days.  And yet in many ways I stand by my original statement -- so what's changed?

I'll be honest, lady rogue Hawke pretty much always took Fenris, Varric, and Merrill, by the middle of Act II.

I'll admit that in part, I've changed.  Though I've been loving games and digital worlds since I was a kid, my consumption of various game types has really ramped up in the last three years and I've been exposed to, and learned patience for, some kinds of game design that I hadn't gained wide experience with before.  Game appreciation, like film appreciation, is tied to a sense of time and place, and an understanding of the history of the art.  My sense of history is still developing.

Crucially, though, the games themselves have also been evolving.  The difference in feel between Dragon Age: Origins, which hearkens back to an older era of games, and Dragon Age 2, which feels very modern, really crystallizes that evolution for me.  Thanks in large part (though not solely) to BioWare's recent design choices, I've been able to narrow down a bit what it is I actually hate about party based gaming.

In a word?  Micromanagement.

For some people, this is fun. I will never truly understand those people.

For me, the joy of playing has never been in the numbers, the tactics, or the methodical min/max situation.  I am fundamentally a lazy gamer: I don't want to control a hundred things at once.  I'm willing to be responsible for one character and for her tactics, skills, attributes, gear, inventory, and personality.  I tend to gravitate toward one character type and I tend to play that type the same way across games.* I like passive skills and quick kills, and I prefer not having to overthink every single character placement or tactical choice.

If I'm playing a game where character development is the focus -- in broad strokes, the RPG genre -- then what I want is to take control of my avatar and to understand and master her personality and talents.  I don't want to be responsible for controlling others.  It's a selfish impulse ("don't be dead weight I have to drag around") but also a self-protective one ("I just can't manage both of us correctly at once; you'll get short shrift").

My aversion to having to worry what others are up to has led to some downright comical contortions. During my EverQuest II years, I was three solid months into the game and level 28 (back when it was much less solo-friendly)  before I ever joined a group.  The folks I grouped with were all in the same guild and I joined up with them a few days later.  That's how I eventually discovered the pleasure of watching a plan laid and executed with a minimum of communication.  Everyone knew their roles: tanks took the hits, healers healed, chanters controlled crowds, and DPS damaged things.  Sure, for special bosses or raid zones (or one memorable five-Fury group) we discussed strategy at greater length, but each character always knew her role because each was controlled by an autonomous being somewhere, an individual man or woman at a keyboard just like me.

Some of those raid strategies worked better than others. Running a new x2 zone on Test, June '05.

When handed Divinity II and Dragon Age: Origins in the same week, I gravitated to the former because I could simply strike out into the world as I pleased, without worrying about what others wanted, needed, or thought of me.  I've been bored, in the past, with having to make the rounds among companions and crew to check in on each and every one of them and their personal needs.

I've been thinking about the "why" a great deal over the past week.  I think it's because for a long time, in many of the games I played, companion characters' personal needs either felt mechanical, pointless, or kind of unhinged.  That's a personal assertion, and not necessarily a quality-of-games one; it has to do with my own particular wiring.  As much as I hate to admit it, because I'm a book-lover through and through and an imaginative one at that, I think what's actually hooking me into this new RPG era is the voice-over work.

When I play a game like Chrono Trigger or Chrono Cross, everyone sort of sounds the same.  Yes, I imagine characters speaking differently, with different cadences, accents, and mannerisms, but in the end every voice is still, on some level, mine.  I can't give other characters inflection that I can't imagine and active as my imagination is, in a text-only world my interpretations might run counter to the scene's intent.

In fact, I'm running into this fairly often in Dragon Age: Origins, which I'm now giving another try.**  With an unvoiced Grey Warden, it's up to me to guess whether a comment she can make is sarcastic or genuine, and whether that comment is made jokingly or earnestly.  As a result, other characters' responses are not necessarily what I expect or what I'm aiming for.  I've run into some disapproval situations that I didn't see coming, because I didn't realize the Warden was going to be perceived as confrontational rather than as politely direct.  (Also because Morrigan disapproves of roughly everything.)

And when Morrigan disapproves, she lights you on fire. It's just her way.

Having companions find their voices has upended the way I view these NPCs in my games.  It's an emotional connection to the narrative and its world that isn't a new concept, but that makes me personally care a great deal more.  Even in a silent protagonist, fundamentally single-player game like Fallout: New Vegas, companion voices make me feel differently and realign my priorities.  I want to earn Boone's respect, not his easily-granted disgust.  Hearing Arcade move from self-effacing sarcasm to honesty over time makes me feel trustworthy.  Disappointing Veronica makes me feel like I've kicked a puppy.  And actually getting to hear Christine talk and explain, after she had been rather violently robbed of her voice, is deeply satisfying.

