Do you ever stop to think about the many roles we play in our personal and professional lives? You probably shift in and out of your different personas without much consideration: Friend, teacher, sibling, mother, employee, boss, spouse. They’re all very different characters, of sorts, but you can be all of them. It’s just a matter of what hat, or hats, you’re wearing at any given moment.
And it’s fun to wear those hats. They give us variety in life. My kids are older, but I’d never want to give up my “Dad” hat. And I don’t just mean that I like waving my royal scepter and ordering my children to “Clean up thy room!” with all the imperial weight of Henry the Fifth. I’m talking about those special relationships and what they bring out in me. Dad is a role I really enjoy.
But I think there are other roles that appeal to us, as well. We like actors and actresses not just because of who they are, but who they play. Characters from Rocky Balboa to Captain America appeal to us—not because of the beautiful actors and actresses who play them, but because of the exciting people these stars become.
Which brings me—in a rambling way—to what I really wanted to talk about here: Video games! Say what? Well, it may seem like an easy connection to you, but it just recently hit me that the average video game appeals to us because it allows us to slip into a role, just like we do in real life, or like we might want to do on the movie screen. We can be the intrepid wisecracking adventurer Nathan Drake in the Uncharted games or even the Dark Knight himself, Batman, as he wings his way through the night-shrouded streets of Gotham.
In fact, that’s where this thought initially hit me. While reviewing the new Batman: Arkham City, I was playing through the main storyline and found myself constantly being pulled away to other less-central side quests. Rescuing that reporter cornered in a dead-end alley or helping an overwhelmed group of police officers weren’t jobs as important as the main save-the-world quest I was on, but they tugged at my attention anyway. Why? Why, because I was Batman. Not just a digital character in a game. In this realistic virtual world I was Batman, and he always does the right thing.
Now, I’m not suggesting playing Arkham City—a pretty rough game as you’ll see in the review—will make you a better person. But in a very interesting way, the game compelled me to kind of play a better part of myself. It asked me to pull out my upright heroic side. And it caused me to mentally strain against turning a blind eye to those in need. It was an emotionally compelling struggle within myself that I found surprising.
Of course, that raises the question: If a game can entice us to play a better part of ourselves, can it do the opposite, as well?
Now don’t misinterpret what I’m asking. I’m not suggesting that when I reviewed the Grand Theft Auto games, for example, that I ended up wanting to steal cars. Just as the Batman game hasn’t motivated me to start swinging down from my rooftop to confront the neighbor’s evil yipping dog. But both have had an impact. And the GTAs, and games like them, have left me with an emotional bitter taste in my mouth that felt uncomfortably out of sync with … well, me.
Of course, my mental ruminations on the subject are strictly anecdotal and completely unscientific, but I’d love to hear what the rest of you role-playing readers think.
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