In response to my post yesterday on games as generators of narratives, Sharon pointed out that she never thought of Monopoly as a story, and she noted the absence of characters. To clarify: When you play Monopoly (or chess, for that matter), you are the protagonist. The wonderful thing about narrative games is the opportunity for you to take responsibility for the adventure, rather than merely passively watching it from the outside.
If one were to create a romantic comedy game or a hero’s journey game, I would think that each player would take on a key role — perhaps hero or heroine, villain or mentor, best friend or hand of fate.
It would be interesting to personify aspects of a story that are essential but not usually personified. For example, in a hero’s journey game, a player could choose to play the journey itself. This would have the interesting benefit of illuminating the structure of such stories, so that players were aware of them.
After all, when Elizabeth Magie created The Landlord’s Game in 1903 (the game that evolved into Monopoly), her explicit ethical goal was to teach children how unfair rights for property owners lead to the impoverishment of tenants.
Alas, that’s not the lesson most children end up taking away from Monopoly. Instead, most players are happy to end up with everybody else’s money and property. Come to think of it, maybe it’s a good thing it wasn’t called The Genocide Game.
When I posted my comment yesterday I was thinking that games with a dramatic arc but without explicit characters could actually leave more freedom for the players’ imaginations. For example, when I played Monopoly with my cousin Nat there would be the Evil Banker character (because he was always the banker and he always cheated) 🙂 When there is a fixed set of characters the players initially get to fight over who gets to be the handsome/pretty/rich/smart one and some people get stuck in roles they don’t like. In fact, it might be sort of interesting if you didn’t know your role at the beginning and you discovered it as the game progresses. In the romantic comedy, are you the romantic lead or the funny best friend? It might depend on those Chance cards.
Yes, very good point. That’s like some of the better books I’ve read and films/plays I’ve seen, where you think one person is the hero or the villain, but in fact it’s someone else. I always like those stories when they are done well.
Although, having just read Robin Hanson’s post on indirection (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/08/indirection-signals.html), I do wonder if we could create a more enjoyable game if everyone knew what role they had right away. Maybe that only works if everyone gets the role they want to have? 🙂
Has any of you ever played Battlestar Galactica, the board game? There, the players (humans) work together to survive. Everyone gets to choose the character they want to play, choosing one of the characters of the TV show with the same name. Each character has unique qualities and abilities. On top of that, selected at random, a few players are secretly bad guys (cylons). Both roles, human and cylon are very enjoyable, and each game has a very unique story to tell in the end.
I haven’t played that game. It sounds great!! Though it’s creepy that you can be a Cylon and not know it. Ever since I saw BG, I’m worried that one day I’ll find out I’m actually a Cylon.
Not to worry, Ken, You just need to check whether your spinal column glows at the appropriate time 🙂
Thanks Sharon. Yes, I certainly hope my spinal column only glows at the appropriate time!!! 🙂