Archive for the ‘Heroism’ Category
Friday, May 15th, 2009
One of the oldest arguments in Sociology is “Nature vs. Nurture”. Does our genetic map determine who and what we will become? Are our destinies instead decided by our environment and early training? Or is there yet a third possibility – That we continue to grow and change throughout our lives?
Lori and I don’t get out to the movies very often, but we managed to see two this week – Star Trek and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. There was a common thread to the two films – Both looked at future Heroes before they came into their power. Corey is also currently reading one of Gordon R. Dickson’s “Dorsai” series, “Young Bleys,” which is also about the origin of an extraordinary person.
While James T. Kirk, Bleys, and James Howlett (aka Logan aka Wolverine) were in no sense “ordinary” as children, they all had to develop before they became true Superheroes. Along the way, they faced a number of “character challenges”, where they made life choices that eventually led them to become greater than they began.
Naturally!
Nature is clearly a powerful factor in both Wolverine’s and Kirk’s lives. Kirk’s father was a Starfleet officer who briefly becomes Captain of a Starship and sacrifices himself to save his crew. Kirk is born with the superior intelligence, charisma, and physical qualities that characterize a leader. He also appears to inherit his father’s willingness to take risks and make sacrifices despite never having met him. James T. Kirk would certainly be a Warrior in the School for Heroes.
Wolverine discovers his hand-spikes and learns that his half-brother has claws. They are different from those around them from the beginning, and their struggles to survive push them even farther from the common run of humanity. But Logan is not the same as his brother. Wolverine has an unbreakable sense of honor and rightness. He refuses to kill innocent people or to compromise his ethical principles. Although Wolverine appears on the surface to be a Warrior – he certainly has warlike tendencies – an argument could be made for placing him in the Paladin class. He certainly has the integrity and independent spirit to be a Paladin, and he has no desire to be a leader of others.
It would be easy for these heroes to “give up” – Kirk as a fatherless, reckless child constantly in trouble with the law; Wolverine as an outcast, hunted by anyone who knows of his “difference”. But instead, they fight, and struggle, and survive. And in the course of that, they learn. Kirk somehow manages to score highly on academic exams. Sure, he’s a smart kid, but so are most of our students and readers. What set him apart from the “merely above-average” crowd was that he loved learning as much as he loved danger and excitement. He never gave up, never accepted that he had any limits, and took the time and effort to excel in everything he tried. Kirk didn’t have superpowers, “just” an indomitable spirit and the drive to prove to himself that he could do anything. Kirk is the ultimate Warrior – A man of direct action and a self-assured leader whom others want to follow.
In “Young Bleys”, by Gordon R. Dickson, Bleys Ahrens also has a rich genetic background – He is really, really smart. But his mental power is just a tool. He really takes off and begins to come into his own when he decides that he must know everything there is to learn in several crucial areas of study. He also decides that he needs physical strength and martial arts training so that his body will support what his mind can do. Over the course of many years of intensive work and study, he hones his natural abilities into those of a superman. Bleys Ahrens is clearly a Wizard – He analyzes everything, then acts on the knowledge. His domination over others is through manipulation, rather than the result of true leadership.
Bleys believes that he knows – better than anyone else – what the future of humanity should be. He devotes his life to bringing about the future he foresees, even though he knows that few will thank him for changing their lives. Bleys sees himself as a Paladin, but he does not have the Paladin’s wisdom and understanding of the Right Path. His pursuit of “the greater good of humanity” is driven by arrogance and ego rather than true caring. Young Bleys has the potential to become a super-hero or a super-villain, but neither path is preordained for him. A Wizard pursuing the path of a Paladin is a powerful force for good or evil.
Predestination or Chaos?
I think that both theories – Nature and Nurture – are missing something. Their proponents seem caught up in the idea of predestination – Whatever happens to us early in our lives takes charge over everything else. We don’t buy that. We think it gives people a convenient excuse for failing to take charge of their own lives. After all, everything important has already been decided, so what difference does it make what training or effort you take later in life?
Well, it does make a difference. People change careers. Businessmen fail, come back to fail again, then go on to succeed in their next venture. People pull themselves out of the ghetto, or the gutter, and go on to have useful and happy lives. Athletes have a heartbreaking loss, then come back with the performance of their lives. Current “King of Bowling” Wes Malott defended his crown today by making a comeback after missing an easy spare. He said, “Ironically, I had talked with a father with three kids before the show and I told them you had to put bad shots behind you and focus on making the most of your next one. That’s what I did. I could have given up, but I bounced back.”
