Character development in games fills my hungries plumb when the aspects of morality and motivation are left up to me, the gamer. I especially enjoy choosing from a complement of character types: elven mage with a lust for fire, barbarian archer with one arm lost to an orc, or generic anthropomorphic entity that I have to raise from brain stem instinctual response to divine mastering of his or her actions and choices.
Say what you want about why you chose your current avatar in any given game, where you are given a choice of course. WoW, Ultima, any MMORPG, even PC or console based games offer choices for fleshing out your character’s personality, skills and paths to gaming godhead. Read what you want into a gamer’s choice of elf, shadow, rogue, spirit, crusader, horseman, mongol, alien, beast or being. Most of us can justify our preference for a character based on our desire to empathize with components of his or her personality or to explore a trait we wish we could embody. This could be an admired trait we wish to nurture in ourselves (the desire to remedy an evil influence, for example), or an aspect which couldn’t possibly be played out in real life (remedying that evil by hacking off limbs with verve). Joseph Campbell’s heroic journey, virtually played out on computers and consoles everywhere, setting the rhythm of the divine to its insistent patter. The adventure fantasy of being another being drives us to game, doesn’t it? Through my actions and gameplay, I want to form a character whom I admire; the more I engage in activities that emphasize the skills this character possesses, the skills I admire, the more pleased I am with the gameplay, the more harmoic I feel about the game.
But what about the avatars we don’t choose? How do the choices we avoid define our personalities? What about the wizard mageling turns us away to choose the dwarven axe wielder? If we choose and develop our characters based on our hope to develop a latent skill or trait (in the virtual existence of a game realm), what is it about the characters we didn’t choose that speaks about what we don’t want to be in ourselves?
In a game where you have somewhat of a choice between characters that can be developed in a linear fashion, I’m remembering Diablo 2. Your chosen combatant followed the same levelling up method but options for special skill paths opened themselves to you as your point levels increased. Why did I chose to play as a Barbarian warrior the first time around, Amazon archer the second, Mage the third and then totally refuse to play the Paladin? I couldn’t bring myself to play the Paladin at all. So what does this tell about my gaming personality — that first go through I like to strong-arm, whack my way through levels, second I like to stand back & admire the scenery and third I like to try all the special tweaks and spells? But I’m in no way interested in exploring the iconic, heroic path when gaming.
As game developers build more complex options for character development into games, the paths we choose to avoid tell us more about the heart of our gaming selves than the paths we choose to walk as our characters in-game. Take Planescape: Torment, where each dialog and action option veers your character alignment towards one of twelve or so paths (Chaotic Neutral, True Neutral, Orderly Neutral, etc.). The alignment your actions develop disposes your party’s interaction with you, thus unlocking deeper gameplay and providing a richer game experience. Would my thoughtless slaying of a dabus result in the Lady’s wrath and banishment to the Player’s Maze? And is banishment to the Player’s Maze a bad thing since I get one of the best weapons there (i.e., can I moralize an action for a personal gain)? Can I chose to spurn intimacy with my party members and as a result see them tougher for foes take down in battle? What’ll happen if I chose this course over my many other options?
I find it ultimately more fascinating to see a character (and thus, the gamer) for who they work not to be. It beats the hell out of defining a gamer by what kind of games they play.
