Tabletop Roleplaying Games: experiments in morality.
I probably need to start with explaining what tabletop roleplaying games (TRPG) are.
Aren’t they those things those played by NEEEEEEERDDS ???!!!
So does make you a NEEEEEEEERD???!!!
Yes, I need the reader to understand that you’re a… NEEEEEEERD !!!!
Congratulations you’ve succeeded. Can I carry on now?
Yes… Sorry… Go ahead… … … Nerd.
So… what is a TRPG? It is a special part of roleplaying games (RPG). The idea of RPG’s is for the players to play a certain role in a certain setting or environment. The environment can be anything: Dungeons & dragons is in a medieval fantasy setting. Shadowrun is in a cyberpunk fantasy universe. The game of werewolves is set in a village. Vampire the masquerade is in a kind of goth punk environment. Star wars The old republic is in the universe of Star wars, Final Fantasy is…
Where is the morality?
Patience, I’m setting it up. Players will usually play a character in that setting. A mage in fantasy universe. A jedi in star wars. A hacker in shadowrun. They are one character in a setting. But there usually exists another special type of player. The player who plays the… ENVIRONMENT!
A player who plays the environment? I don’t get it… … … nerd.
It’s okay to be ignorant, I’ll explain: This player usually has a title like Game master, dungeon master, moderator, etc. They prepare the environment and events for the ROLE players. They are also responsible for the rules of the setting and universe in which the ROLE players play.
Let’s take the environment of shadowrun. Let’s say the role players created characters that results in a team composed of the next roles:
- A Hacker
- A Brawler
- A Smuggler and
- An Investigator.
The Game master will be responsible for creating a story or mission for this team of 4 to experience. The game master will have to create, narrate, act out and balance the rules of what happens in the story the game master designed.
So if this team has to extract a kidnapped billionaire heiress, hhe roleplayers (real persons) will INTERACT with the game master to navigate in this universe as the characters they play in order to save the heiress.
How is it different from any other game? … nerd.
The big difference is the freedom of action. Role players can choose at any time what they want to do.The game master must prepare and adapt on the fly to what the role players choose to do. Do the role players choose to be violent? The game master must react to the violence according to the rules of the created setting. Are they violent in a shady bar in a rough neighborhood? Or are they violent in the home of the billionaire parents? The reaction to the violence will be different.
So those role players are in a story and the game master determines what happen? Is that it?
Not exactly, the key difference is that in a story, everything is preplanned. A writer chooses what the protagonists do. A game master doesn’t choose what the protagonists do. The protagonists in the story are the role players and they choose their own actions. In the exact same setting, the events and story can unfold very differently depending on the actions of the players. This is, for me, the very clear interesting thing about RPG’s: the interactivity between players and the universe and its impact. The game master has the important role of representing the environment in this interaction.
Wait a second, that sounds like very difficult for the game master.
Well, Yes and no. Some of the things can be prepared in advance. If the game master gives the players the following information:
“Everyone in the bar is having a good time, except one certain person at the end of the bar. This person in clothing not suited to the party, is looking around as if scared of something. Looking right and left, reacting to the littles noises…”
We can argue convincingly that this game master will never able to be completely sure that the players will talk or choose to interact with the person at the end of the bar. ALTHOUGH, this type of prompt will strongly put the attention on this character and the game master can prepare in advance who the character is, wants, will say, etc. The game master can also reasonably assume that most role players won’t necessarily attack everyone in a bar where everyone is having fun. In this situation, the game master has effectively reduced the range of things the players will do. Even though, the game master is not “controlling” the roleplayers’ actions.
I still don’t see your point nerd.
Well it’s coming. Let me tell you about my writing themes and how they link to me as a game master. I like to write morally gray stories. Stories where it’s not clear who’s the good or the bad guy (or the ugly one… My mother thinks I’m funny). Stories where good or bad don’t really exists, just different points of view of the same situation. And here is where the art form of tabletop RPG’s get very interesting.
Hmmm… Go on…
For these reasons, I like the universe of shadowrun. The setting in shadowrun is cyberpunk fantasy. On our planet, in a future close to our time, where the world is under the thumb of big corporations, technology making anything possible but serves only the rich, technology understanding consciousness and creating both artificial intelligences or moving human consciousnesses into both the internet or robots making you ask questions about what is human and alive. A world where-
All right, you’ve poorly explained why cyberpunk is interesting. Get to your point already.
I’ve played as a game master for shadowrun for different types of friends already but not the ones who introduced me to TRPG’s. I’ve been playing a campaign of dungeons and dragons with those friends as a role player. My turn came up to dungeon master this game. Dungeons & dragons is in the fantasy genre. Here is what I understand about fantasy:
- Good and bad are clearly defined
- Battle between good and bad is very clear
- Supernatural/Magical power and things
- Very strong Heroes going on an epic adventure
- Big fights
- Races representing archtypical human traits
- Technology being medieval-
Look nerd, just get to it.
