This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
Before beginning, I would like to acknowledge that the seeds of the ideas that ultimately led to this article were first planted in my mind when I read "Why I Like Stamp Collecting," a 1971 essay in The Minkus Stamp Journal by Ayn Rand. I consider what follows merely my application to role-playing games of her original ideas on the philosophy of stamp collecting.
To start, consider just what a role-playing game is. I define an RPG as a game in which (1) character customization occurs, (2) there exist quests or missions that are freely chosen, and (3) non-linear character advancement of some kind is present. These features can vary immensely in scale.
For instance, Western RPGs are usually more fundamental and involve character creation, while Japanese RPGs tend to favor simple customization. Quests are similar, with Japanese games being more linear and possessing fewer opportunities for voluntary questing, and with Western games in some cases offering a deluge of optional quests.
The same observation applies for the variance between regions in the non-linearity of character development. As exemplars of these two sets of approaches, consider The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Final Fantasy XIII, and in what manner the three essential characteristics are present in each game.
Why these variances exist is not the current topic of discussion, but I can go into that at a later date if there is enough interest. For now, it is sufficient to note that as long as the three principles apply, their manifestations may exist in any degree, and a game will remain an RPG.
But what is it that these three principles represent, and is it a coincidence that they exist together so often in one of the most popular genres of video game? The answer to the second half of that question is "no." The answer to the first is "the essence of life."
According to Ayn Rand, "life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action." For men, who alone are rational among living creatures, sustenance must be achieved by the volitional use of their minds. Men (1) exist uniquely as individuals, (2) must choose what they want to accomplish, and (3) how they want to accomplish it.
These three characteristics correlate exactly to the three defining attributes of RPGs delineated above. In role-playing games, one (1) creates a unique character, (2) chooses on some level what his goals are, and (3) achieves those goals through the utilization of freely selected skills (or, in a well-crafted RPG, skill sets).
Introspect for a moment. How do you live your life? In some capacity, you choose what you want and take the action required to get it.
Fundamentally, you choose (even if only implicitly, as most do) to live, and then proceed to pursue whatever career you do in order to acquire the material goods you need to survive. Whatever this line of work may be, if you are passionate and honest about its requirements, and succeed in meeting them, you achieve the psychological state known as happiness.
Both the work itself and its completion, the process and its result, the matter and its form, give you pleasure. RPGs seek to replicate this process in a dramatic and unfamiliar way in order to provide respite from the routine that, though the source of human happiness, cannot be followed indefinitely without reprieve.
Good role-playing games offer the structure of life on a grander scale (of urgency, not duration), the same race with a different track, the same form with different matter.
The path, in both real life and RPGs, is circular. In real life, you maintain your life in order to advance in your career for the purpose of better maintaining your life. In RPGs, you vanquish enemies and thereby gain XP in order to level up for the purpose of vanquishing still greater enemies. Though achievement in role-playing games must end at some predetermined point, in real life one's potential for accomplishment, and happiness, is unlimited.
The next time you feel the excitement of acquiring better loot, the thrill of leveling up, or the satisfaction of attaining 100% completion in a monster RPG, know that you are experiencing something possible to you on a far greater scale in ordinary life: the joy of living.
———————————————
Republished from The GameSaver.