Game and Life Pataphor
Somebody posted a link to this: bit.ly/aDmAYR in the Facebook and I found it interesting. Essentially, the speaker is saying that Gaming can save the world, if we start doing it right. Or something. Anyway, she was very earnest.
I got to thinking, though, about how I would live my life it was a game. I know I'm not the first person to think of this, but games keep changing, so you need to update the thought experiment every few years if you want it to still have meaning. Think about it, what if you lived your life the way your D&D character does; the way every D&D character ever has lived? There are things they have in common, and am not talking about the homicidal and larcenous tendencies either.
Everything I Need to Know I Learned From My D&D Character
[Note, something like this has been done. Recently, even. www.youtube.com/watch]
1. Maximize or Specialize. Across all genres, all characters either expand all their skills continuously or they pick a core of abilities and advance those in preference to all others. But you never get a character who gets half-way through their associates degree and calls it quits. You never have a fighter that could have taken a weapon specialization but decided he didn't want it because "that's too much work". Nope, your character is always hard at work. The wizard is always studying spells, the fighter is always practicing, and so forth. We should be constantly improving ourselves, too.
2. Keep Shooting / Fight to the Last Man. D&D Characters (almost) never surrender. If you take that example into online games, then it becomes an absolute. Surrender in an MMORPG is a non-starter. Just keep banging away until you win. In a tabletop game, if your character died, roll up a new character and rejoin the quest. This would be a great rule for life. Because in life, the penalty for failure is rarely death. It's usually just a little embarrassment, actually. Keep fighting and don't fear failure.
3. Figure out what you believe and stick to it. D&D characters, depending on the version of the rules you use, have a philosophical code called alignment. Even if you think alignment is silly and have done away with it, think how your life would be different if you picked an alignment for yourself and stuck to it in every situation. If you think you're lawful good, then try asking yourself what would a lawful good person do in this situation? Pretend you'll lose exp if you don't answer honestly.
4. Expect Success. In tabletop games it's possible to fail, retreat, be driven off, trapped or knocked unconscious. There's a number of ways to fail that don't involve your character dying. But in any game setting, your character thinks nothing of trying again. No character will ever give up and say, "well, we got captured by the Evil High Priest Zorbag. It was a good run" and not try to escape.
It's been pointed out to me that game characters have this confidence because they know their challenges have been created by an Intelligent Designer. In real life you don't know for sure that your problems are solvable. But where's the downside in acting as though they were? Act as if your situation was created specially for you to overcome. It's right at your challenge rating or whatever. Assume success is possible in every situation, just like your character does.
5. Choose Adventure. Once in a great while you'll get a group together to play a game and they'll fritter away all the time available on inessential things and never get to the adventure. But that's rare, and nobody wants that. Your character wants nothing more than to start trashing bozos, and right now. Think about your options as if you were a character. You'll pick the stuff that's right at the limit of what you can accomplish - an adventure that gets you the maximum possible reward for your effort. When was the last time the fighter in the group said, "Yeah, but kobolds are smaller and easier to fight. Let's go after them" when there were orcs nearby with better treasure? Choose the bigger adventure.
That's all I can think of for now.
To be fair to my sources, Jane McGonigal covers points four and five in her talk. Though her talk was interesting, I kept thinking that what she really wants to do is 'trick' gamers into doing something that isn't a game at all. But I'm sure she'd disagree with that. It probably also means that I don't quite grasp how she's going to do what she proposes. I wished she'd talked a little more about that.
-Christian
I got to thinking, though, about how I would live my life it was a game. I know I'm not the first person to think of this, but games keep changing, so you need to update the thought experiment every few years if you want it to still have meaning. Think about it, what if you lived your life the way your D&D character does; the way every D&D character ever has lived? There are things they have in common, and am not talking about the homicidal and larcenous tendencies either.
Everything I Need to Know I Learned From My D&D Character
[Note, something like this has been done. Recently, even. www.youtube.com/watch]
1. Maximize or Specialize. Across all genres, all characters either expand all their skills continuously or they pick a core of abilities and advance those in preference to all others. But you never get a character who gets half-way through their associates degree and calls it quits. You never have a fighter that could have taken a weapon specialization but decided he didn't want it because "that's too much work". Nope, your character is always hard at work. The wizard is always studying spells, the fighter is always practicing, and so forth. We should be constantly improving ourselves, too.
2. Keep Shooting / Fight to the Last Man. D&D Characters (almost) never surrender. If you take that example into online games, then it becomes an absolute. Surrender in an MMORPG is a non-starter. Just keep banging away until you win. In a tabletop game, if your character died, roll up a new character and rejoin the quest. This would be a great rule for life. Because in life, the penalty for failure is rarely death. It's usually just a little embarrassment, actually. Keep fighting and don't fear failure.
3. Figure out what you believe and stick to it. D&D characters, depending on the version of the rules you use, have a philosophical code called alignment. Even if you think alignment is silly and have done away with it, think how your life would be different if you picked an alignment for yourself and stuck to it in every situation. If you think you're lawful good, then try asking yourself what would a lawful good person do in this situation? Pretend you'll lose exp if you don't answer honestly.
4. Expect Success. In tabletop games it's possible to fail, retreat, be driven off, trapped or knocked unconscious. There's a number of ways to fail that don't involve your character dying. But in any game setting, your character thinks nothing of trying again. No character will ever give up and say, "well, we got captured by the Evil High Priest Zorbag. It was a good run" and not try to escape.
It's been pointed out to me that game characters have this confidence because they know their challenges have been created by an Intelligent Designer. In real life you don't know for sure that your problems are solvable. But where's the downside in acting as though they were? Act as if your situation was created specially for you to overcome. It's right at your challenge rating or whatever. Assume success is possible in every situation, just like your character does.
5. Choose Adventure. Once in a great while you'll get a group together to play a game and they'll fritter away all the time available on inessential things and never get to the adventure. But that's rare, and nobody wants that. Your character wants nothing more than to start trashing bozos, and right now. Think about your options as if you were a character. You'll pick the stuff that's right at the limit of what you can accomplish - an adventure that gets you the maximum possible reward for your effort. When was the last time the fighter in the group said, "Yeah, but kobolds are smaller and easier to fight. Let's go after them" when there were orcs nearby with better treasure? Choose the bigger adventure.
That's all I can think of for now.
To be fair to my sources, Jane McGonigal covers points four and five in her talk. Though her talk was interesting, I kept thinking that what she really wants to do is 'trick' gamers into doing something that isn't a game at all. But I'm sure she'd disagree with that. It probably also means that I don't quite grasp how she's going to do what she proposes. I wished she'd talked a little more about that.
-Christian