A long-shot, “Mine That Bird”, just won the Kentucky Derby. Four race previews listed him 20th, 20th, 16th, and 17th of the 20 horses. One reporter commented that he was, “Too slow to be a factor.” The betting made him a 50:1 underdog. He seemed to fulfill that prediction in the early running, riding well behind the pack. But the Derby isn’t a sprint, and isn’t decided in the early running. Jockey Calvin Borel believed in his mount and focused on its strength, not its weakness. He used Mine That Bird’s smaller size to maneuver between the other horses and skim the rail to make his way through the pack. The result – The second-biggest upset in Kentucky Derby history.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll keep saying it. The way to buck the odds is to keep trying. Figure out what went wrong, but treat it as a learning experience, not a life-defining failure. Go back and try again until you get it right – or the random factors align in your favor – then keep on going. Your life is not formed at birth, and it’s not defined in childhood. Those just give you your starting position. So what if your critics give you no chance to succeed? So what if they put you on the outside gate? If you can’t run with the pack, maybe that’s a signal that you should ride in front of them. It just might be your chance to be a Leader.
Do You Want to Be a Hero?
Ask yourself this: How do you want to live the rest of your life? Do you want to continue to be an above-average person with o.k. results? Does that satisfy you? Does it thrill you?
Or will you be a Captain Kirk? A Wolverine? Someone extraordinary, a Hero? If you want to be more than ordinary, it will take more-than-ordinary commitment, effort, and willingness to fight the odds. It will be a lifelong journey, but one you can take a few steps at a time.
Better get started!
Tags: Heroism, Life Advice, Star Trek, Wolverine
Posted in Heroism | No Comments »
Saturday, April 18th, 2009
In the beginning of time as we know it (1973), Dungeons & Dragons had a single alignment scale – Law vs. Chaos. Law was mostly synonymous with Good, and Chaos with Evil. Four years later, AD&D added a second scale, Good vs. Evil, so a character could now be Chaotic Good or Lawful Evil.
D&D Paladins are unbending, unwavering goody-two-shoes. They always do what’s right, escort little old ladies across streets, and never run a red light. They stay in the extreme “Lawful Good” corner of the alignment chart.
Lori and I had a different vision of “what is a Paladin?” when we created Quest for Glory, and that affects the School for Heroes view of a Paladin as well. Our Paladins are total individualists. They do what they believe to be Good regardless of laws or conventions. A Quest for Glory Paladin is closer to Neutral Good than to Lawful Good.
Most people consider “law-abiding” and “good” to be like cake and icing. They just naturally go together. If you’re one, you’re probably the other. But what do you do when these ideas are in conflict? What action do you take when a law forbids what you know to be right? For that matter, how do you behave when a law is merely inconvenient to you?
Who Wrote These Laws Anyway?
Not all laws were created with the wisdom of Hammurabi. Some range from poorly-conceived to downright stupid. If you drive at night on a rural road in Pennsylvania, there is still a law on the books that requires you to stop every mile, shoot a flare, and wait ten minutes before proceeding. That gives the local farmers time to get their livestock off the road. How many Pennsylvanians – or visitors to the state – have any idea that law exists? How many would even consider obeying it if they were aware of it?
You may laugh, but how lawful are you when it comes to more reasonable traffic laws? Do you scrupulously drive under the speed limit at all times? Do you come to a full and complete stop, then look both ways and wait, before continuing at a stop sign? Have you ever downloaded software, videos, or music from a pirate site or copied a friend’s CD or MP3?
There’s an old joke about a policeman pulling a woman over and asking her if she knows what a yellow traffic light means. She answers, “Of course I do, officer! It means drive like Hell because the light is about to turn red.” How about the opposite? I read a story in the Fresno Bee about a man who stopped suddenly when the light turned yellow. His car was rear-ended by a police cruiser, and the officer told him that he was at fault for driving unsafely.
Joke again, right? No. It happened. I remember the story because I almost had a similar accident at that same intersection. I stopped for the yellow light and the car behind me slammed on his brakes, then swerved to pass me (after the light had turned red). Contrary to the California Driver’s Handbook, apparently a yellow light does mean, “Drive like Hell.”
I wonder how well engineers in Indiana (this may be apocryphal – I’ve heard it told about other states) were able to do their work after the state legislature decreed that Pi = 3. Or whether anyone has been arrested under the Blythe, California ordinance that makes it illegal to wear cowboy boots unless you own at least two cows.
