Roleplaying, Videogames and Mythology

Introducing people of all ages to mythology... in pre-college educational curricula, youth orgs, the media, etc. Share your knowledge, stories, unit and lesson plans, techniques, and more.

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Fin
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Post by Fin »

Lately I've been thinking that mythology could be experienced in the form of playing a roleplaying game (RPG) or videogame. My experience with games that allow a player-controlled character to explore, interact with either computer or human-controlled characters and develope over time leads me to think that this would be a good medium for shared dreams (also known as myths). The biggest difference between playing games and reading books, watching movies and viewing most art is that in a game you make choices. Because of this games have the potential to be more personalized. Videogames already are often set in very dreamlike environments. Myst is a good example of that and there are plenty more. As graphics get better, AI gets more realistic and the field of game design advances, the potential for videogames to communicate moralities, common goals, and even religious experiences increases. At the present time I think the biggest drawback is that videogames as still impersonal and rarely emotionally involve the player even when they are a designed to do so. Because that lack of emotional involvement I think it makes it much more difficult for players to experience the hero's journey, although many games clearly try to follow that progression. Better AI and better forms of human-human interaction in multiplayer games might overcome this - imagine Star Trek's Holodecks.
On the other hand there are roleplaying games, including tabletop RPGs and Live Action Roleplaying (LARPing, which is pretty much improvised theater). These games have a greater ability to emotionally involve players, probobly due to the direct human interaction involved, the greater degree of personalization of your character and the story and the greater ammount of energy that a player tends to invest in his character. In tabletop RPGs, all of the character's interaction with his environment takes place in the players' imagination with the exception of speech. This limits the ammount of information about the setting and characters that can be transmitted practically between the players (especially from the game master for those in the know), especially when compared to a videogame. The hero's journey is one of the most common forms that RPG stories take. Many RPGs are driven by mythological themes: whether good versus evil, man versus machine, nature versus civilization, intellect versus instinct. I believe that many roleplaying games already act as a medium to explore mythology. Vampire: the Masquerade explores the themes of vampire mythology as well as postmodernism.

One thing that I would find most interesting is if a game designer, of either video or roleplaying games, made games that were specifically created as a means of spreading a religion, perhaps simulating the rewards of the religion (enlightenment, Heaven, etc.)

GrumpyOldDragon
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Post by GrumpyOldDragon »

Just wanted to add that the Final Fantasy games are excellent examples of a hero's journey because each seperate game focuses on a character (or characters) who must go through specific trials in order to complete a final goal. The games involve everything from the mundane life of the ordinary people found within the game to dealing with beings who are cosmic or universal entities.

I'm not too sure about it, but I find the idea of using a role-playing game to spread a religion rather frightening. Most of these games are used as a way to escape everyday life (personal opinion) although I do believe that they can be a profound teaching tool for anyone willing to play.

If it were not for writers like J.R.R. Tolkien or the vast amounts of mythology from all peoples, these games would not exist. Personally, I think that any serious student of mythological studies cannot overlook the genre of role-playing games in any form (table-top, video, etc) because these games teach us about our mythological history.

Fin
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Post by Fin »

Hullo GrumpyOldDragon. A game as means of spreading a religion could be scary but I meant it in a more mundane way...kind of like how Star Wars or the Matrix have sparked religious thinking, except with the designer doing it on purpose. I think an argument could be made that religions have been spread by architecture, books, music and art so I think a reasonable extension of that is a religion (or at least a set of basic religious ideas) being spread by a game. For now I'll leave it to science fiction authors to take that idea to an extreme.

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Post by carnelian »

My expeience with video games is vicarious. My son's fascination with them developed when he was a little boy and his babysitter's much older sons were playing them.

Over the years I have been involved in hours of conversation about the various games, and have heard about the pros and cons of hundreds of games. But my favorite conversation happened last summer.

My son had been away at a high school summer program, and their theme had been The Hero's Journey. They read some of Joseph Campbell's work, of course. The high point of the summer for me came when my son announced with awe, "Joseph Campbell is a genius!"

He arrived at his understanding of Campbell through his video game experience. He is hoping to major in game design in college, and I am hoping he'll continue his exploration of Campbell and mythological studies.

His ideas about religion are, of course, still evolving; but when he's spoken to me about his religious ideas, he does often speak of concepts he's seen portrayed in video games. Mostly that's been a positive thing -- though I tend to be somewhat of a Luddite myself and have reservations about anything technological that has such a profound impact on the minds of others...


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: carnelian on 2003-10-01 19:27 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: carnelian on 2003-10-01 19:28 ]</font>

JR
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Post by JR »

On 2003-10-01 19:25, carnelian wrote:
The high point of the summer for me came when my son announced with awe, "Joseph Campbell is a genius!"

He arrived at his understanding of Campbell through his video game experience. He is hoping to major in game design in college, and I am hoping he'll continue his exploration of Campbell and mythological studies.

