I spent all of yesterday playing an abandonware title, Electronic Arts' SEAL Team from 1989. It's a wonderful game for 1989 which in my opinion has developed a lot of wonderful aspects of simulationist squad level game play which have not been well carried over today. SEAL Team isn't as sophisticated in its treatment of things that have been done increasingly well these days, like differentiating between the utility of being prone, crouched, or standing (in SEAL Team prone is basically always the best and running upright is always suicidal), or in the detailed mechanics of weapons (somehow there are no tactical reloads in SEAL Team!!!), but the wonderful aspect of this game is the flexibility with which you can call in air support or boat support for your team.

Unlike most games today which are basically about the skill of the gamer to defeat the bots SEAL Team constrains player effectiveness based on character skill. There's no way to aim better as a player and kill the enemy faster; the effectiveness of your rifle is based entirely on your character's effectiveness. If your team ends up in a dangerous situation the constructive solution is to call in your support units to help you out, which is a lot more realistic than a Physad-style miracle player killing 30 VC with ultra 100 meter headshots on one M16 mag while under heavy fire. (cough cough, Delta Force Black Hawk Down) The issues become then friendly fire, distant enemy alertness levels, and the length of time it takes for your air support to arrive. I appreciate that as something which isn't well done necessarily today.

Anyway, as I was playing this game while trying to maximize my score I began to wonder if I wasn't by default somehow role-playing a sociopathic pointman. This was my second time playing through the game and I had been trying to maximize my score. Accordingly, in addition to completing the mission objectives, I exposed the virtual SEAL Team to a lot of extra risk by stalking around the map and attempting to kill each and every enemy present. Even if I had injured team members I still engaged in this behavior; I risked losing the characters if they were killed but I didn't care about that very much since my goal was to get the highest body count possible.

If you think about it in terms of role playing anyone who plays a realism-themed or simulationist game that deals with combat would be portraying a sociopath. In real life a person who gets into a firefight could experience a long term mental trauma from the experience, like post traumatic stress disorder. From the perspective of the player controlling FPS hero, though, they're not real people and pants-wetting situations involving grenades exploding everywhere, team members dying and severed limbs splattering to the ground (thank you, Soldier of Fortune II) leads neither to fear, nor anger, nor even a strong emotional experience of any kind. It's all...mildly amusing. Imagine a possible conversation inside a FPS game:

Private: "Oh my god, Jones is dead! He's in two pieces. Oh god, sarge, I heard him moaning until he stopped, but we were under fire, I couldn't do anything...."

FPS hero sarge: "Hmm, I only got 34 headshots out of 40 shots fired. What a bother."

Private: "We've got men down! What should we do?"

FPS hero: "I need your sniper ammo." *kills private, takes his ammo*


I suppose that if somebody were to choose to roleplay someone who doesn't register pain (he probably needs to feel it but literally doesn't care) and who had a sociopathic delusion that he was the hero of a realistic FPS game in a table top role playing game it would be a really weird experience at the gaming table. It might not be a successful character in the long term due to lack of good team playing, but I'll bet that it would be really weird to see.

Well I seem to recall reading on Dumpshock where someone had played a character who honestly thought he was playing a full-VR game by using a Pain Editor and BTLs to simulate his "real life" away from the game.

Well you have to remember that I'm going purely off my failing memory of something I read once, but if I recall correctly the other characters were in on the guy's secret and had to invent excuses as to why he couldn't just go out and test his new gun on the first bystander that walked by, ect. (I think they told him that the game tracked non-combatant deaths and deducted points or something.)

I don't remember the poster saying anything about the OOC interactions, although I imagine that they'd be a little "odd" in most groups, although not as "odd" as when people start wondering if one of their own is a secret Furry based off him always getting animal like biomods done to his characters. (After we found out what was really going on we kicked the freak out of our group.)

Yes.

but the reason we have games is so we don't need to be sociopaths by default.

What?

I thought they were for practice.

Because other people already have their names plastered all over other shit, and he wanted to be famous for something?

*laugh*

Advertisements have power to shape attitudes precisely because no one really believes they have such power. We're free-willed one and all, so where does an electronic message get off telling us how to think? If the United States army recruitment website starts hosting custom-designed videogames (which don't gain you points by getting all your teammates killed btw), surely that's just because they're trying to make the site cooler?

My eyes! Oh dear God my eyes are bleeding after researching your reference.


But to answer your question, no I walked in on him having sex, and it wasn't with another human.

Jack Thompson is in it for the money.

video game publishers have a lot of money. he just has to drum up enough support for a class-action suite, and then he takes percentage.

the problem is he's a moron, and goes about finding support in very foolish ways. that backfire in his face, and no one really cares about.

He isn't just in it for the money. He appears to be both an egotistical jackass and a hardcore God-Hates-Fags Christian who wants to impose his brand of family values onto the entire world and destroy anyone and anything that disagrees with him or upsets is sense of universal order.

Incidentally, he was Pwned by Janet Reno in 1975 when he asked her to define her sexual orientation and she allegedly replied “I’m only interested in virile men. That’s why I’m not attracted to you.� He then tried to get her arrested for the incident.
Go Janet Reno Go!

"We prefer the term 'interspecies erotica.'"
--Clerks II

While I do happily defend the rights of all individuals to engage in interspecies love or not as they see fit, I am going to attempt to get this back on track.

To address the original issue, I see most video game heroes, even those in highly simulationist games, as being like the heroes of 80s action movies. They're always cool under pressure, because they have to be. They've been trained to complete the mission no matter how horrible they're feeling about the brutal deaths of their friends and they're going to be far better psychologically while they are in the field then they will be when they are off of it. Some, like John McClain, will have trouble relating to their families once back, leading to an inevitable estrangement and divorce. Others, like Lethal Weapon 1's Riggs, will have nothing left to live for but their painful memories and make out with their service pistols every night while contemplating whether or not to go all the way. Some, like Rambo, will drift from town to town without any family to anchor them, and eventually be arrested for shooting a corrupt sheriff's deputy.
But, while they are fighting, they are the best at what they do. Calm, cool, collected, unflinching, witty and quipy.

I'm sorry, but while I consider myself fairly understanding when it comes to people's sexual drives I draw the line at same species and informed consent. (If/when there are other species with human like intellence then I'll have to review the issue but until then that is where I stand, rightly or wrongly.)

There was an article about Jack Thompson in a Rolling Stones I picked up once.

His son gets picked on A LOT at school. Other kids dun like his daddy much.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Just rephrasing your last paragraph, 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.

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.

And yet people don't change.

All the rest is -- only information.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Both and neither, all at the same time.

Physical skills, or mental attitude toward killing?

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.

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

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.

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