The thing is, legislators are people. The fact that they have discussion and debate before passing laws does not mean they get it right all the time. Sometimes they make mistakes, sometimes they get caught up in their own “authority”, and maybe they even get bored occasionally and throw something in as a joke. In any case, all laws are not created equal, and some aren’t worth the paper on which they’re printed. Yet our legal system insists that “law is law” and we must obey every single one of them to the letter… even those that most of us have never heard of.
The Dark Knight of the Soul
We grew up reading comic books in the 60’s. Most of the heroes, including Superman and Batman, had a “code against killing”. They relied on the police and courts to put criminals in jail because killing the criminals would make them criminals too.
“The Dark Knight” questions that cookie-cutter morality. The Joker asks Batman, “How many have died?” The implication is that Batman is responsible for every criminal whom he helped imprison, and who later escaped or was released. It’s a little like the Chinese philosophy that, if you save a man’s life, you are responsible to him forever after.
“Thou shalt not kill” is a pretty straightforward law. And yet there are many exceptions. Soldiers are expected to kill “the enemy”. Criminals are put to death in many states and countries. Police are authorized to use deadly force when they consider it necessary. Is it immoral, unethical, or illegal to kill when that seems to be the only way to save your own life?
Put yourself in the boots of the Batman. What would you do when a despicable villain who has killed dozens of innocent people is hanging from a ledge and you have the opportunity to save him? Would you rescue him so that he can “face justice” (knowing that he has escaped from prison before)? Would you give him a push to make sure there is no escape this time? Or would you stand back and let destiny make your decision? What if the police are watching and you know you will be held accountable for your decision – Does that change your answer?
Life, Death, and Free Will
Breaking the law to “do good” is rarely an easy choice, for Heroes know that laws are important. Without them, might society descend into anarchy? Would “The Lord of the Flies” become our new guide to survival? Consistent enforcement of the law gives people guidelines for behavior that benefits society.
Striving for “the greatest good” is a challenge because we have neither perfect knowledge nor perfect ability to calculate tradeoffs. Nevertheless, as Heroes, we need to try.
Tags: D&D, Heroism, Law
Posted in Heroism | 1 Comment »
Friday, February 20th, 2009
As we’ve looked at some of the school-wide assignments on “Why I Am A Hero” and “Who Am I?” we’ve noticed a common thread. Many of our students start out by saying, “Well, I’m not really a hero yet. I’m hoping the school will help me become one.” That’s pretty reasonable; you sign up for a school because you expect to learn something.
But what is a Hero, really? Do Heroes start out as exceptional people and do extraordinary things because they’re unlike the rest of us? We think Heroes are made, not born, and we also don’t think that there are just two types of people in the world – Heroes and non-Heroes. We believe that everyone has many opportunities to do Heroic things, and that you are a Hero whenever you take such an action.
So the quick answer is, “Anyone can become a Hero.” You just have to care enough to work at it – to do Heroic Deeds and to prepare yourself to be able to do them.
Lessons from Role-Playing Games
There’s an interesting tradition in both live and computer role-playing games that you rarely see in any other genre. When you start an RPG, you are not a powerful Hero. Instead, you start out as a wet-behind-the-ears “first level” wannabe adventurer. We used this technique in Quest for Glory, and you could say that we wouldn’t have a true RPG without it.
An RPG character may have the destiny to become a Hero, but it never comes easily. He has to work, train, and face increasingly difficult odds to fulfill that destiny. This is also the real-life lesson in the book Mindset (reviewed in the Quest Log at A Time for Change). No matter how smart, how athletic, how heroic you are by nature, you have to commit to your goals and work hard at them to accomplish anything really important and meaningful.
You become a Hero one step at a time. Your journey to Heroism might begin by playing games or reading inspirational tales. It might start with a single small unselfish deed. Maybe you helped an old person cross the street or by helping a friend with her homework. Perhaps you volunteered to work with learning-challenged people in your community or just dropped a quarter into a charity collection box. Maybe you concentrated on your work to get a task done on time so that your co-workers could get their jobs done more easily.
All the little “good deeds” we do can add up to big positive changes in the world. Creating change takes commitment, and it takes work, but both of those get easier the more times you do them. And don’t think your work is meaningless because you’re just one small individual. Think about this Starbucks Story:
Paying It Forward
A customer waiting in line at a Starbucks drive-through got impatient and started honking when the driver in front of him seemed to be taking too long. Instead of responding in kind, the “slow” driver asked the clerk how much the next customer’s order cost. Then he paid for both orders and drove off. When the angry driver arrived, the barista told him the previous customer had paid for his order.
