The Imagination Gap

Online gaming is a very strange experience. On the one hand, it's intrinsically and intuitively obvious. If I produce a game based on medieval Japan, say, starships and cell phones simply won't fit. So I won't add them.

But in a real sense, online games are the philosophical descendants of the tabletop games, like Dungeons & Dragons or RuneQuest. These games were ones that required innovation and imagination to create a character. You simply didn't have the option of selecting a template character. From your character's appearance to personality, to physical quirks, you decided everything yourself.

But as we all know, if it wasn't coded into your favorite MMO, it ain't gonna happen. If you want your character to flip a coin when he's bored and the game does not offer a coin-flipping animation, tough luck. If you want a freaky, Kramer-like haircut and the game doesn't offer it, that's too bad.

Now, obviously, there are good reasons for this. It is impractical to attempt to accommodate what is essentially fluff into every game, merely to offer choices that will be irrelevant to most people. It's not as though your coin-toss or weird hair will be of any value in a raid, after all. And really, when you get right down to it, isn't that why you play an MMO?

Maybe yes. Maybe not. Regardless, we all accept this as an inevitable reality in the world of online gaming. And if combat effectiveness in raids or PvE play is your thing, then even the appearance of your gear is really of little consequence, so long as the stat bonuses complement your play style.

But what if your interest does not lie in combat? What if you're a (gasp!) roleplayer? What then? Now the entire reason for the character deals with quirks and appearance. It does not aid in roleplay if your character looks and acts like every one of the other tens of thousands of Night Elf Warriors do. You want -- you need -- something unique.

Happily, many games offer at least some of these amenities. Whether it is "appearance slots" where apparel can be worn for the sake of appearance only, "barbers" allowing enhanced character customization options, or other props and goodies to offer a wider range of abilities, games are becoming somewhat more "roleplay friendly".

This is all fine and well, and I applaud the game designers and their parent soulless corporations -- er, I mean game companies -- for making the effort. But this still sidesteps the point, which is so pervasive it is often overlooked.

In a tabletop roleplaying games there are many ways to become powerful (i.e., accumulate experience points). The gamemaster may reward you for writing a history of your character, for a memorable roleplaying session or for aiding a party member in something unrelated to combat. An MMO cannot do so, thus rendering these efforts pointless from the standpoint of advancing your character. In a sense, while you are not being punished for spending your time this way, neither are you being rewarded.

So how would a game that did offer these things work? What would it look like? How would it play? To explore the answers I invite you to join me for my next post, A Second Look at Second Life.