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Last week we had James Portnow from the Extra Credits team (also CEO of Rainmaker Games) answer some questions for us, but, because he actually answered them thoughtfully and constructively (who knew right?!), we split the Q&A into two parts, and today we present the second half!  Here’s a link to the first half if you missed it, with topics such as gamified education and thoughts on the games industry.  So without further ado, sit back, take a breather from fanboying (or fangirling) over the last Guild Wars 2 beta weekend, and enjoy a little more Extra Credity goodness!

Q:  How about gamifying government? Voting, in terms of game design, is a pretty poor incentive, as demonstrated by the poor U.S. voter turnout. Do you think game concepts could be applied to even the most central parts of our society, such as the workings of democracy?

A:  Eh, I really shouldn’t comment here. I feel as though the incentive structure and the engagement curve on modern politics has been purposely manipulated to make certain groups of people feel disenfranchised. I know it’s a little bit of my conspiranoia but I really do feel as though I can see how modern politics (especially through some of the modern news casting) has taken the engaging sections of politics and intentionally flipped the engagement curve for specific subsets of people through messaging.

If you live in the US your thought should be “I get to help make decisions for the most powerful, most influential country in the world”, that’s awesome and exciting – and it’s what you’re actually doing – but for many people it’s come to be “my vote doesn’t matter”, even though that’s scientifically, demonstrably, not true.

Q:  Here’s a challenge question: what is your favorite and most beloved game narrative? Why did that one win out?

A:  If you have a favorite game narrative you haven’t played enough games ; )

Q:  On a related note, writing the narrative to a game is very different from writing a regular script or story, but can be equally touching or provoking. How long do you think it will be before games will be critically acclaimed for their depth and meaning on the same level as great literature or film?

A:  I think we’ll be a little behind graphic novels. Pop culture is starting to accept the validity of sequential art as a medium I’m not sure we’ll be that far off (if I had to take a safe wager I’d say within the decade).

Q:  On the story train of thought: do you think we’ll ever see a big return of deep central characters and character development in the industry from Japanese RPG developers? Or is the role of creating powerful characters and central story at risk compared to Western RPG popularity? Could we see a new genre of story driven games delivered in more modern ways than most current JRPGs offer?

A:  Alright, here I’m going to sound like a git, but there is simply no way that you’re going to argue to me that the RPG with a strong centralized story is a thing of the past: the real problem is simply that of late (with some notable exceptions) Japanese developers have just been missing the mark. Or, I’ll be more blunt: they’ve been being terrible at the narrative part of a narrative driven genre. This in no way means that the genre has a failing, only that people haven’t been executing on it well.

In some ways it is akin to the Japanese anime industry. When the anime industry finally got to the point where they had the budgets the training and the technology to tell the stories they wanted to tell they were able to deliver some remarkable works, and those works were even considered mainstream; unfortunately after those works became hugely successful they were then seen as templates rather than freestanding works and so the superficial elements were copied over and over without any real understanding of the soul of the work.

That coupled with a move away from investing in narrative to an investment in high end graphics has kept the JRPG industry (in general, again with clear exceptions) from delivering the level of narrative the genre demands.

Q:  What are your thoughts on what distinguishes “casual gamers” from “hardcore gamers”? What about “casual games” v.s. “hardcore games”?

Opinion.

Q: Finally, is there any significance to your goatee? It’s a pretty awesome one.

A:  Bwahahaha…When I bite my lower lip I can make it look like a porcupine…which my nieces love.

There you have it!  Again, big thanks from all of us at tl-dr to James for giving us his time.  Although I will note he didn’t really answer the last question, which can only mean there’s a huge conspiracy surrounding Mr. Portnow’s facial hair.   Also, Jacob is gonna kill me for not getting an elaboration on the hardcore question, though thankfully, Diane and I are forming an Anti-abuse tl-dr union for just such dangers.  Say no to blogger abuse!

Now go watch some Extra Credits!

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Three years ago, if someone had told me that I would be a World of Warcraft roleplay leader down the road, I would have laughed.  I would have laughed because, back then, I held the same standard view most outsiders to video games and roleplay have: that roleplay is a strange activity that strange people do to fulfill their strange fantasy needs.  And I’d never tried it, nor did I ever intend to!  It’s just way too “out there.”

This, my friends, is what I call “Roleplay Phobia”, and I was guilty of it.  Many, many people are; gamers and non-gamers alike.