Shocked and embarrassed, the formerly-angry driver smiled and asked if he could pay for the next customer’s order. The chain continued all day and people found they were really happy about the unexpected generosity of the drivers ahead of them… and even happier at the opportunity to do the same thing for the next customer.
That’s a pretty amazing change in the lives of that community that one person brought about for about $4… and a Heroic attitude. That same story has been repeated over and over in many different cities. It only takes one person to start the chain, and it doesn’t get broken very often. Every one of us has that power!
I first encountered the expression “Pay it forward” in an article about a generous science fiction author. He helped out a young fan who expressed doubt about being able to pay him back and he said, “That’s all right. Many people have been generous to me when I needed it. Don’t try to pay me back. Pay it forward when you can afford it and find someone else who could use your help.” It’s a very powerful concept.
Not Just for Paladins
When I mention “doing good deeds”, “generosity”, and “helping people,” your first thought might be, “That’s fine for Paladins, but what about us Wizards, Rogues, Warriors, and Bards?”
Well, first of all, generosity and good deeds have no class. The hallmark of a Hero is to see a task that needs to be done and do it, even if he has to sacrifice something. That “sacrifice” might be a few dollars, a few minutes of your time, or writing a blog article when you’d rather be playing World of Warcraft, but that’s what differentiates Heroism from “just doing things.” You make that commitment, take that step, do the preparation, and do the deed because you know it needs to be done. Every time you sacrifice a little to do something important, you are “paying forward” and making a positive change in the world.
Of course, acts of charity are not the only ways to be Heroic. Corey became a programmer for an interesting reason. Sure, it was fun and intellectually challenging, but those weren’t it. It was the late 1960’s and we were embroiled in the Vietnam War. Cold-war tensions ran high and a nuclear war seemed almost inevitable. I had a vision of becoming a key team member on a team developing software for nuclear installations. One day the President would push the red button to launch a full-scale nuclear attack… and nothing would happen. Yes, it’s true – I became a programmer so that I could write buggy software.
As it happens, I didn’t end up going to work for the military, and I suspect they would have found a way to misuse my bad code. Instead, I joined Lori in approaching that same goal by spreading messages of peace and heroism through our games. It took a lot more work for a lot less pay, but will probably be more effective in the long run.
R&D (Research and Development) is one possible path to Heroism. In the Hero test, there is a question about discovering a cure for leukemia. That’s one way a Wizard can make an incredible positive change through Discovery. Barack Obama is the epitome of the Warrior Hero – fighting for change through leadership. By the way, it doesn’t matter in the least whether you agree with his beliefs or policies. The point is that he believes in them and has done a tremendous amount of work to put himself in the position to bring them about. That’s what being a Warrior Hero is about.
Rogue heroes bring about change through trickery and misdirection. Had I stayed with my original military sabotage plan, that would have been a Roguish Heroic Deed. A Rogue in Santa Cruz objected to fines for minor parking violations, so he put on a clown suit and walked around the downtown streets with a bag of nickels. He fed the expired meters just before the police could ticket the cars there. Eventually he was arrested and told to stop… so he did it again. An appeals court determined that he had not broken any law and the city had to pay all court costs. That is the power of a Rogue Hero in action!
As for Bards, they have long been forces for social change. Songs, chants, and newspaper articles did more to bring about the end of the Vietnam War than I could ever have accomplished through sloppy code. You just have to choose where you need to take a stand, then tell the tales that move others to join you. When we write these articles and run the School, we are taking on the roles of Bardic Heroes.
We Can All Be Heroes
Nobody will open a proclamation and declare you to be a Hero… unless it happens long after you have already become one. Heroism is a habit. You get there one small action and one tiny inspiration at a time. Everything Heroic you do makes you a little more of a Hero. But there is no magical moment when you Become a Hero. You simply are a Hero each and every time you use your time and resources to do something difficult that Needs to be Done.
If you are faced with a challenge that seems impossible, don’t despair. Find a tiny piece of it that you know how to do. Take the time to learn how to do some other small piece. Just as a huge software or construction project is made up of tens of thousands of little pieces, so is every great and worthwhile task. When Heroes commit to getting things done, they soon find that others will follow and help. Everyone wants to do things that matter; they just need to be shown that they can be done.
Be a Hero. Do deeds worth doing. Find out how you can lead, how you can help, what you can discover, the changes that need to be made, and what tales you can tell that will make this world a better place.
