The Impact Factor

Costume Time: Role Playing in Role-Playing Games

Perspectives

My silver hair danced gently across my face as I strode into a muddy, weather worn village by the river. An imposing castle sat atop this quiet town. But I wasn’t here for nobles. I wasn’t here for rest. I was here for one reason only—a bounty. For you see, a poster at a nearby tavern alerted me of a desperate need for a skilled warrior. A terrifying griffin had been ravaging a nearby town. I hopped on my horse and rode over. A quick stroll through the streets and it became obvious who my new employer would be. A woman sobbed outside her home, cursing fate and only wishing for her son’s safe return. The griffin had snatched him up while he was playing outside the town’s walls. He was gone in an instant. The mother pleaded with me to help her out. Her only son could be moments away from death. I listened to her request, and got the required information about the beast’s possible lair and habits. I then looked her squarely in her eyes, her brown against my fiery yellow. I asked coldly, “So what does this job pay?”

Sure, I (as Alex) felt bad for the traumatized mother. I (as Alex) hoped the young boy was still alive (though unlikely, griffins aren’t the most patient creatures). But I was not Alex. I was Geralt of Rivia. A bounty hunter. A Witcher. I didn’t ride across the land as a do gooder or as a righteous warrior. I had honed my craft at slaying monsters and ghosts and beasts alike for one reason: to get paid. Every single decision I made during conversation, exploration, and combat was that of the hardened bounty hunter Geralt. Sob stories were met with asking fees. My price was non-negotiable. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt allowed me to be this fantastic character. It allowed me to act in his stead. I always had choices and could have played The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt very differently, but I wanted to role-play. I wanted to wear my Geralt costume.

You got a problem, hey I'll solve it. For a fee, of course.

In this spooky, costume-wearing time of year I got to thinking why I like wearing these video game ‘costumes’ and the kinds of games in which these costumes exist. The first place many of us might think of, myself included, are role-playing games (RPGs). They often build a world around a character, or group of characters, that engage with a grand narrative. Sometimes it’s about stopping a madman in clown make-up from destroying the world, other times it’s about finding my long lost son in a post-nuclear wasteland. Who the characters are and how they interact with this grand narrative, however, can vary quite a bit between RPGs. In fact, you don’t always get to role-play a ‘character’ in a RPG. Let me explain.

Non-character ‘characters’ typically fall into two categories. The first you see quite often in Japanese RPGs. We’ll call it the overly controlled protagonist. A few examples out of the many I could have chosen are Cloud from Final Fantasy VII or Sora from Kingdom Hearts. There’s nothing wrong with having an overly controlled protagonist lead your RPG. They’re often endearing, sticking with you long after completing the game. But games like Final Fantasy VII and Kingdom Hearts don’t allow the player to make their own stamp on Cloud or Sora, respectively. Everything is pre-scripted. Gameplay inside and outside of combat doesn’t lend itself to adopting a persona. Cloud and Sora are great characters, but they cannot be costumes for me to put on.

And here you see the extent to which you can role-play as Sora.

The second type is the formless protagonist. Formless protagonists were traditionally found in western RPGs like The Elder Scrolls or Baldur’s Gate. You now also see them in Japanese RPGs like Bloodborne and Dragon’s Dogma. The main characters in these games lack any built-in personality. It starts from the character creation screen. In many of these games, you mold and shape a character to look exactly how you want her to. The same philosophy applies to playing the game. Everything about the character comes from you, the player. Good or bad, murderous or forgiving, these protagonists can be whatever you want them to be whenever you want them to be. I already see arguments popping up here. “But Alex, isn’t your character from Fallout 4 perfect for role-playing? It’s a perfect costume since you can be whatever you want!” But therein lies the problem. They aren’t characters. They’re me. They’re me when they are the Nice Guy™ doing good across the land, and they are also me when they are a sleazy scoundrel that drinks until he’s silly. I can’t frame my decisions within an authored context. I am the actions and the framework. The formless protagonist is great for role-playing, but an imperfect costume.

You can be Geralt in Fallout 4! Except not. You're always yourself as your own character.

So what makes Geralt of Rivia work as a costume? It is a combination of player agency in moment-to-moment decisions with predefined characteristics. Geralt has a backstory and personality. He has past decisions to atone for and a well-communicated set of core values. In cutscenes or other moments when control is removed from the player, Geralt acts according to the narrative framework of the developers. He is his own person. While playing, though, I get to define who I am as Geralt. A player like me could have just as easily been a Geralt that’s softened his stance on payments, due to the evolution of his relationship with his daughter figure Ciri. Another player’s Geralt could have gone the exact opposite direction—ignoring teary-eyed pleas for help because he has bigger fish to fry (namely the spectral Wild Hunt that wants him and Ciri dead). No Geralt is wrong, and all Geralts are a costume. I think of it like a mask you’d buy at a Halloween store. You’re not going to buy a block of rubber and cut & shape it into a mask. You’re going to buy one that’s already been made—one you can put your unique stamp on by the way in which you wear it.

Great costumes don’t happen that often in video games, so I relish every chance I get to put one on. A recent example is Adam Jensen in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Like Geralt, this augmented super spy has an authored identity that can be shaped by a player’s actions. Jensen’s tagline in Mankind Divided’s prequel was ‘I didn’t choose this.’ After nearly being blown to smithereens by gunfire, Jensen was rebuilt with top of the line mechanical prosthetics (augmentations) and asked to face off against those who would do harm. Coming into Mankind Divided, Jensen is perhaps more comfortable with his new identity but also, for me as Jensen, someone who never forgot his roots. I took his framework and built upon it.

I played an Adam Jensen that remembered what it was like to be powerless. A tough stint as a Detroit beat cop taught him humility. Taught him the value of all life, especially in an age when people are looking for any reason to treat others as subhuman. For those reasons, my Adam Jensen never killed. Anyone. Ever. I used non-lethal weapons like the stun gun or tranquilizer rifle, and made sure to knockout and enemy rather than break their neck. Even in trying moments, my Adam Jensen held true to his principles. In one instance, he faced off against a serial killer. This person had brutally murdered no less than four augmented individuals and had gotten away with it. In fact, she had lured Jensen into the sewers to be her next victim. Despite all that, Jensen didn’t want to kill her. Nor did he want her to end her own life. In a room rigged with explosives and deadly gas, Jensen carefully talked to the serial killer in an attempt to find out what he could say to peacefully put the murders to an end. And he did. I did. I wasn’t there to open fire or run her through with my arm’s nanoblade. Because that’s not the costume I was wearing.

Put the blade away Jensen. That's not you (or me as you).

I love these video game costumes. Maybe it’s my affinity for this unique kind of role-playing experience; maybe it’s just their scarcity. This Halloween enjoy the costumes you wear. Not just the ones you put on for a party. Enjoy the ones you wear while playing video games, too. From a mythical bounty hunter to an augmented super spy to anything in-between, costumes are a whole lot of fun. Now if only I could find a way to be given candy while wearing one.