What we learn from games.
This is going to be a somewhat political post.
From Fiasco, I learned that outcomes are not really up to you.
From D&D, I learned that killing monsters makes you powerful.
From Apocalypse World, we learn different people respond to intimacy differently. That most of us are lead around by simple needs. That we can lose control of violence. And that a Leader with a Vision and a Gun is powerless against the maelstrom.
Oxygen Not Included teaches that we're all in it together. That before you bring in a new person to your society, you should have a bed, a table, and enough food and oxygen. That everybody works, and having new people is helpful.
Also: That making new people is completely optional, they are useful from cycle 1, and that it makes complete sense to choose who is born and who is not from a central authority.
The fog of reality is different than that last, I think. We cannot always predict new people, and it follows we should strive to be prepared for them. A central authority is not the right place to make these decisions, instead sendng them to those most personally involved -- if a pregnant person thinks a new person should be born, then she's probably right. And if she thinks a new person should not be born, she's also probably right.
In a lot of games, we have knowledge of how the system around characters works in ways that we just don't in reality. Experience points are an obvious one, but also moves, powers.
What else do games teach us? How are these applicable to political issues? How do games shape our political beliefs?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
From D&D I learned:
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to sit around with friends and tell stories.
Fun is more fun when there's a group of people doing it together.
There are different ways to have fun.
Fun can require different skills from different people.
It's hard, intentional work to ensure that people with different fun-styles have fun together.
From this I think I fundamentally learned that diversity of opinions and styles can be a valuable asset to a political endeavor, even--especially--if it requires (and thus encourages) intentional communication and self-examination among the people doing it.
That killing others makes us stronger. That it is legit to loot the dead, even desirable to kill those we don't need to in an effort to enrich ourselves. That violence is almost always a more tactically viable and socially acceptable way to proceed than to negotiate. That the process of suspending agency is normal. That conflict is the de facto state of being. That vigilantism is heroic.
ReplyDeleteThere's plenty of more positive lessons too, but let's not lose sight of these as well.
Mo Jave I'm realizing that the question I answered, "what did i learn from D&D" is not exactly the same as the question asked in the op, of "what do these games teach us".
ReplyDeletein that: the things you mentioned? i personally had already learned from playing video games and movies long before i played my first RPG.
but if the question isn't "what changes did this game make in your worldview, you personally" but rather "what ideas does the game espouse and reinforce in general", that's going to include more things
All I learned is that the Computer is my friend.
ReplyDeleteFrom Golden Sky Stories I learned that people sometimes need help and violence doesn't solve people problems. Also that animals and children are adorable.
ReplyDeleteFrom D&D I learned that being the leader is often as simple as paying attention to others and prompting them to make decisions. I also learned that as I get older I am more and more uncomfortable with the ingrained racism and violence in D&D. (To be fair, as Mo Jave implies, that is less to do with D&D's setting or rules and more to do with me.)
From the Leverage RPG I learned that most RPGs are doing competence fantasy wrong and that it's possible to build games that very explicitly don't pit the GM against the players but still contain interesting conflict. (Yes, I know other games have done that, but this is the one where I saw it most clearly.)
From Dungeon World I learned that putting PCs in the spotlight deliberately is massively awesome.
From Trail of Cthulhu I learned that I don't really like managing spotlight time by making sure skills are shared evenly around the PCs. I also learned that players need more clues than you think to figure things out and red herrings are stupid. Eventually from Call of Cthulhu, Cthulhu Dark, and Trail of Cthulhu I figured out that competence fantasy does not work for me in mythos stories.
That plans almost never work the way you want, that sometimes a game is just a game and not a life lesson, that sometimes you need to let people enjoy what they enjoy without shitting on it just because you can, and that nothing is perfect so make of it what you can.
ReplyDeleteMatt Johnson I am super curious to hear if you think critical analysis of media counts as "shitting on" things people like.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've seen it depends entirely on the context. "Don't yuk people's yum" and all that. Would saying it "Don't tell people they are doing it wrong just because they aren't doing it the way you do" have been better phrasing? Most of the lessons I've learned from games aren't from the games themselves but the conversations around them, so that's the context I'm replying with.
ReplyDeleteOh, and because I'm obsessively thinking about it now... by being snarky with that initial wording I likely did exactly what I said not to do, so sorry about that.
ReplyDelete