Tags: Heroism, How to be a Hero, Leadership
Posted in Heroism | 2 Comments »
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008
It’s Halloween – A night of ghosts and shadows, of goblins, witches, and demons, of things that go bump in the night. The wind howls through the trees as the nights begin to turn cold, and the trees shed their Autumn leaves. Little children brave the darkness and scary monsters to go door to door in masks and costumes. In trembling voices, they call out, “Trick or Treat!” and hope they won’t be tricked.
One of our favorite stories comes from a Halloween special episode of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon show. The main villain of the show is a rich old man who has always hated Halloween and comes up with a scheme to end it forever. To do this, he needs a piece of the Ghostbusters’ equipment to power his device. They refuse to give it to him because they believe in Halloween. As the villain ponders this setback, he thinks, “I need that part. I could steal it, but stealing is wrong. But I need it… Oh well, so much for that moral dilemma!” Seconds later, the part is in his hand.
A Time for Heroes
Is it a coincidence that we opened The School for Heroes at midnight on Halloween, October 31? Perhaps it was. It is also probably a coincidence that the United States is holding a critical Presidential election just a few days after Halloween. Or are they both a sign of the times we live in?
Why is this such an important time? The last ten years have shown us some results of non-heroic, “somebody else’s business” attitudes. Within a single decade, we’ve seen the Enron scandal, a stock market collapse, and a real estate market collapse. We’ve seen terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and torture and other atrocities in the name of “national security.” The common thread between these events is that people acted out of irrational fear and short-term greed. They ignored the terrible consequences of their actions. They lost sight of the Greater Good. These people are villains. “Oh well, so much for those moral dilemmas!”
Heroes are very important in dark times and when ghosts and ghouls threaten to rule the land. Someone needs to stand in front of the gates of Hell, silver cross and holy water in hand, to face whatever might come forth. We have a lot of real monsters in our world – war, famine, poverty, pollution and the people who profit from them. We need to stand up and confront the monsters and their minions. We need to be Heroes.
The Call to Action
It is never easy to be a Hero, but the world needs us. It needs us now. Will you step up to that challenge? One way is to take the What Kind of Hero Are You? test and join our hero’s quest. No matter what path you choose, it is time to make a difference. Vote in your next election. Speak out against tyranny, terror, and war. Help clean up your neighborhood. Stand up against the darkness and the scary monsters. Hey, if little children can do it, so can we!
Tags: Halloween, Heroism, School for Heroes
Posted in Books, Game Design, Heroism | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
Okay, all you wannabe Heroes – this is your call to action.
Today, around the world, more than 9 thousand people are writing on the internet about working together to solve the issues of poverty. Since this school is dedicated to promoting heroism, we are joining Blog Action Day to put our ideals into actions.
Like all things heroic, it doesn’t have to take much effort on our parts to make a difference when it comes to poverty. All of our old clothes and appliances are donated to charity. We give extra food to the food banks. Corey donates blood regularly, and just last week, I joined him. I put aside my squeamishness and the fact I have small veins so it requires more effort for the nurse to babysit me, but I survived the process. We also give money when we can to those environmental causes that deal with people as well as animals.
Unfortunately, these acts are a little like putting a bandage on a gaping wound. They don’t really solve the issues of poverty. Even with a used coat and blanket, a homeless person shivers at night as winter approaches. The real bases of poverty are unemployment and the inability to find a way to get enough food and adequate shelter.
Commitment to Creating a Cure
What will it take to find a solution to the poverty problem? First of all, it will take Commitment. We can’t ignore the problem and hope poverty just goes away. Poverty is a reason why endangered species of animals in Africa are being poached. Poverty is a reason why the rainforests are being devastated daily. Poverty is a reason why children are dying around the world.
We all need to look at the issues and causes of poverty and seriously address what we can do. Then, above all, we need to Do Something!
Lighting the Way
We believe strongly in the power of education – after all, this is a school. Education takes many forms. From the “One Laptop per Child”, whose goal is to provide children around the world with new opportunities and ways to think, to Habitat for Humanity, where people actually learn how to build their own home with the help of volunteers, there are many ways education can change the world.
Poverty won’t be solved by trying to teach starving people how to read and write – but it can be solved by teaching them hope and empowering them to change their own lives.
A Real Hero
One of our fans of the Quest for Glory computer game series is an active force working against poverty by empowerment, education, and economics. Pam is a wonderful artist who lives in Thailand. She and her sister went up to the hills and poor villages in her country to teach the craft of jewelry-making. She helped people there sell their art over the Internet. She makes a real difference in the world – sharing her time and sharing the beauty of her art.