The recent BioWare titles (the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises) have done a rather extraordinary job of surrounding me with characters I care about.  Between advancements in game tech and a strong investment in decent writing, I'm able to immerse myself in the illusion that my [Hawke / Shepard / Warden] is surrounded by other people, as real as my intervention has made the PC, with their own voices, stories, and personalities.  And they can control themselves.

Should I be so inclined I could order Garrus which baddies to shoot and when, but I never have to.  (I choose not to play on difficulty settings where that level of tactics would be required.)  I can take control of Isabela or Aveline, or issue direct commands to them, but I don't have to.  Without very much intervention (adding health potions to their tactics), Fenris knows how to watch my back and stupid Anders knows how to heal the party as needed.  Varric doesn't need me to issue a complex set of numbers and commands in order to seriously own that crossbow.

The ability and choice for the player character to have intimate and meaningful one-on-one conversations with non-player-characters has reframed the way I relate to a game.  If I need to make a complex or consequential decision in Chrono Cross, I look at a guide, or I talk it over with a friend (i.e. the spouse) who has played the game before and can give me non-spoiler guidance.  But when I need to make a complex or consequential decision in a game like Dragon Age 2, I have Hawke talk to her friends.  They become her guides and, by extension, mine.  Does Aveline disapprove of a choice?  She must have a reason and it's worth asking her before I act.

I'm used to NPC companions either feeling burdensome or feeling invisible -- for all that I liked, say, Lucca and Frog in Chrono Trigger, taking their turns in combat just meant me moving through one list of all options, and switching party members roughly meant switching combat tactic options and not much else.  That both game design and I have reached a stage where player companions feel almost like MMO buddies has been revelatory.  For the first time, when given the choice I care more about my companions' quests, evolution, and goodwill than I do about exploring every corner of the world (though I still do) or about the main story (which always comes around again in due time).

I haven't always particularly enjoyed characters' quests (bite me, Anders) or supported their loyalty missions (you too, Zaeed).  But as this year in gaming starts to wind down, I'm realizing that now, the companion quests are the ones I want to appear more often.  I enjoy making it a point to wander around the Normandy, or around Kirkwall, or around the campfire.  Fenris, Anders, Aveline, Varric, Isabela, Merrill -- their stories, their trust and forgiveness (or betrayal), are what was important to me in Dragon Age 2.  And as I look toward 2012 and Mass Effect 3, I know that Shepard can stare down the Reaper threat, but what I really want is to be sure that Garrus, Liara, Wrex, and Tali will trust her and stand by her side while she does.

Until then, back to Chrono Cross, where Kid is Australian and Poshul is desperately annoying -- but everyone is as silent as Serge. 

*For the record, that type is rogue / thief / assassin, heavy on the stealth and dual-wield or, in a futuristic setting like ME, on sniper tactics.  Sneak-and-stab or sneak-and-shoot: if they see me coming I'm doing it wrong.

