[X] My Assistant

[fistandantilus4....]

I must say that I'm very impressed at the breadth of the topics you've covered so far. That being said, the topics covered really have nothing to do with the site or Gaming in general except by a very loose stretch of the imagination, so please bring it back within the scope of the site. This isn't a Lounge.

[Critias]

Okay, dad. ;)

The reason "role playing" in most shooter games tends to be fairly shallow is because, well, the emphasis on such games is on the shooting, not the role playing. I don't fire up my PS2 for some Rainbow Six because I really really like it when Dieter and Price say "On the way, sir!" or "In formation!" or "Roger that, demo up." I play it because I enjoy playing with an HK G36 and shooting terrorists right in their ugly faces. Also, it's a guilt-free and consequence-free game session (as long as it's not a hostage you waste) -- so, yes. When some prick was just shooting at me and my team, and then he throws his gun down, drops to his knees, and laces his fingers behind his head? I politely thank him for holding so still, quick-swap to my handgun, and pop one into his brainpan. It's faster than holding down the "secure prisoner" button and cuffing him, and I've got places to go.

In shooters where a genuine effort is made to make you actually feel something towards the non-players -- Road to Hill 40 in particular stands out here, and to a lesser extent the Call of Duty games, and even HALO (a little bit) -- there's a bit less of the just plain shoot 'em up goin' on. You're a little less likely to just be a cold, uncaring, shooting machine...maybe. You might think twice before sending your guys out from cover (in order to draw fire for you), but it's still not really an RPG game, y'know? Even in the Ghost Recon games, where every character gains XP and gets better at their murderous profession, I still mostly care about them because I can hop from body to body and turn each one into a killing machine from time to time. It's not really the character interaction that people buy these games for. Unless by "character interaction" you mean "how another character interacts with my bullets, and occasionally my grenades."

There are RPGs out there built on shooter platforms/engines (Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, for instance), that play...well...like RPGs, instead of shooters. But for the most part, if you're playing a first person game, expect to only really care about one person. It's your character the engine is built around, and that's just how the games play themselves out.

Which is why you don't necessarily "role play" that way when you sit down for a game of Shadowrun or something... unless you're out to make that sort of character.

[Talia Invierno]

Which is a bit like saying that for all SR tabletop games except for those few players specifically out to make that sort of character, anything beyond a framework upon which to hang quantified skills and attributes is unnecessary detail -- personality included.

[Critias]

Your sentence isn't making sense to me. I recognize all the words, and they make sense to me individuals, but strung together in the order you've put them I'm drawing a blank. It's formatted very strangely.

Are you saying personality ISN'T necessary in a game where people AREN'T playing shallow, First Person Shooter flavored, sociopaths (or, rather, are you saying I'm saying that)? Because, as written, that's what I come up with -- but it only makes Bizzaro-sense, instead of Superman-sense.

Can you clarify the sentiment behind your last post, please?

[Talia Invierno]

Just rephrasing your last paragraph, Critias.

[Critias]

The last paragraph is specifically in reference to the fact that most first person games are very first-person centric ("for the most part, if you're playing a first person game, expect to only to only really care about one person"), mentioned in the text immediately previous to it.

And then I said that's why most people don't role play like they're in a first person shooter game, for that reason... unless they're specifically trying to make a sociopath.

[Talia Invierno]

That was understood.

Maybe I should have added that I did context that paragraph, within the post as a whole yes, but also within the kinds of PCs I've been seeing advocated at Dumpshock as being appropriate to roleplay; along with what is considered appropriate levels of negotiation and other interaction. (I'll admit, the easy assumption that a bullet in the face was appropriate for a non-betraying months-long PC teammate shook me.) Apparently most players at Dumpshock are out to make precisely that kind of character, complete with the first-person centric view -- to the point that some are in utter shock and believe the GM is being entirely unfair when the gameworld does otherwise.

[Hocus Pocus]

[Wounded Ronin]

[Talia Invierno]

And yet people don't change.

All the rest is -- only information.

[Fix-it]

Here's a good example of the oringinal thread topic.

that thread made me go "WTF" in the biggest way. it was locked before I could note that genocide doesn't depend on what race is the target.

Yes. games do lead to sociopathic tendencies. you just have to fight them.

[Ravor]

Well personally I tend to assume that the "Kill Whitey" thread and it's ilk aren't really meant to be serious, just as I assume that most of the "creepy gamer stories" are urban legends.

[Talia Invierno]

You will have seen my link there. Human beings are capable of extremes across a wide spectrum. The less we think one part of that spectrum can't possibly apply to us, the easier it is to slip toward that end, unnoticing.

Attitudes have changed, and like a cresting wave the direction of those attitudes is pointed first by the youngest demographics.

That it also happens to be the youngest demographics which have been most exposed, proportionate to their whole life, to an increasingly AR form of videogame which abstracts life, death, and even killing into escapist fantasy may be an incidental reinforcement, or even pure coincidence.

Then again, it may not.