Putting Words into Actions
In addition to our participation in Blog Action Day by blogging, I entered PSDTuts contest to create a button design to publicize and promote “Solving Poverty.” PSDTuts is the best site I’ve found for tutorials on Photoshop – much of the style of the School comes from what I have learned there – so I wanted to support their cause. For another thing, I really wanted to do more than just write about Solving Poverty – I wanted to do something about it. PSDTuts and its sister site, Vectortuts, which had a contest to design a t-shirt, offered over $1000 worth of prize money to the best designs. However, the prize money doesn’t go to the winners. It goes to Kiva.org in the designer’s names.
Kiva offers loans to people who need money to start businesses all over the world. The money goes directly to individuals who are actively working to make their lives better. This isn’t a charity – the people are expected to pay back the loan once they earn enough money to do so. It gives a hand to people who otherwise would not have a chance to get a loan from conventional methods. This doesn’t just benefit the borrowers. They create businesses and employ other impoverished people. This helps raise the standard of living for many people in their area. Kiva borrowers pay back 90% of their loans, an astonishingly high ratio considering that startup businesses in the U.S. are 90% likely to fail.
One of my designs – the “Give a little, Help a LOT” button – came in as a runner-up design. It will be for sale on PSDTut’s Cafe Press website along with all the other winners. So if you would like to own a “Lori Ann Cole” original art design button, or just support and promote the cause, check out the site and buy a button or a shirt there. All the profits will be passed along to Kiva.org.
Solving Poverty – We will find a Way
I ask each of you to take a moment to be a true hero and help find a solution to poverty. What will you do to end Poverty? Add your voice to this cause and comment upon this article. Do you know of a charity who addresses this problem? Perhaps you know another true hero who is making a difference in the world. Share your thoughts and inspire others to take part in this discussion. It’s a call to action for all of us.
Tags: Blog Action Day
Posted in Heroism | 7 Comments »
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
One of the biggest Black Swan events in history has been the meltdown in the financial sector. Triggered by risking lending practices, unemployment , real estate inflation, and overextended insurance policies (the “Credit Default Swap ” insurance market), the United States is currently undergoing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of 1929-1933.
Games have their own forms of economic disasters. As with combat systems, game developers need to walk a narrow tightrope between giving players too much and not giving them enough. Inflation in gold, equipment, and character abilities is inevitable in a long-running game (either a game series or a massively multiplayer game). Careful designers put a lot of time and effort into balancing game economics so that the game is as fun as possible for most players for as long as possible. This can be done by restricting aspects of the economy, reducing restrictions in other areas to keep things balanced, or by providing bread and circuses so the players are distracted from economic issues.
How to Kill a D&D Campaign
Two of my early Dungeons & Dragons campaigns come to mind when I think about game imbalance. In one game, the beginning dungeon master tried to foreshadow the ultimate battle of the first few months of the game. Unfortunately, players tend to focus on the here and now, so we immediately went after an opponent that should have easily destroyed us. Unwilling to have the campaign end in its first week, the DM had an NPC lend us some powerful magic weapons. Using them, we easily won, nabbed the treasure, and found ourselves equipped with magic that should have come much later in the game. After that immediate gratification, the rest of the game was an anticlimax and soon ended.
In a game that I ran, I had a “Deck of Many Things” as a treasure at the end of the first major dungeon. One player pulled a card that jumped her character 5 experience levels, so we had a party of 2nd and 3rd level adventures with a 6th level Cleric. I could handle it these days, but at the time, I found myself completely unable to balance the fights. Anything that would be a challenge for the Cleric would inevitably kill the rest of the party. The campaign went on for a few more sessions, but then died out because I couldn’t keep it balanced.
Whoever Said That Making Sequels Is Easy?
The Wizardry computer game series ran into this problem. Following the typical RPG trope, players started out as very weak beginning adventurers. They gained spells, abilities, and magic items as the game progressed until they were demigod level by the end of the game. Wizardry 2: The Knight of Diamonds allowed players to import their Wizardry 1 characters and continue the game. While KoD was still a very fun game, there was much less room for variety in the game because the player characters started out at a very high level of power. Unable to keep that going, the authors set Wizardry 3: The Legacy of Llylgamyn a generation later, so that players created new characters and began again as beginning adventurers. Wizardry 4 had a nice twist – You play as the evil Werdna, trapped by the goody-goody adventures from Wizardry 1, and have to escape from your own dungeon … starting again as a weak character with few powers.
