On Violence in Gaming

Hey, folks, SinSynn here.

The one common denominator shared in the vast majority of games we play is violence. Whether you're playing 40k or Dungeons & Dragons, the primary focus of the experience will be shaped by violence.

Whether or not this violence is perpetrated for competitive reasons or for the sake of creating a story is irrelevant from a certain perspective, I suppose. Violence is simply a tool, a game mechanic that enables a means to an end.
That tool can be used in many ways, from enhancing, building and driving a narrative, to simply eliminating the enemy to determine the outcome of a scenario. The means to an end is always the same, however. It never changes, in any game, whether or not violence plays a part.

It's fun.
The games we play are intended to be fun.

*Sadly, some things will likely remain unfun forever*

Violence is not the only tool at a game designer's disposal, of course. The games we come to love often have amazingly detailed back stories, or feature elegant mechanics to pull us in. Things like scope, scale and setting may vary incredibly, yet by and large the game designer's goal remains the same: create something fun for the players.

Even when it's played out in an abstract fashion, like one checker jumping another, violence owns a large role in our games. In the greatest of games, I think the actual focus, or reason for that games being lies elsewhere, however.

I'll argue that checkers is a great game because of it's mechanics. Simple and easy to grasp, with a ruleset one can learn in minutes. This is the first actual strategic board game a lot of people will play, and it's a classic. Checkers will exist forever for those reasons, not because it's a game where the goal is to eliminate the enemy.

*To desperate armies prepared to fight and die for...sumpthin,' I dunno what*

Hey, then you can add some fancy miniatures, expand on the rules a bit, and make a whole new game out of it! You don't even have to change the game board to do it!
Chess for the win, yeah!
....wait a second....
What if we did change the game board? What if we got rid of those restrictive squares...what if we used, oh I don't know, realistic lookin' terrain, instead?
0_o
Yeah! What if we used more tools, more mechanics and....
Oh. My. God.
What if we made it all bigger! More of everything!
GENIUS!

Ok, sure, not all games end up being classic, but it's safe to say a game designer has a myriad of options at his or her disposal to create a compelling game experience. Nevertheless, violence will more than likely provide the means to the end in most tabletop mini games, and be their primary reason for being, whatever their scope, scale and setting are.
It is what it is.
We play at war.

*Actual rulesets may be optional. I still think my green troopies get a cover save, so nyah*

RPG's can be about many things, but generally involve the players trying to do something heroic. Since heroes get that way through deeds and actions, well...not a lot of people are gonna max out their charisma stats when they're building a character.
No one wants Gandhi in their party when they're playing a game involving a 'wandering monster chart' the games master checks every few minutes, do they?

*We'll defeat that giant spider through fasting. On three, we starve. You ready?*

So the game may change, but violence is seemingly a constant. It's not necessarily the primary thing making our games fun, however. It's important to mention that. It's both a tool and a mechanic of game design, and the best games will use it as such.

In reality, of course, violence is a frightening, primal force. Humanity has a dark fascination with it. The ability, the potential to unleash it, exists in each of us. We have this curious ability to enjoy violence in a fictional sense, and abhor it in a literal sense. Violence as entertainment can be forgotten in moments, whereas moments of actual violence in our lives will likely be remembered forever.

It's at this point that someone usually pipes up and says something like 'We're just playing games here. We're not advocating violence.'
I sort of agree with that line of thinking. Sometimes, though, I get a weird sense of overlap that's kinda hard to explain; like when I see a military action type of video on my XBox live dashboard, and I'm all like, 'Oh, wow. This must be the new expansion for Battlefield 3,' but it turns out to be a recruitment ad for the Marines.
Ew. Creepy.

*Worst spawn location ever! Oh, wait....*

Playing at violence is kinda odd and morbid in many ways. At the same time, it's undeniably fun if it's done right. For some, it might work better if it's presented in a more abstract fashion, and not on a personal level, as in a large scale miniatures game. Others might prefer taunt, character driven horror, which can be aptly provided by a RPG. We're not drawn to the violence, but to the games themselves. Nevertheless, I don't push lil' tankies around a game table to, uh...not shoot stuffs.

Playing at war, as I do when I push my lil' tankies around, is one of those things that causes that weird sense of overlap. I'm perfectly cognizant of the fact that war is a hideous, awful thing in reality. The level of detail in a game like Flames of War occasionally makes me flash to some of the horrific imagery I've seen in documentaries and whatnot. I just can't help it. If I think too deeply on it, I find myself pulled in a dozen different directions.
I suppose that just means I have a conscious. Waddayagonnado?

While I found playing Tyranids in 40k to be a delicious guilty pleasure (Biomass...nom nom nom), some events that occurred during WWII that make me wanna chuck my Germans right out a window. I felt no weird overlap playing my 'Nids because hey, they're fictional, I imagine.

*Good thing they're not real, cuz...ick. Just...ick*

Whatevs, though. We're playing games, right? Just...games. That's the extent of it, pretty much. End of the argument, right?
Sigh.
No.

Every once in a while some aspect of our hobby, or some particular game contained therein will come under popular scrutiny. Whenever some maladjusted human out there commits a terrible act of violence and it turns out he played whatever, a great hue and cry might arise.
'Oh, my goodness! The suspect liked [insert name of whatever here], and that's soooooo violent! We've got to put a stop to things like this!'
Blah, blah, blah...and so begins another tiresome round of media pieces where we, the hobbyists who actually play these games, watch our little niche in the world be completely misrepresented, the games we play demonized in the public eye.
Ugh.

Arguments like that presume that violence is the most important aspect of what we do as gamers, as hobbyists. Yes, we play at war, we play at violence, but that's not all. That's not even the half of it.

We play at camaraderie, when we game with our friends.
We create worlds of our imaginations when we play.
We play at being artists, when we paint our stuffs.
We play for the fun, not for the violence; that's just a tool, a mechanic the game designers use.

*Tentacles are ALWAYS right*

That being said, whether some games might cross a line that varies by opinion is up for debate. There's no denying that some of the games we play are ridiculously violent, but how to present that, to represent it to the world at large in a way that's reasonable, responsible and palatable?
When violence and it's application lie at the core of our hobby, how do we justify it to those that insist that's all our games are about even though we know different?
Again, sigh.
I'm not one for judgements. I kinda just wanna play.
The games I play don't define me as a person, they're just something I do for fun.


Until next time, folks- Exit with catchphrase!

-SinSynn