You can call me a big geek, you can call me a nerd, and I'll wear the monikers proudly. I love video games, I love comics, I love the internet, but what I truly have a passion for, is role playing. Role playing games have gotten a myriad of opinions associated with them, both positive and negative, and largely misunderstood. Let me start where I've been making a habit of starting in these posts, as far from the point as possible and gradually work my way to the idea I'm trying to convey. It's worked so far.
See, I'm Norwegian by descent. I'm actually a few mixes of nationalities and heritages, but the most prominent and identifiable in my family tree is the blood from Norway. The Norse were a strong, hardy, stocky people, much like myself in a few ways (more the stocky than the others...) I'm not ashamed to admit. One aspect of the people that I have truly identified with, however, is storytelling. A good, thrilling, engrossing story is the most powerful thing in the universe. You can take words, or images, and turn them into emotions, memories, feelings and ideas that can inspire, reshape, or even influence hearts and minds. The Norwegian people embraced this, and it became one of the staples of their society, much like the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, and many of the world's strongest and most prosperous societies. I reiterate, nothing on Earth is more powerful than a story.
So stories are fantastic, that's not the point I'm trying to make. What I adore, is the interactivity of role playing. The storyteller, dungeon master, game master, whatever title you give the person spinning the tale, designs a campaign or story. They are creating a rich, vivid universe in which you can freely act and interact within. This is escapism in its highest form, the ability to truly step aside from oneself, assume the identity of a fantasy persona, and experience a completely different world, with completely different rules, with no purpose other than freedom. To play a role playing game is fun, but to run one... that is simply magical.
One of my closest friends, an avid (and far superior to me) writer and storyteller, also of Norwegian descent, put into the most beautiful of words (see? It's what we do!) to analogize the concept:
"When you write a story, it's as if you're laying the framework for a tapestry, and giving the threads to your players. You know what happens behind the weave, so you can see the designs. The players however, only know their own thread, and intertwine with the cords and colors you have provided them with, only seeing the simplest design they weave as it's woven. As the storyteller, you can step back, watch this majestic piece unfold, and marvel at the masterpiece that has created itself."
- James Davey
Sure, I embellished the quotation a bit, but trust me, James talks just as pretty.
He's absolutely right. The thrill of watching a story you've written evolve and unfold is like no other thrill you can experience. The story becomes a being of its own, living, changing, reacting and surviving. There's an old joke among role players, in that it's the storyteller's job to create a thriving world wrought with challenge, mystery, excitement and intrigue. And it's the player's job to destroy it within the first five minutes. But this is what role playing is! It is the ability TO destroy it within five minutes! No limitations, no rules, only a set of guidelines that may or may not be followed, at the discretion of the storyteller.
Freedom at its finest.
Tonight, for a New Year's Eve... Eve party we've gathered, I'm going to playtest the new Hunter: The Vigil campaign I have been writing for a few weeks now. Four close friends are coming over, and we're going to have a blast. Regardless of the troubles we deal with every day, regardless of the stresses of daily life, regardless of what happens tomorrow... tonight we will be five friends. We will be in the World of Darkness, facing terrors from beyond, banding together to stand watch over humanity from the forces of darkness, and somehow survive the night. Hopefully. We'll see how the dice fall.
-TehKnuck out.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Virtually a Warrior
One of the questions I'm most commonly asked is: "If you're in the military, and you've gone to combat, how can you enjoy war-based video games so much?"
I've read a lot of blogs and letters written by both civilian and military patrons of the gaming arts, in which the contrasts between life and art in the realm of war are well presented and debated. This has always been an interesting field to me, which has provoked another double entendre in my title. (I'm going to try to keep those up) I consider myself a virtual warrior not only in the sense that I play many war-based video games, but that my position in the Army has fallen to a support role, a far cry from the combat I experienced in my first few years; I've become a trained warrior without a warrior's role: a virtual warrior.
The main argument I've heard on the negative side, is that war-based video games, though they are improving all the time in realism, can never truly portray the nature of war. It's true, they romanticize it. In a video game, war is an adventure. It's a rush of adrenaline, far removed from the emotions and terrors that truly manifest in the depths of its darkest hours. As a veteran of the War in Iraq myself, I can see why this is a very valid and justified fact. I agree that a young generation playing these games will adapt a misconception about war.
