The Escapist, Issue 30: Method Gamers

[Evil Avatar]

Like most things in this world, gaming has been an evolution. Roleplayers were the first "gamers," playing tabletop titles such as Dungeons & Dragons. The age of computers and the internet would soon follow, and with it the first MUD, a text-based multiplayer adventure game, and the revolution of online roleplaying was born. But where have these gamers gone, now that story and imagination have been replaced with 3D graphics? The Escapist takes a close look at roleplaying in games in issue 30: "Method Gamers." (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/30)

Mark Wallace: In Celebration of the Inner Rogue (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/30/3)
"Just who is it I see before me on my screen? Is it him, or is it me? What real difference could it possibly make?" Mark Wallace discusses player-to-avatar relationships.

John Tynes: The Contrarian: Masks in the Woods (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/30/6)
John Tynes laments the loss of roleplaying when the face-to-face roleplaying games were converted to modern CRPGs. Join The Contrarian as he contrasts these worlds, and looks at the players trying to force it back into MMOGs.

Chris Dahlen: I Enjoy Playing a Girl (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/30/15)
"As I psychoanalyze myself, I'd have to say my first reason for switching gender isn't to become a woman, but to not be myself. I want to take a break from myself - and playing a girl puts me in far more neutral territory." Chris Dahlen explains why he prefers female avatars.

Will Hindmarch: A Roleplayer in Azeroth (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/30/18)
Though descended from tabletop games, CRPGs borrowed from the settings and mechanics much more successfully than they captured the spirit. Will Hindmarch, a self-professed RPG snob, discusses his feelings on this, and how his experience in World of Warcraft has affected them.

Nova Barlow: Remember the Ice Chicken (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/30/21)
"When people are so far immersed in a story, everything the story touches develops meaning." Nova Barlow gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how players react to events, and shares some of the knowledge she gained while creating them.

[agentgray]

I enjoy playing a girl.

Before everybody get's all Brokeback on me, I do enjoy it. It does give a different experience to play. Only once have I ever been thought as a girl in real life.

It's kind of funny to, when everybody's chatting up: you're a guy? It's like I shattered some dreams or hopes.

The truth is all my PvE characters are women and all my PvP characters are men. It helps me differentiate. They all also have the same last name and I even mentally realte the characters somehow. It's just a stupid habit I've had since grade school.

I wonder how many other guys on EA play as women avatars? I know that some of the GW players play as women characters. I won't name names. :)

When I was the leader it was pretty funny all the join requests I would get when they found I that a female character was a guild leader or could hang with the boys pretty well.

Plus, it's also hilarious to see a team of all female rangers teaming up for some trapping or spiking.

[rein]

I used to never ever play female characters. However, I started a female night-elf for a guild that was originally going to be all female characters. It is not a roleplay character, not sure I could pull that off. Aside from a few minor annoyances, it's actually a good character to play. I do make it clear if anyone tries to talk me up that I do in fact have a real life penis. It usually makes them run away... .usually.

It really is no different than playing Tomb Raider or any other video game that has a lead female character. It's a game. I find myself enjoying the character as she battles or gets new equipment. There are a few emotes that bug me though. LOL comes to mind. Fact is, I like the character and I am a straight male that keeps both hands on the keyboard while playing.

[JRR006]

I often play with a male avatar, for much the same reasons as given in the article. One time I upset a fellow, who accused me of "misrepresenting" myself... ah, good times. Wish I still played Dark Age of Camelot. That's about as on-topic as I can get - he seemed genuinely mad. If anyone cares to analyze that reaction, I've always been curious.

Aside: I usually use the same last name for all of my characters, too. And go into elaborate acrobatics to mesh their backstories, even when they're from different races.

[Citizen Philip]

We all know you are playing female characters so you can catch all those fancy pick-up line for chatrooms you wish you knew. I mean gawd: you're already playing Alliance! Female night elf character is just icing on your cream puff cake ;)

[YoungAlCapone]

I usually use female avatars. Never really explained why, but was always made fun of for it. After playing Beyond Good and Evil I have always liked using female avatars. I don't really have an explanation beyond that.

[Nite_Moogle]

I played female alliance characters because I couldn't stand the male voices. I wanted to stab my avatar every time that squeaky gnome voice came out of my speakers.

[rein]

We all know you are playing female characters so you can catch all those fancy pick-up line for chatrooms you wish you knew. I mean gawd: you're already playing Alliance! Female night elf character is just icing on your cream puff cake ;)

For the record, my main characters are usually sexy green shredding machines, Horde, Orc, and all man. This was my first attempt at alliance since beta.

As far as the pick up line thing... ..I get most of those reading kelegacy's post here at EvAv.

[Rirath]

I always play as female avatars. For starters, if I'm going to play some MMORPG for 80 hours, a female night elf/ranger/whatever is just more fun to look at for any length of time. And let's face it, some of the real fun of RPGs can be playing "dress up" with your equipment. All the better when it's a hot avatar rather than Buff Biffly. Females just plain make cooler sorcerers, assassins, archers, you name it. Actually RP'ing a female character game wise, that can be fun too though.