His ideas about religion are, of course, still evolving; but when he's spoken to me about his religious ideas, he does often speak of concepts he's seen portrayed in video games
Ccarnelian, we'd all very much like to hear what specifically lead your son to that insight, and what connection he makes between campbell and video games. Please expand on your interesting post.
JR

carnelian
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Post by carnelian »

He's back at that school for the school year, and it's not easy to get in touch with him...

I wish I could remember which specific games he talked about. Next time we're in touch, I'll ask him. What I remember most clearly is that he was talking about the structure of RPG's in general. He pointed out to us how closely those games mirror what he'd learned about the hero's journey. Yes, he did give specifics; I just don't remember them :???:



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: carnelian on 2003-10-04 21:44 ]</font>

seeker
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Post by seeker »

I have a 15 year old daughter who likes role playing games. I think there is definitly mythological content in the better ones. She also likes the fantasy genre and I see A LOT of mythology in that. Also the Japanese Anime contains some--of course this is a category which also contains some X rated material, but the kind she watches I find quite interesting. In a way, you have to distance yourself from reality anyway to find the mythology and then come back and apply it to the real world. I am sure there is also some mythological content in some sports activites, particularly in fencing in which my neices are involved. Some of the visioning exercises they do which one of my neices turned into a pastel drawing certainly involve a mythological cast!!!

Fin
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Post by Fin »

Hello Seeker. What games does your daughter play? When I was that age fantasy games, Dungeons and Dragons in particular, were the only games that appealed to me. In the past few years (I'm 19 now), modern settings have appealed to me much more. Mainly because mythologies set in the modern day directly put contemporary issues in mythological contexts. But when I was younger, such issues were not as real to me, nor could I appreciate their ambiguous and deceptive natures. In a way fantasy, while being roughly based on historical cultures, facilitates stylization much more than a modern setting could get away with and thus is a purer, more generic mythological language. I think this makes fantasy more valuable in introducing the language of mythology to people and developing their ability to shape, control, manipulate and ultimately create mythology, though story at least.
When I think of mythology and sports, the only sports that come to mind are the martial arts (although many are not sports). So many martial arts consciously imitate animals, mythical creatures (especially dragons) and substances which always have mythical meaning (esp water and rock). I've never heard of mythology in fencing. Could you explain more?
"It is not the road ahead that wears you out – It is the grain of sand in your shoe." Arabian proverb

seeker
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Post by seeker »

hi, fin. Sorry to take so long to reply but I have been "following my bliss" which is music and got caught up in a few commitments which required practicing. OK, you got me. I only know about the video games through being in the same room at the same time as my daughter. I know she does play Final Fantasy, that's all. Version VII. She won't let me near the game because I am so bad at it!!!

I did try the computer game Myst a few years back and enjoyed it very much. The combination of the puzzles, the scenes, the humming sound certainly created a very strange environment and made you feel like you were on a journey. I never did figure it out....an aborted quest??
Re the fencing, I am thinking of a pastel portrait my neice did of herself fencing. Fencers at the higher levels use visualization techniques just like other atheletes to help them compete. Her drawing showed her fencing several people at the same time and was in bright greens, and oranges and just looked to me like a portrait of the mythical hero on his or her journey fending off the various monsters on his way. Nothing too profound I am afraid.

My daughter wrote a neat fantasy story about wolves on the dark side of the world bringing magic to the light side. To me this is the "magic" of the unconscious becoming conscious. She writes on an internet site called writing.com. If you like fantasy you might like some of the authors on that site.

That's all for now. Cheers.



bholly72
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Post by bholly72 »

Dear Fin,
I love your idea about myths as role playing games, probably because I came to a somwhat similar idea. I'm a Buddhist, and the root text in my particular form of Buddhism is the Lotus Sutra -- a wild and wooly highly symbolic text. Now some folks in my tradition want to read this text as a statement of facts. In contrast, I've been trying to articulate the idea that it's more of an experience you go through than a series of statements, and the analogy I came up with was very like yours -- I've been saying that the Lotus Sutra is like computer games like Doom or Quake -- an experience of living in an alternate reality. Best - Brian
Whatever is the essence of the Tathagata/<br><br>That is the essence of the world./<br><br>The Tathagata has no essence./<br><br>The world has no essence. <br><br>Nagarjuna

detonius
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Post by detonius »

hello everyone, this is the first of what i hope to be many involvements in the foundation. i have been an avid player of roleplaying games, both video and human powered, since middle school, and a fan of anime for about the same amount of time. the circles of people who tend to enjoy these things are predominantly adolescents who are in one fashion or another displaced by their traditional mythological upbringing, be it due to over emphasis on denotation or other reasons. in light of this apologetically broad generalization, one can look at the predominance of mythological themes in these media as evidence of people who, lacking a strong mythology, have created one of their own that speaks to them directly in terms they can relate to.
Gnothi seauton

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Post by eshto »

Hey people.

This is my first conversation entry. I am twenty-four years old, in college studying art, and I am a video game fanatic. Always have been. In fact, when I was five and I got my first Nintendo, I used to sit around all day and draw the characters and backgrounds, and make up stories about them. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that my imagination and art talent have something to do with these early experiences with video games.

