My wife and I recently began watching the HBO series Game of Thrones (based on George R. R. Martin's books) from the start. I had read the books, neither of us had seen any of the series.
Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series (to give it its proper name) is very different from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. In LOTR we know, with few exceptions, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The only good orc is a dead orc. Sauron is evil personified. Martin's books are much more contemporary, where no one is wholly evil or wholly good, and many are very much in between. It reminds me of typical contemporary science fiction and fantasy rather than of the older, sometimes called "pulp," style. And of course, Martin has no compunction about bumping off major characters left and right, especially in the earlier books.
"If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'" - John Wayne
I started writing this piece when it occurred to me to wonder whether there's any kind of parallel to this in gaming - especially tabletop gaming. I don't know, but I can see some comparisons. For example, your typical Euro style board or card game entirely lacks good guys and bad guys. That may be partly because so many are symmetrical, everyone is essentially the same. Tabletop RPGs are more of a holdout for the good guy/bad guy comparisons, although even 40 years ago most players wanted to act like Chaotic Neutrals, doing whatever they wanted but not responsible for what they did, able to act like thugs but not suffer the consequences of being of actual evil alignment. (You won't be surprised to learn that they never got away with this when I was the GM.) There are many RPGs nowadays that are shades of gray rather than black and white, and evidently many people enjoy this, not I.
Given how much of contemporary life is littered with shades of gray nowadays, where our elected officials are often regarded as crooks, I always liked the notion that one could clearly be a hero, a good guy. I play the game by putting myself in the position of the character, rather than functioning as an actor playing a role.
This gray is part and parcel of the contemporary dislike of constraints. Any game is a set of constraints that players agree to abide by (if they don't, they cheat). You can't have a game without constraints. Yet contemporaries seem to be less tolerant of constraints than people were 40 or 50 years ago, perhaps because there's so many more things we can do in a world with computers and the Internet than we could back when. Games are often more puzzle than game, so there are no constraints imposed by other players. It's very striking to hear someone say they don't want other people messing up the game they're playing.
"Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find?" - Ridley Scott
It's not surprising, then, that people object to many constraints within the rules of the game. If players don't have to worry about being good, about living up to some kind of standard, if they can successfully be thugs in a world of grays rather than blacks and whites, then they've eliminated some constraints.
There are different kinds of heroes: some who grow up wanting to be heroes, and prepare to be heroes, and have the necessary attitude to be heroes (like Aragorn in Lord of the Rings books, or Wonder Woman in the recent movie), are one kind. People who are forced to do what must be done when there's no one else to do it (like Frodo and Sam in Lord of the Rings) are another kind of hero, the Everyman hero. But both of these heroes require pretty clear-cut situations, black and white rather than gray situations. And we expect the first kind to be sure of their mission, as Aragorn was in the books, but not in the movies, where he was made to be modern-style sensitive and uncertain.
Kriti Sanon said "We are all somewhere or the other a little grey, not black and white. We have our imperfections." But in a game, we can put those imperfections behind us and pretend we are black or white.
contributed by Lewis Pulsipher
Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series (to give it its proper name) is very different from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. In LOTR we know, with few exceptions, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The only good orc is a dead orc. Sauron is evil personified. Martin's books are much more contemporary, where no one is wholly evil or wholly good, and many are very much in between. It reminds me of typical contemporary science fiction and fantasy rather than of the older, sometimes called "pulp," style. And of course, Martin has no compunction about bumping off major characters left and right, especially in the earlier books.
"If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?'" - John Wayne
I started writing this piece when it occurred to me to wonder whether there's any kind of parallel to this in gaming - especially tabletop gaming. I don't know, but I can see some comparisons. For example, your typical Euro style board or card game entirely lacks good guys and bad guys. That may be partly because so many are symmetrical, everyone is essentially the same. Tabletop RPGs are more of a holdout for the good guy/bad guy comparisons, although even 40 years ago most players wanted to act like Chaotic Neutrals, doing whatever they wanted but not responsible for what they did, able to act like thugs but not suffer the consequences of being of actual evil alignment. (You won't be surprised to learn that they never got away with this when I was the GM.) There are many RPGs nowadays that are shades of gray rather than black and white, and evidently many people enjoy this, not I.
Given how much of contemporary life is littered with shades of gray nowadays, where our elected officials are often regarded as crooks, I always liked the notion that one could clearly be a hero, a good guy. I play the game by putting myself in the position of the character, rather than functioning as an actor playing a role.
This gray is part and parcel of the contemporary dislike of constraints. Any game is a set of constraints that players agree to abide by (if they don't, they cheat). You can't have a game without constraints. Yet contemporaries seem to be less tolerant of constraints than people were 40 or 50 years ago, perhaps because there's so many more things we can do in a world with computers and the Internet than we could back when. Games are often more puzzle than game, so there are no constraints imposed by other players. It's very striking to hear someone say they don't want other people messing up the game they're playing.
"Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find?" - Ridley Scott
It's not surprising, then, that people object to many constraints within the rules of the game. If players don't have to worry about being good, about living up to some kind of standard, if they can successfully be thugs in a world of grays rather than blacks and whites, then they've eliminated some constraints.
There are different kinds of heroes: some who grow up wanting to be heroes, and prepare to be heroes, and have the necessary attitude to be heroes (like Aragorn in Lord of the Rings books, or Wonder Woman in the recent movie), are one kind. People who are forced to do what must be done when there's no one else to do it (like Frodo and Sam in Lord of the Rings) are another kind of hero, the Everyman hero. But both of these heroes require pretty clear-cut situations, black and white rather than gray situations. And we expect the first kind to be sure of their mission, as Aragorn was in the books, but not in the movies, where he was made to be modern-style sensitive and uncertain.
Kriti Sanon said "We are all somewhere or the other a little grey, not black and white. We have our imperfections." But in a game, we can put those imperfections behind us and pretend we are black or white.
contributed by Lewis Pulsipher
