The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games - Michael J. Tresca [18]
Author
In Synthetic Worlds, Castronova highlights Tolkien’s conceptions of world builders—the gods—as “subcreators,” who are in turn subservient to one overall creator. They undertake this act as a divine calling of sorts, the urge to create surpassing petty selfish concerns. Castronova postulates that Tolkien’s invention of “subcreators” was the author submitting his own framework for creation as a channel for his beliefs of the One True God (2005:308). In essence, God begat Tolkien, Tolkien begat deities in his fictional universe, who begat other characters, and by knowing these characters the reader gets a better insight up through the lineage of creation in God’s mysterious works. The role of author is not unlike the role of game master in this regard, as even the deities of the universe are merely an extension of the game master’s persona.
Participant Roles
Like the creator role, the participant role is relegated to just one: the reader.
Reader
Unlike the fantasy games that would come later, reading The Lord of the Rings is a solitary experience. The reader is an observer. And yet the reading experience still fits into the media richness scale. It is not mutable; unlike interactive fiction, the text is set on the page. Mackay posits that a player who reads text is transformed by it. The reader’s everyday self is reconfigured into a reading-self through the filtered experience of the reader, but restructured according to the text. The reading self is thus a manifestation of the reader’s imagination, formed through a series of guidelines set down by the author of the text (2001:66).
One important difference between role-playing and reading a novel is the agreement between another reader’s interpretations of the text. Reading is an intensely self-centered experience, an effect mirrored in computer role-playing games that are entirely focused on catering to the player.
Role-playing requires some sharing of vision, imagination, and basics of communication between two or more participants. While a reader may place herself in the shoes of the protagonist, in a role-playing game she encounters other characters that are in turn projections of their players. Even if the character is described in the broadest strokes of race and gender, there must be some agreement for the players to interact. In this shared fantasy, all the players must agree on the basics of interaction.
Character Roles
Unlike role-playing games and other forms of fantasy gaming, there is no distinction between player and nonplayer characters in fiction. There are just characters. There may be a protagonist for whom the narrative is filtered to tell her story, or an omniscient narrator may move from character to character, sharing each character’s perspective in turn. Montfort (2003:33) terms these characters “persons,” as they are a necessary part of the story but cannot be interacted with. They are the cornerstone of the reader’s role in the fantasy universe.
The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game from Decipher quantifies the characteristics of the heroes of Middle-earth as compassion, responsible free will, generosity, honesty and fairness, honor and nobility, restraint, self-sacrifice, valor, and wisdom (Long 2002:51).
The struggle over the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings is all about free will. The Ring has the ability to corrupt those who wear it, and only those with strong wills can turn away from its temptation. Free will is an important part of self-sacrifice, the ability to put one’s own personal needs aside for the greater good. Frodo and Boromir sacrifice much in the War of the Ring.
Compassion is demonstrated by Gandalf, who pities Gollum and even spares the foul Saruman’s life. The heroes also exercise restraint of arms, slaying foes