Some games are violent, yes, but like all violence in the media, I believe it is the context and censorship that is the problem. For instance, when violence is comical, and no consequences are shown (just like in most television shows), it sends a message to kids that violence is not a serious thing. Ironically, I think editing the content is the real problem - violence should not be cleaned up (nor should coverage of wars are on the news). This negates its power to affect us in a work of art, or in a documentary or news report.

I have played many games, notably Final Fantasy, in which characters were killed - but because the characters were well developed, and the story was full of emotion, humanity, and strong mythological elements, the death of the character seemed important and relevant. Yes, I have cried over the death of many a well-fleshed-out video game character.

It's sad that the cultural significance of video games is often overlooked, and worse that the industry is often under fire for being a waste of time, or a destructive form of media that always promotes violence.

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Post by RavenHeart »

Hi everyone,

I've also been thinking along these same lines for a while.

Certainly video games that have a strong appeal already do use the mythical themes in the collective unconscious. Otherwise, one might argue, they would not have much attraction.

I am not much of a video game player because I get addicted to them so easily. The first time I found Mist—at an old girlfriend's home—I spent the evening, the entire night, and the next morning with the game. My girlfriend ended up falling asleep next to me on the floor. The first time I played the video-game version of Civilization, I told myself at 5:30 in the morning when I finally took a toilet break, "So this is what heroine addicts must feel like."

It's a pit alarming to me that people who design games are looking precisely to create something addictive. On the game design websites, they actually use that word. But I suppose that's what marketing is about: selling the consumers their own story.

I understand a bit more of the effects of role-playing games that aren't computer-driven. As a youth in the 70's and 80s, I used to design role-playing games of my own, and as a "game-master" I realized that essentially, as you have already put it, role playing games are interactive storytelling. Eventually, I got rid of the rules and rolled all of the dice myself behind a screen (so I could change the result to make the story better if I needed to) and the whole event turned out even better. With a good storyteller, the rules of the game are really not needed.

But strange things can happen with role-playing games. At my college, a couple of years before I enrolled, a student on my dorm floor ran outside and jumped off a bridge after his character died. (He managed to break many bones, but survived the 30 foot fall into the gorge). Another friend of mine who has been a big Star Wars fan since the films came out, and is presently an animator, had a fascinating experience with a role-plying game. After his first role-plying session with two other friends in college, they realized that they had left the room entirely, and "crossed over" into the reality of the game. This experience frightened one of his friends, who would not join them again. But he and the other friend continued to delve into that world via the role-playing game medium. He was very protective of this experience, and only explained it to me because I had designed the game for him in high school, and when I saw his artwork, I asked him how he was able to illustrate fantasy landscapes so convincingly. He told me, "I just draw what I see." I didn't understand, because, as an artist myself, I'm used to either drawing from life, or drawing from the imagination—very different skills. For my friend, however, they are not, because somewhere, he actually travels into that other world.

Is it a kind of guided hypnosis or something akin to the Mysteries that my friend has tapped into via role playing games? Certainly shamans have similar experiences. The fascinating thing to me is that through their interactive storytelling, he and his college roommate traveled there together. Perhaps, from a Jungian point of view, it's a form of active imagination.

Those experiences aside, certainly role-playing games may be used as a tool to plumb and explore the unconscious. And the West, devoid of a living mythology for centuries now (films and television excepted, perhaps), is hungry for the mythical and magical dimensions to be restored to life. Can we go there, and yet remain grounded? Will the producers of role-playing video-games work responsibly as they structure these stories and experiences, or will they let profits be the guide here?

I'd love to see the cannon of Greek mythology, for example, placed in a videogame. Imagine, playing the character of Perseus, Atalanta, or Heracles in their story. If you solve the game, you learn the myth! That might be one way that video game designers could work responsibly to educate the youth of today and tomorrow.




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Post by Oldawan »

I think it is wonderful what these geniuses, young and old, are creating for everyone who wants an adventure. It would be wonderful to join 'The Odyssey' or the 'Illiad' and relive the events and solve the problems in these two epics; possibly there are two games like these stories already. I love Myst and its following games, Riven etc.

I hope, for the future, that the games come of a greater age and grow older and wiser. It seems to me that many of the plots in games depend on fighting and winning, seeking and finding. We do these activities a great deal in life but since so many of 'the children' are right into the games, I hope the geniuses will lead them further along in their minds like books,myths, plays and the movies.
oldawan

Dain
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Post by Dain »

I just registered, and since a lot of my thinking recently has been directed toward the connection between RPGs and myth, where better to make my first post.
The one game that really got me thinking about myth in general, as well as it's representation in games, is Chrono Trigger. The game follows almost exactly the Hero's Journey, and is often interpereted as the journey of Christ.
As for my general attitude towards RPGs, I think they are much needed in our society today. Just like Campbell said, as our times change, so must our myths. I see these games as doing exactly this.

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