What I do not believe, however, is that this will create a generation of soulless, murderous automatons. We, as a species, have an uncanny ability to learn and adapt to not only our environment, but also separate logic from instinct and emotion. A competent human will be able to play a video game based on war, and realize that it is a work of fantasy, romanticizing the nobler aspects of such a terrible thing.
So what makes a competent human?
Parenting, of course. Environment, education, and in some part, community. Monetary status can definitely have an impact, but I believe it's tertiary at best to many of the other aforementioned factors. I'm digressing, this blog post isn't about parenting or my opinions about the lack thereof, it's about video games, so let me reel this back in.
I've been to war. I've walked the streets of Baghdad, I've survived vehicle combat, numerous house raids, a number of firefights, and came to a close on the wrong side of a hand grenade's 'bad' radius. I was an artilleryman, a surveyor. A 'combat support' occupation that 'isn't supposed' to be on the front lines. Every day in Baghdad I was on the front lines. There is a lot of trauma and fallout from the experiences I had during that deployment that challenge my daily life. Oddly enough, what do I do for escapism?
I play Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
You see, those experiences in war have ingrained themselves in my mind and personality. The comrades I fought alongside were my brothers. I'd die for every one of those men, and I still keep in touch with many of them to this day, seven years after we parted ways. That bond is something I treasure, something that keeps me going every day. I'm alive because they took care of me, they're alive because I took care of them. How does this relate to video games, you ask? Thanks for hanging in there, this is the meat of my point:
Games DO romanticize the noble aspects of war. THOSE are the aspects I choose to hold on to. To remember. When I revive a squadmate in Bad Company 2, I relive the moment I helped patch up a friend who was thrown into a wall by a mortar. When I drive a humvee into a base to capture the point, I relive the heroic incident in which I chased an insurgent truck over 6 miles of Baghdad traffic to save a 14 year old hostage, which we accomplished with no harm to the boy. Those memories of war will never go away, but I can choose how they manifest. By channeling my experiences in a fantasy setting, with close friends, completing a mutual objective and watching out for each other on a virtual medium, I can focus on the positive emotions I carried out of that experience.
-TehKnuck out.
I've read a lot of blogs and letters written by both civilian and military patrons of the gaming arts, in which the contrasts between life and art in the realm of war are well presented and debated. This has always been an interesting field to me, which has provoked another double entendre in my title. (I'm going to try to keep those up) I consider myself a virtual warrior not only in the sense that I play many war-based video games, but that my position in the Army has fallen to a support role, a far cry from the combat I experienced in my first few years; I've become a trained warrior without a warrior's role: a virtual warrior.
The main argument I've heard on the negative side, is that war-based video games, though they are improving all the time in realism, can never truly portray the nature of war. It's true, they romanticize it. In a video game, war is an adventure. It's a rush of adrenaline, far removed from the emotions and terrors that truly manifest in the depths of its darkest hours. As a veteran of the War in Iraq myself, I can see why this is a very valid and justified fact. I agree that a young generation playing these games will adapt a misconception about war.
What I do not believe, however, is that this will create a generation of soulless, murderous automatons. We, as a species, have an uncanny ability to learn and adapt to not only our environment, but also separate logic from instinct and emotion. A competent human will be able to play a video game based on war, and realize that it is a work of fantasy, romanticizing the nobler aspects of such a terrible thing.
So what makes a competent human?
Parenting, of course. Environment, education, and in some part, community. Monetary status can definitely have an impact, but I believe it's tertiary at best to many of the other aforementioned factors. I'm digressing, this blog post isn't about parenting or my opinions about the lack thereof, it's about video games, so let me reel this back in.
I've been to war. I've walked the streets of Baghdad, I've survived vehicle combat, numerous house raids, a number of firefights, and came to a close on the wrong side of a hand grenade's 'bad' radius. I was an artilleryman, a surveyor. A 'combat support' occupation that 'isn't supposed' to be on the front lines. Every day in Baghdad I was on the front lines. There is a lot of trauma and fallout from the experiences I had during that deployment that challenge my daily life. Oddly enough, what do I do for escapism?