Dungeon Master had similar problems when they created a sequel that continued where the first game left off. Lori and I loved Dungeonmaster on the Atari ST and spent many hours exploring it. We barely got past the first section of Dungeon Master 2 – It was just too difficult and stressful to be fun.
We kept these lessons in mind when we planned the Quest for Glory series. We intentionally masked the limits of the skill system by putting skills on a 0-100 scale. We figured that players would assume it was a percentile system and that 100 was the highest possible. However, we knew that we would be setting the limit to 200 in the second game, 300 in the 3rd game, and so on. Instead of letting the player wield godlike power by the end of the first game, we gave him a few abilities that would be equivalent to 1st, 2nd, or perhaps 3rd level spells in D&D. That left plenty of room for improvement in the later games.
Despite that, we still had issues with inflation. We had to balance the combat and puzzles so that a player who started in the second game had a character comparable to that of a player who imported her character from the first game. We tried to keep the game fun and challenging for all character skill levels, encouraging the player to practice skills, but not absolutely requiring it. There were flaws in this process. I think that by the 3rd game in the series, many players found it boring to repeatedly throw rocks until they had a high enough throwing skill to win a spear throwing contest, and so on. We relaxed the “practice makes perfect” requirement in the last two games to try to cut down on the tedium. Of course, in doing so, we also reduced the challenge for players who really wanted tough fights.
Oh Yeah, About That Gold
You might find it strange that I’m deeply into a post on economics and so far haven’t even mentioned money. While gold and silver are the most obvious economic systems in games, there are really multiple economies at work. I’ve mentioned character skills. There is also learning curve inflation – where a player gets so good at the game it stops being challenging – character abilities, equipment, pun tolerance, combat and experience points, and several other reward and challenge systems. If any reward comes to easily, it loses its value to the player. If it becomes too difficult, players become frustrated and might stop trying to get the reward.
In the original Bard’s Tale, no character class had a healing spell until (if I remember correctly) level 3. It was also possible to meet very dangerous enemies with your level 1 party, and it was difficult to earn silver. As a result, almost all of the characters’ money was spent on healing and resurrection spells at the temple. Most players ended up “cheating” by creating mule characters, adding them to the party, transferring all their money, then deleting the characters. Players had to work around the game system because the economy was too stingy.
World of Warcraft and similar massively-multiplayer games probably have the hardest time with inflation and balancing the budget. WoW has been running for over 4 years now, and many of the players have become jaded; it’s difficult to find any reward system that will keep them playing the game. Blizzard has relaxed many of the rules that originally created a tight economy because they know that long-time players don’t want to put in as much work for rewards that will soon be superseded. (Oh, and I learned how to spell “supersede” a long time ago in a Superboy comic book. Lana Lang became suspicious of a Clark Kent impersonator because he mistakenly spelled it “supercede”. Never let it be said that reading comic books is a waste of time – at least not all the time!) Dungeons that used to require long and arduous “attunements” before characters could enter them were opened to all players. This has allowed a lot of players in “second tier” guilds to experience content that they would otherwise never see (see The Burning Crusade paragraph below).
Blizzard initially made a number of good decisions to keep their economies balanced. Rewards for slaying monsters and completing quests were scaled throughout the game, so that each level of player tended to have just a little less money than they needed to buy everything they wanted. Blizzard also restricted magic items by giving them a minimum level for use and “soul binding” them – Once a character has equipped a magic item, it can no longer be traded to other characters. More powerful items are “bind on pickup”, which means that only the character who first picks up the item can ever equip it. These decisions meant that a player with a rich level 60 character couldn’t create a new character and have it instantly become much more powerful than its level.
WoW also keeps players involved by holding special events, often tied to seasonal or “real world” events. During the Olympic Games in China, participants in the battlegrounds became “competitors” and earned special tabards. Winning a battleground gave players a chance to win a “Spirit of Competition”, a Chinese Dragon pet that had no game purpose except to look cool. Other “critter pets” include the Invisible Wolpertinger, a jackalope-like creature that you can supposedly only see when you’re drunk, the Baby Murloc that was only made available to attendees of the first live BlizzCon convention, and many others. The rarer ones are highly prized; some are sold for hundreds of real dollars on eBay.