For anyone completely unaware of what Roleplaying is, in its most broad defining sense, it is the act of pretending to be one’s character.  Roleplaying (RP for short) has a lot of forms, everything from LARPing (Live Action Role Play), to tabletop RP such as in Dungeons & Dragons, to video game RP, all of which have social stigma surrounding them, a stigma that is completely and utterly wrong.

Nonetheless, I had a bad case of unwarranted Roleplay Phobia; I would see people LARPing at an anime convention and automatically assume something about them, and I didn’t think much better of people doing it in games, though I had never even really seen it.  My “social rules” simply dictated that it’s not what people are “supposed” to do, because it was “weird”, regardless of the fact that they were having fun, and not affecting me in any way, and regardless of the fact I myself was not a terribly conventional kid in many ways.

So what happened?

Well, first I started playing World of Warcraft.  Mind you, this was before I met my current guild Vanguard Gaming, I was simply roaming the world of Azeroth without the slightest inclination to RP.  My character, an elven rogue, was passing through a small town to gather quests, and as I walked into a small inn I unwittingly found ten or so other characters discussing their plan to poison a nearby dwarven water source.  They were all speaking 100% in character (IC), some drunkenly, some with a bit of a “ye olde english” lilt, and all contributing to a complex and interesting story they were making up on the spot.

As I had walked into the small building, I had hit my stealth spell to go invisible, which is the proper reaction for a rogue caught off guard by something disturbing.  Yet, from my hidden position, I continued to watch the conversation with piqued interest, simply because for all my judging, I had never really watched RP.  Then, perhaps out of raw, un-pressured curiosity, I did the unthinkable; I un-stealthed.  I had my character greet the others warily, and started asking a few questions as I idly walked over to the tavern bar for a drink.  The up-to-no-good group went on the defensive suspecting me a spy, but I convinced them I could be trusted, and I later left the inn belonging to an RP guild that now intended to use me as a pawn for their evil deeds.

It felt epic!  We, a small group of characters, had just created the beginning of a completely awesome story.  Better than a story; a narrative.  A fictional event only possible because of all the different aspects of our characters coming together at that time and place.  My character’s emotional depth and subsequent actions would affect not only my story, but the story of others, and vise versa for their characters as well!  And it suddenly hit me that this epic feeling was roleplaying, which I had previously stuck my nose up at, and rudely dismissed.

Since then, I joined my current guild, and hesitantly volunteered to take on some of the story-crafting responsibility for the guild’s RP events.  I ended up a RP administrator paving the narrative flow of those stories!  I could (and will in the future!) talk about this aspect of RP alone, the part that involves crafting roleplay; the characters, the story, and all the elements that go into this improvisational imaginative story telling medium.   But right now I just want to address the stigma around roleplay, and why it is so so so so so dumb.

Fantasy roleplay lets the player express their self beyond the limiting parameters of the game.  Sure, WoW is an MMORPG (*cough* Role Playing Game *cough*), but it’s only called that because it lets players express themselves by choosing what they look like, what skills they use, and what quests they do.  The game provides no emotional depth to the player’s character whatsoever, as is the case with most western RPGs simply because they often trade a sense of “immersion”; the feeling that the player is existing in an alternate world, for the ability to tell the player’s own unique story. Some games have moved towards giving the player some more thoughtful, self-defining power, but the only way to really expand fully on who a character is, without the game telling you who you are (see: JRPGs) is through roleplay.

In player-created roleplay, the player gains an active role in who their character really is, who they are fighting for, what they love and hate, who they betray and save.  It is a compelling, exciting, and captivating story.  And, it’s spontaneous and unscripted because each character is played by a real person.  It’s your favorite improv TV show like “Whose line is it anyway” but filled with every aspect of creative force; comedy and drama alike, and you, the player, are the one on stage!  This is why roleplay should be celebrated!  Not stereotyped, ridiculed, or even disdained.  Roleplay is an artistic expression; it can be complex or completely gooftastic, but it is always imaginative and freeing as people shape their experience together.  You create something totally new every time you participate, something that can never again be experienced in exactly the same way.

tl-dr

Roleplay isn’t weird, it’s misunderstood.  It’s often judged as a social oddity, when in reality it’s both incredibly socially engaging, and a fantastically compelling way to bring a fictional world to life.

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

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