Ok ok, so here’s the setting: Greek mythological environment where the gods are real and magic exists according to greek mythology. For my story, I took some time to research greek mythology and chose an antagonist. The antagonist created a cult of love, acceptance, consciousness, peace to gain power. The role players were in a medium sized village when I took over the story. So I narrated how this cult of love plays music, gives out yoga lessons, organizes open emotions management courses, gives out free hugs and flowers. I also added a little detail to the role players: Those in the cult were under a magical influence they can’t identify yet.
Sounds like most new age cult-
No, no, no, no. Let’s not go there. Let’s be absolutely clear: this is an imagined story, in an imagined setting.
Yes, you’re right, sorry. We respect all peoples and all beliefs.
Yes we do. Let’s continue. I, the writer, created a situation where the “enemy” is clearly having a positive effect on its environment but their intentions are ambiguous. They are magically manipulated to do good. This is again confirmed by the mayor of the village who lost her daughter to the cult. The daughter fled to a camp north of the village. But she, the mayor, can’t do anything as mayor because the cult hasn’t done anything bad. So yeah, this setting is a result of my obvious morally gray style of writing. I also gave the role players a few other options to explore… And then the role players started their ‘adventure’.
So? What happened?
Here is where I was a little mischievous. I haven’t talked about tabletop aspect yet. The idea is that you put a board on the table. On this table, you can create maps. The maps are usually used to stage a tactical battle between the role players and their enemies. The battle system is what usually separates differents kinds of TRPG’s. What certain role players can do, how it is determined who wins, who-
Get to the point !
Okay, okay. So those maps on grids usually mean a serious and difficult fight is coming. Dungeons and dragons has its own combat system based on dice and grids, spells, weapons, stats, probabilities, etc. And here is where I was mischievous:
I noticed the roleplayers were very cautious of going into the camp to look for the mayor’s daughter. They scouted the camp very cautiously. I noticed and fed this fear by creating a map with a grid. As I said, This signals players that a combat is coming up. Now, in the setting, the cultists were just singing songs, having fun, meditating, etc. BUT One the players knocked out the daughter and tried to take her back home to the mayor. CHOICE OF ROLEPLAYERS ALERT ! The other cultists blocked his extradition. Not by fighting, but by screaming: Why are you doing this? All you need is love? Chill down? Be cool? But they were still blocking the player’s way until…
Until what?
Until one of the roleplayers did a magical spell that killed around 12 cultists, including new recruits. Those new recruits originated from the village. They were doing a ritual to join the cult. Another roleplayer defused the situation by taking a cultist hostage and telling the other cultists to stop resisting. The surviving cultists accepted and were brought to prison. This was all determined by throwing dice aka chance. Maybe the spell could have killed no one. Maybe the cultists could have refused. Maybe the hostage taking attempt failed. Maybe the cultists would have fought. Who knows? This is what happened then. Getting back to the story
As you can imagine, both the cult and some villagers were enraged that villagers and cultists were killed. The mayor (me as the mayor) had no choice (dice again) but to arrest the roleplayer who did the spell that killed the victims.
Now here is the kicker and the reason I’m explaining all of this: Later, the actual person playing the mass murdering character told me: There was this moment where I was like “Am I the bad guy?” And this crucial moment is what I find so fascinating about interactive RPG’s.
What do you mean?
In stories, the audience accompanies the protagonist on an adventure. Depending on the story, the protagonist can succeed and overcome adversities and become a hero. The audience can feel WITH the character what it feels to be a hero. Or how one becomes a bad guy. The godfather is probably the best example of this: Michael Corleone starts out a nice guy but ends as a Vicious and Ruthless Mob Boss and I remember following him in the story and feeling great while he killed off all his rivals leaders. And here it is. When I watch the godfather I feel with Michael what it is like to be a bad guy. In the story I mastered, the player himself did the bad action himself and felt directly what it is like to be a bad guy.
Interesting, but what can be done with this?
Thanks for the question. Morality, the principles or rules about what is right and wrong, is something very important to humanity, both present, in the past and will remain so in the future. Morality can change over time, situation, culture, etc. But how can we share in a meaningful way about morality? Some have books, some of them are holy, others have rules or traditions. Some base their morality on ideals, others on the way the world works (survival of the fittest would be an example). There can be countless ways people way smarter than me have already defined. But I believe Tabletop RPG’s can help. The essence of the conflict in the setting I gave the roleplayers would be something along the lines of “If giving up your freedom would mean an Utopia, would you do it?”. But I can imagine settings where it would be “When is killing justified?” or “Should one trust authority?” or “What does duty or loyalty mean?” etc.
Isn’t this just the same as case studies?
Exactly. Case studies are interesting. They put the student/learner/player/user/etc. at the center, gives them situation and asks them the question: What would you do? Instead of saying that this person, situation, event or whatever is good or bad, maybe try to see what their setting or situation is. Fully immerse oneself in the context into which it was and then ask the question: What would I do in this situation?