Many, if not most of the games we create
Indulge in some form of power fantasy
A fantasy of having power, or skill, or influence beyond anything that we could realistically achieve in this world
But there's one problem with a true raw power fantasy
To really deliver on that the player must always be right
*jazzy intro music*
I mean it wouldn't be a very effective power fantasy if,
As you were running and gunning along murdering everything in sight
Some guy popped out of the bushes to say "Record scratch"
"Hey, buddy. Hello, so tell me what you're doing"
"Ehm... I'm rampaging?"
"Mmm sure, but no like tell me what are you doing though?"
"I mean, I'm..."
Huh
It would be a buzzkill because in many of these power fantasy games
Stopping to think about what you're actually doing in the context of the story
Often reveals your character to be kind of a psychopath
Or at least a jerk
Like okay, I wouldn't be the first to point out that the original Uncharted Nathan Drake,
Murders hordes of people just because they're standing between him and some money
He's presented as the roguish hero han solo type in-game
But really the lovable scamp's only there to find a treasure, and he guns down hundreds of people to get it
But it doesn't have to be about mass murder even
Consider RPGs like the Elder Scrolls
Where we can and do sneak around looting all of the peasants blind
It is satisfying and extremely fun to do
Of course realistically
My actions would almost certainly send entire villages spiraling into starvation
And even more desperate poverty
It's quite probable that scores of people would be falsely accused of my crimes and hanged
But thinking about that quickly breaks the fantasy so understandably,
It doesn't really get brought up
And a lot of the time especially in the 'Elder scrolls' case
Where that scenario Falls way outside the core experience
That is honestly fine
Not every game is obligated to second-guess it's fictional premise
Miyamoto says "Jump on those mush men to save the princess from the turtle"
And we say "Can do!"
But given that we have built so much of our industry on delivering this power fantasy type of experience
It does concern me just a little bit that we've all embraced this unspoken rule
That power fantasies are ruined by self-examination
That merely questioning the rightness of what the player is doing
Stopping for just one seconds to ask
"Wait a minute, are we the baddies?"
Would just completely shatter the fantasy and drive players away
Now you might argue that
Hey there are some power fantasy games out there
Where it's made obvious that the things you're doing are evil
And that's true
But while those games do make you evil
I would argue that they don't make you wrong
Those games aren't about questioning the heroism of your actions,
They're just about going 'whoohoo, I'm evil now'
It's not about examining the ramifications of what you're doing
It's just embracing the cartoonish supervillain flavor of power fantasy
Here's the thing I think players can handle that self-examination
And again, it doesn't have to be a huge thing, it doesn't even need to happen in every game
But I'm willing to bet that having some character ask:
"Hey, did we do the right thing here?"
After mowing down thousands of sentient beings would not break the experience at all
What's more, the answer to that question can even be "Yes"
It is totally legitimate to ask that question and then to answer "Yes"
"Whatever our specific cause is, is worth the cost"
Maybe that's the stance you want your game to take
Or maybe it's just the stance that character in question would take
The answer isn't important
What matters is the self-examination
Superhero comics started getting a lot better once they started asking these questions
Science fiction got a lot better once it started asking these questions
Heck even Game of Thrones is built on having characters face these questions
I sometimes worry that this lack of self-examination,
This unquestioning assumption of being in the right,
Has kind of bled into our culture a bit it
Because it associates being wrong with being weak
And critical examination of what you're doing with being in some way attacked
It creates this idea that conscience is a check on power
It's not though
James spoke with a few friends who spent much of their time serving in the military
And one of them said that: really examining and understanding why he was there
And what he was fighting for
Is what gave him the strength to do impossible things day after day, for years at a time
More than that, that the ability to see the flaws the things that weren't right
Allowed him to conduct himself in such a way that made things better
And every time he didn't think he could get through one more day of it
That is what he would try to remind himself
But even more than that if we never stop to examine
How are we gonna grow?
It's only by stopping to look at our situation that we have the opportunity to spot problems
And it's only by being willing to admit that things aren't perfect
Or that we might have been wrong, that we're able to become better
And come on games are the perfect medium for that sort of self-examination
Because we're participating in the actions occurring on the screen
They are our own choices
And I don't believe that gamers are so delicate
That having one or two lines asking us to step back and consider what we're doing in play
Is going to somehow shatter the joys of these incredible gaming power fantasies
I mean do we really want game companies to think we're that fragile?
Did moments of self-examination ruin 'Logan'?
Or 'Captain America Civil War'?
Did they somehow wreck 'Battlestar Galactica' or 'Babylon 5'?
Did they instantly turn us against a 'Rogue One'?
Actually heck, I don't even have to look to other media for this
A few games were already brave enough to try it
Did moments of self-examination ruin 'The Witcher 3'?
Or 'Bloodborne'? 'Mass Effect 2'? 'Battlefield 1'?
Listen, even with a tiny tiny bit of self-examination
We can still feel powerful and awesome, and we can still totally enjoy our power fantasies
And avoiding that tiny bit of self-examination only does us a disservice
It denies us some of the incredible experiences that can come from just that little bit of additional meaning
Without it we miss out on all of that nuance and that variation that other media have enjoyed
It's what gave them all kinds of interesting new stories
We can handle it. We're grown-up
We don't always have to be right
See you next week
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