A female body with a male's mind, what could be better? :p /duck

[agentgray]

A female body with a male's mind, what could be better? :p /duck
I feel bad. My first thought after reading that is I would want to touch my body...all over.

I've got to call my wife...

[dr_wily]

meh, the escapist has turned into a fancy blog

i enjoyed the article about EA a while back, but nothing has interested me since then.

Its all experiences and opinions, rather than actual articles.

[Librum]

The articles were fairly interesting, though it seems to be very heavy on the theatrical-style RP discussions. Like many things, I've always felt there was a spectrum to roleplaying.

At the one end, you've got the beer and pretzels style gamers who enjoy their games just as much as anyone else, but they wouldn't ever say they identify or empathize with the little plastic pieces or moving pixels on their screen. At the other end are the amateur authors and dramatists who are merely using the tabletop or the computer screen as a place to express their work. Most folks I've encountered fall somewhere in the middle.

[Mason]

Eh, it's a shame that WoW is the only game discussed. It's so bloody undirected and pointless. DAoC's faction conflict would've made a lot more of a relevant example. You don't have to intentionally roleplay in the conventional sense, because by participating in the keep/relic battles a lot of roleplay emerges from the standard gameplay. Leadership, loyalty, morale, strategy, fatigue...

Fatigue came when we Mids stole 5 of the 6 relics, and spent most of a week defending them from Hib and Alb assaults, through all hours of the day and night.

WoW has nothing even close to that. The only role you naturally play is "guy who really wants better loot and is willing to do repetitive tasks to get it".

About half of the Escapist pieces treat the failure of MMORPGs to implement D&D-style RP as somehow notable and objectionable. Do they not get the many ways in which MMOs and PnP games fundamentally differ? Every player of a PnP game has a human brain interpreting their actions and fitting them into the world and the plot, often creatively and silently remaking the world to compensate for a player's actions. Expecting thousands of MMO players to simultaneously receive a similar experience is just weird.

One guy repeatedly alludes to it being a matter of missing tools, without going much into what tools are missing that would empower MMO RP. That, to me, would be a very worthwhile discussion.

[TheKeck]

It seems that most of the attention is coming to the "I enjoy playing a girl" article. I was also interested in that one. Here is my favorite quote:

In the real world, women are shaped by experiences I can’t imagine: Even if I felt like throwing on a dress and trying to pass as the other sex, I wouldn’t have one clue about how to do it. For all our assurances that men and women have the same talents and potential, treating them exactly the same feels like ducking an issue, rather than leveling a playing field.

I couldn't agree more with this. Sexual discrimination is one thing, but as much as people may not like to admit it, there ARE differences between men and women. Now, trying to manifest that in WoW without offending anyone would probably be extremely tricky, if not impossible, but it's an interesting topic, (to me anyway).

[ElectricMonk]

Let me be the minority and say any rpgs I play I always play male characters. ALWAYS. I sometimes start female characters just for a different experience but I usually lose interest in them.

My rpg characters are always the most direct version of me the game can allow. So not really 'role playing' at all. Just reading that people play a game to 'escape' makes me think somebody needs to go to the gym more. Maybe be a little more proud of who they are.

[YoungAlCapone]

Let me be the minority and say any rpgs I play I always play male characters. ALWAYS. I sometimes start female characters just for a different experience but I usually lose interest in them.

My rpg characters are always the most direct version of me the game can allow. So not really 'role playing' at all. Just reading that people play a game to 'escape' makes me think somebody needs to go to the gym more. Maybe be a little more proud of who they are.

Well, if the game allows enough variety to design a character that I can truely make into "me," then I usually will have 2 characters. One female and one "me."

I find that most games though do not allow enough freedom that I can really put myself in the position of the avatar.

[Rirath]

My rpg characters are always the most direct version of me the game can allow.

I never really try to create a digital version of myself for the same reasons I don't name my characters my real name. It just gets old for me fairly quickly. I made the mistake of naming the main character in DQ8 (without realizing) my own name, and now I wish I would have simply named him "Hero".

That said, I do usually project my own will into my characters. I could never really get into the "I'll RP an evil character and do only evil deeds" or "I'll play the hero and try not to break any laws" type of gameplay. My character's will is usually just a muddle of whatever /I/ would like to do at that time. (Probably why I tend to play Chaotic Neutral when given a choice.)

[Wraith]

For my FFXI characters, I alternated: male, female, male, female. I don't want to make a character that's me any more than I'd want to watch myself in a movie. I want a character that's interesting to me, rather than reflecting myself to others. I never pretend that there's not a guy behind the keyboard, when playing a female character, but I really don't feel like having to announce "hey, I'm a guy, just so you all know" either.

[Roc Ingersol]

I don't have a problem with the mangina or shenis.
It's the odd justifications that throw me for a loop.

E.g. I don't understand the "I don't wanna have to stare at a guy's ass all day". Wouldn't that mean you couldn't watch pretty much any movie with a male protagonist? If we're assuming that your focus and field of view are perpentually dominated by male body parts that are somehow innately sexualized, just about any popular movie would be just as 'gay' as having a male avatar.