My History with Games

In my last post, I spoke of my passion for games.  I’d like to spend a short post to explain my background with games to provide a view on why I am so fond of them.  Obviously, everything we write, do, think, believe is colored by our experiences, so I see no reason not to be forthcoming about mine which have led to these posts.  There’s also little reason to say I play games for reasons other than fun.  Fun really should be the reason anyone, anywhere games.  However, not all players find the same games fun, and those that do find the same games fun may not find them fun for the same reasons.  So when I say “I think this game is fun”, I find it to be a very superficial statement that bears some support. 

Games as a Mathematic Exercise

The math in most games is pretty simple, and should be simple so that the games are accessible and quick to play.  However, the probability structures in many of these games are substantially more complex than many players realize, but full understanding of these systems aren’t really necessary to play the games.  I find digging into the what the dice are doing numerically, and how we interpret their results is a great way to practice basic probability, and some methods I’ve applied to my simulation research projects originally came from thinking about dice results from WEG Star Wars, Axis & Allies, or Dungeons & Dragons.  I love this kind of analysis, and really, it’s a major reason I’ve started this blog.

Games as a Social Gateway

Prior to high school, both electronic and tabletop games provided me a measure of common experience and common language that allowed me to relate to my peers.  Growing up, I was socially withdrawn, and often felt to fit poorly into my environment.  This made the common ground created by my interest in games all the more valuable.  In grade school, I spent plenty of nights playing HeroQuest with friends and talking about Dragon Warrior.  In high school, discussing various flavors of X-Com occupied a lot of high school.  I also had a few fitful starts at trying to run a WEG Star Wars game during high school.  The plot never really went anywhere, but it had me spending time time with my friends socially outside of school, which was a major step forward for me. 

Gaming as a social activity expanded after I started college, and during my early university semesters, there was little difference between my social circle and gaming circle.  When I started veterinary school I was lucky to find a local gaming group that I meshed with very well.  And again when I returned to graduate school, I found friends in gaming that formed the basis of my social circle.  

While some people in this world can move to a new area and find friends with little effort, I am not one of them.  On all of these occasions, these games provided me with a critical foundation which I could build a social network and find friends.  I don’t believe I could have done this without these games.

Games as Empowerment & Escapism

Escapism and empowerment are two reasons I play games, but I think it’s difficult to separate them since they feel like two sides of the same coin.  It well established that games can be empowering, they allow to take on a role we don’t usually occupy in ‘real life’, and, in this role, make decisions that have far-reaching consequences, albeit in an imaginary world.  By taking on a new role in this other world, we allow ourselves to escape our realities, for a brief time.  But beyond this first level of empowerment and escapism, I find a second level where these two are entwined.  Not only am I escaping the real world by engaging my mind in the rules of a fictional one, I’m personally immune from the consequences of the fictional decisions here in the real world.  Games can be incredibly liberating.  This has been a valuable outlet for me to have, and provided a place I could feel welcome, regardless of what was occurring in other parts of my life.

Games and my ADD

While a player’s objectives in a game are relatively constant, the environment in which the player pursues these goals is dynamic.  The available options to each player and the relative value of each option changes with each players move.  For example:

• The values of Monopoly properties change as the game progresses
• Moves in chess may become open or blocked following on opponents move 
• Party member’s health pools in Final Fantasy games dwindle during combat
• Buffs and procs occur during boss fights in WoW

This dynamic environment requires substantial attention to track, and the various sources of input are extremely stimulating.  This type of dynamic environment is extremely appealing to people with attention deficit disorder (ADD), like myself.  While we have substantial difficulty focusing on individual tasks, we tend to find great enjoyment when we can divide our attention between several sources of information simultaneously.  

I don’t think I recognized this appeal of games when I was younger, but certainly do now.  When I’m slaying a group of Draugr while avoiding traps in Skyrim or watching outbreaks and seeking cures in Pandemic, I enjoy a relaxed feeling.  It’s difficult to explain how stimulating activities can lead to relaxation, but in my case they do, and it’s a very comfortable way for me to enjoy myself.

Games as a Creative Outlet

Games, both electronic and tabletop, are interactive.  Truly, interactivity is one of the very few qualities all games must share to be considered games.  By their interactive nature, the player is able to influence the outcome.  By giving the player influence on the direction of events in a prefabricated setting, it becomes very easy for players to overlay their own narrative into the events, which may further guide later player choices.  This is essentially what role-playing is, application of a narrative to otherwise purely objective dice rolls in a relatively arbitrary system of rules.  While this method of creation storytelling very easy, it is also very shallow.  The magnitude of decisions and consequences is dictated by the narrator and the game system, and the results are decided by the interpretation of the dice by the narrator and players.  But nevertheless, I’ve found it to be an easy stepping off point for writing, a valuable creative outlet for me.

And such are the major highlights of why I find games so appealing.  Hopefully this history and set of opinions will provide some context for the arguments yet to come.  I'll be starting the actual discourse on the game shortly by examining what is necessary to make a game.

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