The Value of Games

Friday, April 8, In the year of our Lord 2011

My House, Caronport Saskatchewan

6:52 PM, Making Supper

Weather = Warm :D

Today I'm going to write about something that I enjoy.

Anyone who knows me know that I love to play games, specifically video games and tabletop games. I enjoy them because they spark my imagination and put me in situations that I've never been in before. They can often entail incredible story lines or challenges to overcome. At the very least they are a fun diversion from the rest of life.

Games are not just toys. They can be a medium to explore philosophical and psychological realities. In games we can learn about our selves and identify with characters just like in reading a good book or watching a good movie, except the experience is active instead of passive. In games you take an active role in the development of the plot and the other characters around you. Sometimes you are required to make a decision that makes you pause and stop to think about what the right decision truly is.

Mass Effect is a prime example of this. Would it be better to vote in favor of or against a war to reclaim a homeland? In a certain situation you have to either destroy a group of aliens who will fight you to the death or re-program them to think the same way you do. This question leads to other questions that are not part of the game but weigh heavily on the mind of the player. How do I deal with people or religions who believe differently than I do? Is forced re-education preferable to war? What if I am on the losing side of this question and it is my own mind that is at stake? It's a heavy issue but it's in the game and it makes you think. Many games reference historical or religious texts and make a point just like any piece of classical literature would.

Then there are Tabletop games. I opted to play the most heretical game I could get my hands on... the fabled Dungeons & Dragons! This game is so evil that Satan himself refuses to play it and instead uses it to damn the souls of Born Again Christians!

Yeah, I'm being sarcastic, but there is a reason for it. D&D was a big deal some 30-50 years ago. College and Highschool students would be introduced to this game and it would consume their lives. Some would eventually mistake their game character for reality and become stagnant individuals, some would actually commit suicide if their character died in game. Some dabbled into the Occult and opened spiritual doors for demons to come through and attack them in real life. Most had a great time with friends playing a game and went on to live perfectly normal lives. This game still has a negative stigma in some circles, sometimes for good reason. Allow me to explain why I enjoy it.

Dungeons & Dragons is a game that is only limited by your imagination. Anything you could possibly imagine doing in the game can be done with the proper dice rolls. It is a game where you can think outside the box, be creative,plan strategically, go on adventures, and get to know your friends better. I have learned a lot about myself by playing my character. I learned that my plans and the way I do things are very self focused and don't consider the contribution of others. Now that is part of who my character was, but in playing my character I realized that this was also true of myself and decided that I needed to change that. Another one of my friends tried playing a character who strove towards balance except that he the player was one who tended towards extremes. He learned a lot about himself and a lot about healthy ways of avoiding extremes by playing his character and interacting with his friends.

As someone who actually hosts one of these D&D sessions I have the challenge of preparing story and encounters for eight players. It has been so interesting to see different pieces of their personalities come out in their characters. It has also been a lot of fun preparing story line and encounters that play on different tensions within the group. Some of the most satisfying moments have been presenting the players with a moral dilemma and watching them try to come to an agreement of what they should do. It's also fun to see them play a different perspective than they as the actual players believe in. In so doing they see the issue through two different understandings, the understanding of themselves as the player and the understanding of their character. In so doing they learn about what they think as well as how others think, which is a very good skill to learn.

So the heart of games isn't the thrill of an action packed scene or the adventure realizing a fantasy but of encountering things that make you learn about yourself and the world around you. We aren't just killing monsters for fun, we're also exploring the eternal themes and questions that make us human. We're not just getting together to escape from every day life, we are encountering the realities of redemption, conflict, social structure, and moral judgments. These are the sorts of games that I love to play and not all of them are like this, but the ones that are are definitely worth the amount of time and effort it took to create and play them.