Black Swans Invade a World of Orcs
There was at least one “Black Swan” phenomenon in WoW that might have been obvious to Blizzard, but caught me totally by surprise. Prior to the release of The Burning Crusade expansion, characters were “capped” at level 60. Unlike in Everquest, where the maximum level was a goal attained by few, a high percentage of World of Warcraft players got to level 60 with their characters. In order to keep them active and interested, Blizzard provided a large amount of content designed specifically for level 60 characters. This included the three major “raid dungeons” – The Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and Naxxramas – that required guilds to put together well-balanced teams of 40 players at a time to have any chance of success. Most of the big World of Warcraft guilds were structured entirely around the raid dungeons.
The Burning Crusade changed that dynamic entirely. Players who had spent a year or more at level 60 raiding the dungeons or fighting against other Level 60 players in battlegrounds now found themselves doing quests and exploring 5-player dungeons again. In order to encourage players to buy the expansion and try out the new Outlands content, Blizzard greatly increased the availability of gold and the power level of magical weapons and armor in the new environment. Instead of the level 60 raid dungeons gradually becoming phased out, they were all abandoned the day TBC launched. With 20-20 hindsight, we can see that much the same thing will happen with all of the level 70 dungeons after Wrath of the Lich King launches. A few guilds may visit one or two of them for nostalgia, but they will soon be entirely abandoned as players focus on reaching level 80, exploring the new dungeons, and find more powerful items than they could get from the level 70 dungeons.
Overnight, the big raid guilds splintered. Nobody had any interest in struggling for hours in a level 60 raid dungeon to have a small chance of winning an item only slightly (if at all) better than what they could find in a 5-man dungeon in Outland. Some guilds set up teams of 5 players to work together to “beat” the dungeon content and get “attunements” to the new level 70 raid dungeons and heroic-mode dungeons. Many of the guilds collapsed, because the 40-man raid dynamic was what had provided the social environment that held them together. Others survived by emphasizing role-playing or by working together to make sure that everyone in the guild could find fellow adventurers when they needed them. The entire gameplay for most of the players altered.
The Bird’s-Eye View
How do you balance a multiplayer game? Step 1 is to make good initial decisions. Always be aware of the dangers of a runaway economy and build balances and restrictions into the game. Step 2 is to create simulators. Set up test cases for characters of various levels (or skill development for a non-level-based game) and earned or purchased equipment. Run simulations of combats and other quest activities with them to see if the better-equipped characters are overwhelmingly powerful. If so, make adjustments. Step 3 is to put the systems into the hands of beta test players and play testers. Separate them into groups and present different rules to each group. Then keep the ones that are most successful. Finally, pay attention to your players once the game goes live. Gamemasters and community managers can observe the players to see if they’re having fun and where they’re getting frustrated. If there’s too much money in the economy, find things they can spend it on that give them marginal improvements. If there isn’t enough, introduce new quests or other activities that make it easier to earn money. If all else fails, release an expansion.
More than anything else, game balance is what makes or breaks a computer game. Creating and maintaining well-balanced economic systems for gold, equipment, character skills, tension vs. reward, and other aspects of games is essential to creating games that last. Keeping a game balanced while half the players are trying to find ways to unbalance it is one the most challenging tasks faced by game designers and developers. As Julia Ecklar wrote in her song Crane Dance, “Balance is to understand the crane while it’s in flight.” Cranes and black swans – Look at game economies from a bird’s eye view. You’d be bird brained not to.
The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007) discusses rare, unpredictable, and catastrophic events that – after the fact – people say, “Oh, it was obvious that was going to happen.” The current government intervention into the U.S. banking system definitely qualifies as a Black Swan.
Unemployment statistics understate the real issue, since they do not generally include “discouraged workers” who have given up on trying to find work. As unemployment has grown, people have been unable to make their mortgage payments. That’s what is really meant by “high-risk” mortgages – Lending to people who lose their jobs.
The CDS, or Credit Default Swap, is a new type of financial instrument within the last 10-15 years. Companies insure lenders against customers who default on loans. The problem with CDS’s is that they are based on averages. That leaves the insurers (such as AIG) unprepared for catastrophic Black Swan levels of default. The current CDS market is estimated at $55,000,000,000,000 – that’s $55 TRILLION. CDS’s allowed a lot of lenders to overextend themselves with risky loans because they were insured. That didn’t help when the insurers couldn’t cover the losses.
This article was written by Corey and illustrated by Lori. Mojo is Lori’s Troll Beastmaster in the World of Warcraft game who is the proud owner of a baby Murloc.
Tags: D&D, Economics, Game Design, World of Warcraft
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