How RPG's can bring out a personality

You can't defeat evil with RPG's!

I am an open book. Truly. That book may be little more than a dime-store novella, but it's clear and open none-the-less. I know exactly who I am and the metaphorical lines that I will draw in the sand when presented with ethical quandaries. I know the point to which I am willing and able to stand my ground and to which degree my innate, and overbearing, cowardice takes over. (Hint: it doesn't take much.) How do I know all this about myself? A combination of life-long candidness, too much time on my hands, and a love for that most illuminating of video game genre's; RPGs. (Two of those factors may feed into the other.)

What exactly do I mean by that? Well, me, I'm merely expressing my belief that games which shape themselves around player choice and consequence are ideal for introspective self-analysis. (Arguably in a very 'surface level' manner but y'all gotta start somewhere, right?) I credit this to the way in which many of the most popular RPG games of the age have endeavoured to stick players in scenarios which encourage difficult choices and labour them with little to no baggage, allowing for players to really immerse themselves into their characters in a practical and/or emotional manner. This is the concept that I intend to explore today. (With examples!)

The art of developing a difficult choice in a player driven narrative is both deeply taxing and rewarding. It demands the developer to explore multiple very appealing solutions to a huge problem, exploration that must be exhaustive in every regard. (Which is difficult for the standard person to achieve with their very biased minds.) And it is rewarding in that, when you go beyond the standard 'good' and 'bad' of a decision, you are left with a decision that branches into the personal politics of the player, with the potential to cut very deep from an emotional angle. Such a decision is not only just heavily revealing for an individual, but has the potential to haunt them for long after they put the controller down. (One of highest praises that a storyteller can achieve.) One such choice for me stemmed from a series known for it's difficult choices; TellTale's The Walking Dead Season 1 (spoilers impending).

 Although, as I hinted, there are many head-scratcher decisions that divided fan bases, there is one in particular that resonated on a deeply visceral level with me. Namely the scene near the midpoint of the series when players are left deciding what to do with Duck. Duck is the annoying son of your closest friend in the game, Kenny, who's dumb kid antics has already led to one guy getting the chomp and almost endangered the whole party at one point. Despite that, he is still Kenny's Son, and when that kid ends up bitten it is becomes a difficult pill for the old lug to swallow. Even more difficult for his wife, who would rather shoot herself then have to harm her son (which she does.) leaving Kenny in an even more heartbroken state that hinders his ability to do what must be done. At this point the player is given the choice to encourage Kenny into mercy killing his own son or do it for him. I found that this choice in particular always wrestled with me as I struggled with the merciful decision and the concept of stealing away Kenny's last moment with his son. In one way, that is scenario that no father should have to go through, and yet it is also something that only a father has the right to do. Whichever direction that the player eventually falls on the issue, they are left with an insight into how they view such an abnormal situation which they, hopefully, would never have experienced otherwise.

Of course, situations like that work much better when paired with the 'blank slate' character archetype, which comes with it's own difficulties and rewards to bring to life. As puppeteers of the main show, it is fitting for games to put players in the shoes of the protagonist by depriving that leading character of all their back story and previous driving forces, allowing for the person to stick themselves into that blank space. The problem with this is that most great narratives tie story progression to character development, which can be difficult to achieve when your character pointedly possess no personality. Therefore balances must be struck in order to put players in the perfect place wherein they have empty shoes to fill and an emotional journey that promises to twist and jive in the future.

One such example of a game which famously did this to great success was 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic'. That story kicked off with players being shoved into the passenger quarters of a starship under siege by the Sith with no memory of how they got there or who they are. Whilst the 'suprise amensia' trope is painfully overdone in media, here it has a functional purpose (giving the players a blank soul to inhabit) and has a genuine reason for happening with a solid payoff down the line. (Which I will not be spoiling.) Other great RPG's have followed suit too, with 'Fallout: New Vegas' starting with the protagonist getting shot in the head, justifying that amnesia; and all the Elder Scrolls games starts with a nobody who's never achieved anything noteworthy in the lives, allowing for the audience to jump right in and change all that.

Finally, the most important ingredient in this recipe is 'immersion'. This is the way in which the game developers attempt to ground the player and contextualize them within this fictional world in order to encourage players to believe in this world and care what happens to it. This is the best way in which a game can accurately bring out an individual's personality as it can lightly trick them into believing the world in which they inhabit. There is no handbook to creating great immersion, but there are a few notable examples of some games and genre's that pull it off to great gusto.

The 'Immersive sim' genre is full of games that pull off great settings that tend to be, go figure, immersive. These are examples wherein the game is a narrative driven experience for which the player is along for every step of the way, including during the 'in-between' moments at home. Oftentimes these games involve players getting the chance to learn their neighbourhood and become familiar with their environment for an inevitable third act surprise attack. Dishonored had players trek around the Hounds Pit pub, Dues Ex had players regularly visiting futuristic New York and 'Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines' lets you stalk the LA shadows. That little touch of letting players familiarize themselves with their world is a subtle but handy immersive tool, as it gets them invested when their actions begin to change their little slice of that world.

All of these factors come together in the best RPG's in a manner which can, in the right circumstance, help tease out the particulars of one's personality. I say this as an individual who is, and has been, very shy throughout my life. I've always had trouble interacting with others for that initial leap, but once a conversation is started I can rattle off forever. My time with video games is partially responsible for that because they have made me more confidant in my personality and the cocksure arse that I can sometimes be. Which makes for a measurable change in my person from when I was a kid and entirely unable to sustain conversation altogether.

It might seem tenuous and pedantic to attribute such a growth in character to the subtle actions of video game developers and storytellers, but I have learnt never to underestimate the power of fiction to teach us things about ourselves. (Else I would never have discovered my own passion for storytelling.) Even as we play characters up on the screen or on a digital stage, we are playing shadows of ourselves with more shades of truth to them than fiction. That's not to say that, just because you have a habit of going on murder sprees in your RPG games, that such violent tendencies reflects your readiness to do the same in real life (we're not about to 'Jack Thompson' this up); but it does go to show your willingness to exploit an environment with little to no consequence, or explore a antithetical morality to your own. There's always something to learn about yourself in these kinds of games, you only need to pay attention and see.