I play Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
You see, those experiences in war have ingrained themselves in my mind and personality. The comrades I fought alongside were my brothers. I'd die for every one of those men, and I still keep in touch with many of them to this day, seven years after we parted ways. That bond is something I treasure, something that keeps me going every day. I'm alive because they took care of me, they're alive because I took care of them. How does this relate to video games, you ask? Thanks for hanging in there, this is the meat of my point:
Games DO romanticize the noble aspects of war. THOSE are the aspects I choose to hold on to. To remember. When I revive a squadmate in Bad Company 2, I relive the moment I helped patch up a friend who was thrown into a wall by a mortar. When I drive a humvee into a base to capture the point, I relive the heroic incident in which I chased an insurgent truck over 6 miles of Baghdad traffic to save a 14 year old hostage, which we accomplished with no harm to the boy. Those memories of war will never go away, but I can choose how they manifest. By channeling my experiences in a fantasy setting, with close friends, completing a mutual objective and watching out for each other on a virtual medium, I can focus on the positive emotions I carried out of that experience.
-TehKnuck out.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Maiden Voyage
First thing's first. TehKnuck is my gamertag. It's a handle I've gone by online and in video games for years, so if it's the first time you're seeing it, it's probably because you know me by some other medium than video games or the internet. /end confusion.
So, if you're reading this, you're probably falling into two categories. I've either sent this to you in an IM and hassled you relentlessly until you finally caved in and clicked the link, or you curiously followed a URL that was posted in a social networking site I tend to frequent and stumbled across this page. In either scenario, I suspect only a dozen or so sets of eyes will actually fall upon these articles, but maybe, in time, it'll grow. The title is a double entendre, (that means it means two things!) meaning I have been playing video games practically my whole life, and am a veteran of the medium, and also because I am a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both of those aspects tend to mesh in me, and will manifest frequently in this blog, if not lying at the center of the topics most of the time.
Let me say this first: This is not going to be a politically correct blog. There will be harsh language, opinions, and honest declaration. I'm not going to say anything obscene or racist or anything, but I'm also prone to using what I like to call 'flavor text.' It's a collection of words I've accumulated over the years that seem to enhance the emotion of what I'm trying to convey, most of which being comprised of four letters or so. If this offends you, you should probably not be reading much further.
Now that the obligatory "my family has stumbled across this blog" disclaimer has been provided, please continue. To those of you that still ARE reading: Thank you for your patience.
The idea of this blog is so that I can channel some of the thoughts and opinions I have into a constructive medium. You see, some few years ago I was wounded by a hand grenade in Baghdad. This, with a series of other traumatic events during deployments, has resulted in what today's generation calls Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. One of the treatments that was suggested to me was journaling, so here we are. My goal is to keep things focused on my interests and whatever the topic of the moment is, but I have to admit, opinions on current events will probably worm their way in there. I figure it's just courtesy to give you fair warning.
Anyway, that's the first post. It's introductory, so the following posts I hope to make less boring, more philosophical, and I might even include comics here and there. I do that sometimes.
-TehKnuck out.
So, if you're reading this, you're probably falling into two categories. I've either sent this to you in an IM and hassled you relentlessly until you finally caved in and clicked the link, or you curiously followed a URL that was posted in a social networking site I tend to frequent and stumbled across this page. In either scenario, I suspect only a dozen or so sets of eyes will actually fall upon these articles, but maybe, in time, it'll grow. The title is a double entendre, (that means it means two things!) meaning I have been playing video games practically my whole life, and am a veteran of the medium, and also because I am a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both of those aspects tend to mesh in me, and will manifest frequently in this blog, if not lying at the center of the topics most of the time.
Let me say this first: This is not going to be a politically correct blog. There will be harsh language, opinions, and honest declaration. I'm not going to say anything obscene or racist or anything, but I'm also prone to using what I like to call 'flavor text.' It's a collection of words I've accumulated over the years that seem to enhance the emotion of what I'm trying to convey, most of which being comprised of four letters or so. If this offends you, you should probably not be reading much further.
Now that the obligatory "my family has stumbled across this blog" disclaimer has been provided, please continue. To those of you that still ARE reading: Thank you for your patience.
The idea of this blog is so that I can channel some of the thoughts and opinions I have into a constructive medium. You see, some few years ago I was wounded by a hand grenade in Baghdad. This, with a series of other traumatic events during deployments, has resulted in what today's generation calls Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. One of the treatments that was suggested to me was journaling, so here we are. My goal is to keep things focused on my interests and whatever the topic of the moment is, but I have to admit, opinions on current events will probably worm their way in there. I figure it's just courtesy to give you fair warning.
Anyway, that's the first post. It's introductory, so the following posts I hope to make less boring, more philosophical, and I might even include comics here and there. I do that sometimes.
-TehKnuck out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)