**Because seriously, I want to see if I can find out why [DA:O character who appears at the end of DA2 with Cassandra] shows up then and there, 6-7 years after the events of DA:O.  Context: I needs it.

~~~~~~~~~~

And for more discussion on party-based gaming, that happened to come up while I was in the middle of this personal meditation, see Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Horde on The Future of the Computer Role-Playing Game.

Tomb Raider

In my recent discussions of gender-related marketing missteps various companies made at E3, I highlighted the Tomb Raider demonstration that was part of the Microsoft press event.

Over the course of the week since E3 and since I wrote my first complaint on the matter, I've received rather a lot of push-back about that choice.  Some see and hear the same problems I did; others only see a 2012 game they're interested in playing, and question where offense might possibly be given.

Let me state clearly and up front: I do not know if I have a problem with this game.  I have not played it; no-one has.  It won't be available until 2012.  As it happens I quite like the genre (not to mention my interest in having more female protagonists) and so on a personal level I actually strongly hope that the game is better than its debut.  The important thing to understand is this: "I have problems with this marketing and with the way in which the designers and publishers chose to present this game and this character" is not the same statement as "this game sucks."

And in fact, I have problems with this marketing, and with the way in which the designers and publishers chose to present this game and this character.

Here's the demo in question:

My major objections mainly stem from the first 1:00 of the video.  Try this exercise: put on your headphones or speakers, hit "play," and then either close your eyes or bring up another window over the video so that you can't see it.

Would you be comfortable with someone hearing you listening to that, but unable to see your screen?  What do you think they'd think you're watching?  Do you hear a strong, in-charge, admirable protagonist?

I hear the victimization of a young woman.  I hear a vulnerable girl breathing heavily, in pain and in fear.  I hear unpleasant overtones and associations.  And what I hear makes me squirm in my seat uncomfortably, cringing, while I watch it to write this post -- because the way I hear it, I can't tell if the player is meant to be put in Lara's position, or to fetishize it.

And so that's where we begin: with Lara tied up, squirming, in shadows, and then moaning and screaming for the player's benefit.  This is our introduction to this character: bound, scared, and squealing.  It's the first we see of her, the opening line of the story this demo wants to tell us, the first impression.  It doesn't just happen along the way; this is where we come in.

I get that they want to replace the damsel in distress trope with the strong girl rescues herself one.  And I do approve of that message, in one way.  In another way, both add up to victimization of a female character, and that's a pattern our current stories don't exactly lack.

The issue is that while they've made Lara Croft a physically and visually strong and determined character (and I do appreciate her plausible physical build and sensible pants), they choose at every moment to undermine that with her screams, her fear, and her injuries.  I don't know of a similar male hero whose injuries, sustained while playing, are ever so graphically painful and detrimental.**

And as it happens, this year's E3 gave us as good an immediate compare-and-contrast as we're going to get.  The Uncharted franchise was inspired by Tomb Raider, and now the Tomb Raider reboot, in turn, owes some inspiration to Uncharted.  The Continuing Adventures of Nathan Drake, The Attractive Everyman Version of Lara, had a debut demo during Sony's press conference.

Listen to what they chose to present of Nathan Drake at the Sony press event: Drake grunts.  He groans.  He shouts.  He comments snarkily.  He exhibits strong displeasure with being shot at.  He suffers.  But he's not victimized.  Drake is an active agent in his own demo, choosing to be on the ship where the story we're shown begins.  It's not, "Oh no!  They must have heard me [screaming]!"  He doesn't want to be found, so he doesn't run around screaming.

In these five-minute videos, we see two different explorations of character.  With Drake, we see strength through action.  With Lara, we see "strength" created by showcasing vulnerability.  His demo opens with active behavior; hers opens with reactive behavior.  Can you imagine the two characters' roles reversed?  Because that's the real problem.  I can, in fact, and I would play those games -- but instead, we have yet another fragile woman.  This Lara Croft, in this demo, deliberately has a physical and emotional vulnerability that earlier incarnations of her character did not have, and that is not generally present in male characters.  It's not progressive just because they're doing it to Lara Croft; it's regressive because we've tread this ground before.

This desire to take our strong female player character and literally torture her isn't actually all in my head.  Or if it is, I'm certainly not the only one.  The Wikipedia entry on the game, at the time I write this, reads:

Fresh from academy and in search of lost relics, a 21-year-old Lara Croft journeys to an island off the coast of Japan aboard the Endurance, a salvage vessel helmed by Captain Conrad Roth. Before anchoring at bay, the ship is cleaved in two by an unforeseen storm leaving Lara separated from any other survivors and washed ashore. She must endure physical and emotional torture in order to survive the island.

Because it will someday change: screenshot - 4:00 p.m. EDT, 16 June 2011.

I don't know, and can't know right now, how truly representative either demo I've linked is of the games they are promoting.  It is entirely possible that Nathan Drake spends two hours tied up and tortured and that Lara Croft never again screams in 40 hours of narrative.  It'll be many months yet before anyone can have anything to say about the rebooted Lara Croft, adventurer and protagonist.  If the Wikipedia article is correct, however, her new game is another iteration on "let's torture the attractive young white girl" survival horror.

Set aside the future.  In the present, the now, I'm tired of this same-old, same-old in marketing and demonstration.  The line between "victim" and "survivor" is a tricky distinction to navigate, and frankly I don't trust most game designers to be up to the task.  Torturing a female character is not new, it is not edgy, and in a media world that's still deeply oversaturated with images of victims and underpopulated with images of functional women, it's not a good idea.

*****

For further reading: A friend linked to this post this morning, on "manpain."  It's a good, long look at a general phenomenon in media and how male and female suffering on screen are used, displayed, and written.  And I realized something about the Tomb Raider demo while reading it: the manpain -- "oh, God, I suffer watching this woman's agony, pay attention to how horrible I think this is -- is meant to be the player's.  Lara is in the refrigerator to drive the player forward, which puts us right back in male gaze territory.

**The one truly vulnerable and prone to injury male protagonist I can think of is Old Snake, from Metal Gear Solid 4.  His vulnerabilities come from engineered illness and premature old age, rather than from his gender, but I will grant the exception.  That microwave tunnel is brutal.