[Kagetenshi]

[Talia Invierno]

I did. You're right. That's what comes of mentally trying to translate out of a language with a natural double-negative, with far too little sleep.

Thanks for the catch. :)

[Ravor]

Yeah, I read the links, and even agree that sure, in principle and the right situation it's possible for any group of people to decide that it's a good idea to start a genocide.

However, especially by your last argument I'm reminded of the fact that every generation has said that "kids these day are the worse ever" and that "things have never been this bad".

So no, coming from someone who grew up watching violent movies since I was old enough to sit propped up on my parent's lap and who was addicted to the Doom and Diablo Series, not to mention loves Grand Theft Auto and it's clones to this day (Much to my wife's chargine I might add, she hates GTA.) I'm afraid that I have to disagree, "AR" doesn't turn you into a sociopath anymore then rock-n-roll, jazz, or DnD does.

[Kagetenshi]

I can also toss my anecdote into the ring to say that the extent of my use of these things that supposedly dissociate us from others has had a direct (not inverse!) correlation with my degree of socialization.

~J

[Wounded Ronin]

[Ravor]

Both and neither, all at the same time. :cyber:

[Talia Invierno]

Physical skills, or mental attitude toward killing?

[Wounded Ronin]

[Critias]

I'd say it has less to do with Nintendos and Playstations and more to do with society in general's sweeping, mindless, knee-jerk, damning of any sort of violence or masculinity.

Everyone likes to bemoan how violent video games are (and music, and tv, and movies, and comic books), though, and they become a scapegoat. There's a horrific over-reaction to real life violence as a result. A bunch of teenagers can spend all day playing Manhunt and GTA:3 and fighting games against one another one line, and their parents are content to continue to ignore their children and throw money at them so the kids can amuse themselves instead of demanding honest parental attention...

...Then two kids get in a shoving match in a middle school hallway, and they get arrested for assault and kicked out of school.

Neither kid knows how to really fight. Neither kid has a genuinely safe outlet for their aggression. Neither kid can just let off steam by getting in a few swings at another kid after school, go home with a bloody nose, and then be pals a few days (or hours) later.

We've hit such a ridiculous level of PC-never-do-anything-that-could-possibly-damage-anyone-else bullshit that I heard about a kid getting in trouble a few weeks ago for high fiving someone. It was an unappreciated and unwanted physical contact, so the kid's in legal trouble, now.

You can't take someone from a society like that -- a situation where an unwanted HIGH FIVE will get you arrested -- and then just shove a gun into their hands and call them a "warrior" with a straight face. There's a certain level of aggression that needs to be encouraged in anyone who's going to be a soldier, and that same aggression is (oh noes violent video games! notwithstanding) damned routinely by the soccer moms running our country. The military of any nation is, by nature and at it's core, an organized group of people dedicated to killing others and breaking their things. There's lots of fancy ranks and kinder terms and pleasant symbolism about tradition and honor and duty that tries to make it clear we're the good guys, but at heart that's what a military is and what a military does. Period.

I know one community in Colorado that's passed around petitions against a memorial statue for a young man there that died in the Gulf a few years ago. They don't like the statue because he's holding a rifle, and it's too close to a school, and oh what about Columbine and think of the children and what horrible imagery. I'm not making this up. People are protesting a statue to honor a fallen young man from their community because he's a soldier carrying a rifle.

You can't raise someone in a world like that, you can't grow up and hear your parents complaining about that horrible, violent, statue (honoring a fallen soldier) -- and then make an easy mental transition to carrying that rifle yourself.

[Kagetenshi]

Well, I can see valid arguments against memorials to soldiers—arguments that I'm pretty sure most people don't have the intestinal fortitude to make even to themselves, unfortunately—but the fact that the statue is holding a rifle isn't one. As you say, the business of a soldier is violence, or at least enabling violence (for the non-combat troops)—the fact that all of that is suddenly focused into a particular object with symbolic value (the rifle) doesn't change anything.

(Just for clarification, the intestinal fortitude comment wasn't about people whose world views can justify violence—that's a different view, and one that can be held consistently (though it rarely is, but that's the case for every view I've found thus far that is even remotely popular). It's about the people who superficially embrace nonviolence without bothering to do the introspection required to determine whether one is willing to apply that ideal, even in theory, to very personal situations—or, in this case, who apparently believe that violence is something for "somebody else" to do, without thinking about how exactly to decide who "somebody else" is or what the consequences of that end up being.)

~J

[Ravor]

Or to put a more positive spin on the viewpoint Kagetenshi seems to be refering to, some people believe that a hammer is the best tool to drive a nail, but would use a screwdriver to turn a screw instead.

[Kagetenshi]

There is a large set of possible self-consistent viewpoints. Unfortunately, in my experience, the members of that set still remain rare in real life as compared to the members of the set of inconsistent and poorly-thought-out viewpoints. By objecting to the statue of the gun but not to the statue of the soldier, or to the real soldier in the first place, the viewpoint under discussion appears to come from the latter set.

~J