IT'S ALIVE!!!
Finally! I have written an intro that I don't hate! For your reading pleasure, please enjoy:
1.0 Introduction
Imagination is a powerful tool. It lets us go where we cannot go, do what we are unable to do, and be what we want to be. It lets us explore our fears and our fantasies in equal measure. Being human, we have developed tools to assist us in our lives, and imagination is as much a part of life as breathing. We began with art, giving our imagination a starting point. We wrote books, drew comic books and made movies, all to give an outlet for the imagination. We can share experiences with one another in safety and comfort, thanks to media.
As science, technology, and culture have evolved, so too have our imaginative tools. Where our art was once cave-paintings, we now have high-resolution digital photography. Where movies were once silent and silvery, they now are saturated with vivid color and boom with sound. There has been a steady line of progress in our entertainment toward believability and immersion. We strive to make our fantasies that much more real.
The medium through which imagination is manipulated greatly influences its believability. Books and movies can draw us in, make us as audience forget for a moment that it's not for real, that their fiction is fact. These do not last, though. Furthermore, the audience can only observe. They can never give their own creative input on the story or characters.
There is a medium where this is possible. It began, as many revolutions do, in someone's basement. When Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson published the first 1000 copies of their new game, Dungeons & Dragons, they created a new medium of entertainment. They created the role playing game.
Role playing has existed for a long time. It has been used since ancient times as a tool for both education and entertainment. To make a game based on role play, however, is to codify interaction. Role playing games are tools to harness the imagination, and give it a canvas upon which to create.
Role playing games have taken on a myriad of forms since their inception. They began in the analogue world, of the written word and face-to-face interaction. There they have remained, evolving, their designers elevating their hobby into an expressive art form. They have spread to the digital world, where text and random number generators have replaced pencils and dice.
And yet, the games that populate the digital world are not like their analogue cousins. Where analogue games are open, digital games are static. The expressive and interactive freedom of analogue games has yet to be reached in digital ones. This paper will analyze the attempts to bring the analogue experience into the digital realm. It is a desire that has been pursued by game designers since the early days of computer games, and after three decades they have finally begun to make headway.
1.1 Definitions
A role playing game or RPG is best defined as a game in which people assume the roles of fictional characters and work together to tell a story. RPGs are played according to a system of rules that describe what can and cannot be done in the game. A player uses a character to interact with the game world. This character has both statistics, values denoting their in-game capabilities, and a persona, the “role” one assumes when portraying their character.
An analogue role playing game is any RPG played in the “real world”. This includes tabletop games, played by small (2-6 people) groups of players that describe the actions of their characters, and live action role play or LARP games, played by large (15-100 people) groups of players that act out their characters actions in real-time.
A digital role playing game is any RPG played through an electronic medium. This includes massively multiplayer online role playing games or MMORPGs. MMORPGs have thousands, if not millions, of players that interact with one another through their characters, also called avatars. Though many games are billed as RPGs on both home gaming consoles and PCs, for the purposes of this paper I will include only those games in which a player interacts with other humans through the game world.
1.0 Introduction
Imagination is a powerful tool. It lets us go where we cannot go, do what we are unable to do, and be what we want to be. It lets us explore our fears and our fantasies in equal measure. Being human, we have developed tools to assist us in our lives, and imagination is as much a part of life as breathing. We began with art, giving our imagination a starting point. We wrote books, drew comic books and made movies, all to give an outlet for the imagination. We can share experiences with one another in safety and comfort, thanks to media.
As science, technology, and culture have evolved, so too have our imaginative tools. Where our art was once cave-paintings, we now have high-resolution digital photography. Where movies were once silent and silvery, they now are saturated with vivid color and boom with sound. There has been a steady line of progress in our entertainment toward believability and immersion. We strive to make our fantasies that much more real.
The medium through which imagination is manipulated greatly influences its believability. Books and movies can draw us in, make us as audience forget for a moment that it's not for real, that their fiction is fact. These do not last, though. Furthermore, the audience can only observe. They can never give their own creative input on the story or characters.
There is a medium where this is possible. It began, as many revolutions do, in someone's basement. When Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson published the first 1000 copies of their new game, Dungeons & Dragons, they created a new medium of entertainment. They created the role playing game.
Role playing has existed for a long time. It has been used since ancient times as a tool for both education and entertainment. To make a game based on role play, however, is to codify interaction. Role playing games are tools to harness the imagination, and give it a canvas upon which to create.
Role playing games have taken on a myriad of forms since their inception. They began in the analogue world, of the written word and face-to-face interaction. There they have remained, evolving, their designers elevating their hobby into an expressive art form. They have spread to the digital world, where text and random number generators have replaced pencils and dice.
And yet, the games that populate the digital world are not like their analogue cousins. Where analogue games are open, digital games are static. The expressive and interactive freedom of analogue games has yet to be reached in digital ones. This paper will analyze the attempts to bring the analogue experience into the digital realm. It is a desire that has been pursued by game designers since the early days of computer games, and after three decades they have finally begun to make headway.
1.1 Definitions
A role playing game or RPG is best defined as a game in which people assume the roles of fictional characters and work together to tell a story. RPGs are played according to a system of rules that describe what can and cannot be done in the game. A player uses a character to interact with the game world. This character has both statistics, values denoting their in-game capabilities, and a persona, the “role” one assumes when portraying their character.
An analogue role playing game is any RPG played in the “real world”. This includes tabletop games, played by small (2-6 people) groups of players that describe the actions of their characters, and live action role play or LARP games, played by large (15-100 people) groups of players that act out their characters actions in real-time.
A digital role playing game is any RPG played through an electronic medium. This includes massively multiplayer online role playing games or MMORPGs. MMORPGs have thousands, if not millions, of players that interact with one another through their characters, also called avatars. Though many games are billed as RPGs on both home gaming consoles and PCs, for the purposes of this paper I will include only those games in which a player interacts with other humans through the game world.