Monster’s Den really helped pass the work day away, yesterday, and the entire time playing it I kept your thoughts in mind. I wonder if I’m beginning to automatically fill in the blanks that games leave between their character interactions.
In Diablo II, for instance, I played a Necromancer with a lot of minions. Understatement aside, I used one of the Act II mercenaries (due to the healing aura) and I was always kind of curious what kind of person it would take to fight alongside a horde of skeletons. While consistently being out-performed by them.
I’d tend to imagine my character reminding him about the general safety of his well-being, considering he’d rarely ever die.
Should we also be exploring ways to train gamers to think along these paths?
Your article reminded me very strongly of Ursula K LeGuin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”.
Also, I have semi-related experiences DMing a D&D game. The adventure genre is poor for developing relationships with NPCs because of the “always move forward never look back” format of the adventure. Even with the simple get-mission, return-for-reward structure, many times the players would find something mid-mission that captured their interest, so after killing the boss monster or whatever they were doing, they’d plow on ahead, forgoing NPC thanks and item rewards.
And PCs in a high-fantasy world don’t like having to stay in one place, I’m here to tell you. :)
The alternative, developing PC-to-PC relations, can be awkward for numerous reasons. Bickering between players may result. But if characters are role-played well, then such things get in the way of battle tactics, and people can die unnecessarily. Or the game can fall apart because the PCs — being very different in occupations (wizard, warrior, thief, etc.) — have very different motivations and desires springing from it. Consequently, the party can’t realistically stay together the moment that safety is reached.
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 
Monster’s Den really helped pass the work day away, yesterday, and the entire time playing it I kept your thoughts in mind. I wonder if I’m beginning to automatically fill in the blanks that games leave between their character interactions.
In Diablo II, for instance, I played a Necromancer with a lot of minions. Understatement aside, I used one of the Act II mercenaries (due to the healing aura) and I was always kind of curious what kind of person it would take to fight alongside a horde of skeletons. While consistently being out-performed by them.
I’d tend to imagine my character reminding him about the general safety of his well-being, considering he’d rarely ever die.
Should we also be exploring ways to train gamers to think along these paths?
Your article reminded me very strongly of Ursula K LeGuin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”.
Also, I have semi-related experiences DMing a D&D game. The adventure genre is poor for developing relationships with NPCs because of the “always move forward never look back” format of the adventure. Even with the simple get-mission, return-for-reward structure, many times the players would find something mid-mission that captured their interest, so after killing the boss monster or whatever they were doing, they’d plow on ahead, forgoing NPC thanks and item rewards.
And PCs in a high-fantasy world don’t like having to stay in one place, I’m here to tell you. :)
The alternative, developing PC-to-PC relations, can be awkward for numerous reasons. Bickering between players may result. But if characters are role-played well, then such things get in the way of battle tactics, and people can die unnecessarily. Or the game can fall apart because the PCs — being very different in occupations (wizard, warrior, thief, etc.) — have very different motivations and desires springing from it. Consequently, the party can’t realistically stay together the moment that safety is reached.
-R