OK, I don't really hate World of Warcraft because I've never actually played it. But I do find it deeply disturbing and even detrimental to not only the present/future of roleplaying games, but to all-things-of-the-imagination and, I will add but not go too deeply into here, human consciousness and cultural evolution in general.

I suppose I need to explicate a bit. The World of Warcraft and games like it (e.g. Everquest, something I just heard of today called "EVE", etc) are to tabletop RPGs what movies are to books. How so? Because they create imagery for you. You don't have to imagine anything--or at least not generated from within. It is all given to you.

I am very glad that I read The Lord of the Rings before seeing the movies because if I had read the books after the movies, I would have imagined Elijah Wood and Viggo Mortensen, et al. I would not have created my own images for the characters and scenes--I wouldn't have "made up" the Balrog in Moria, or the Eye of Sauron or Shelob. This is not to downplay the impressiveness of Peter Jackson's creation--if anything, the opposite. But it is to point out that by putting-onto-film such a monumental collection of images, Jackson has effectively done the "hard work" for us: the hard work of creating.

There is something terribly wrong with this. When we watch movies or play computer games we are completely passive. We react, we laugh and cry and frantically press buttons and exercise rapid hand-eye movements. But...we don't create anything. Let me emphasize that again:

WHEN WE WATCH MOVIES OR PLAY VIDEO GAMES WE DON'T CREATE ANYTHING.

Movies and computer games bankrupt us of one of our most precious capacities: the ability to imagine, to create with our minds. I am saddened by the commonly held belief that tabletop RPGs is a dying hobby, albeit one that is dying slowly ("Graying", they say--which means that the majority of players have been around for awhile...yep, I remember when a hardcover TSR book cost about $12, which probably makes me 2nd generation: I began playing RPGs around 1980). Yet I am hopeful, because we see throughout culture instances of something that has been technologically surpassed yet remains. Take the violin, for instance. Or the book (will "e-books" ever replace the joy of holding a book in your hands? Does anyone actually like PDFs?!). I think that tabletop RPGs--like books and violins, although in a more modest sense--will survive. This is the blessing of the information age: nothing is truly lost.

Don't get me wrong, I like movies. I'm not such a big fan of computer games and never have been, largely because of the reasons I've already preached about. As a fantasy writer (still working on my first novel), a retired gamer (for the last few years and for the foreseeable future, at least), and a "secondary world" creator, there is no personal capacity that I value more than my imagination. I could get into what exactly I believe "imagination" to be, but this is not the time (or place, perhaps)--but I will say that my views are more along the lines of Coleridge, Jung, and Steiner than conventional psychology and brain science. And, to put it bluntly (again!), computer games and movies actually atrophy the imaginative capacity, or at least numb it. In my experience, at least--and from what I observe in others.

The other aspect of computer games that I find distasteful is that they are inherently limited. The human imagination has no limits--not only in terms of expanse, but depth. That is, not only can we imagine just about anything and new ideas will continue to be dreamed up and churned out, but the depth of vividness and, dare I say, archetypal resonance, can forever be developed further. Try, for instance, imagining something simple: a flower, say. Take a couple minutes every night and close your eyes and imagine that flower. If you do this over many nights, weeks, and months, the imagine will become more vivid. It may even eventually "come to life."

When you play a video game, no matter how complex it is there are always boundaries. It is a program, after all, a virtuality. A virtuality--as a copy, or simulation, of reality--can only ever be finite. But reality itself--and the human imagination--is not. There are no limits, no boundaries.

When you play a video game there are only so many possibilities that can occur, and all of them are formulaic. It is similar--although much more complex--to those old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books from the '80s: If you do this, turn to page X, if you do that, turn to page Y. And so forth. When you sit down and play a tabletop RPG with your friends, you are only limited by your own imagination--and that of the storyteller or gamemaster. A similar, although more guided, process happens with reading a book. You are being "taken into' the imagination of another, yet it is your own creation, a "co-creation" if you will, of the author and reader. But the imagery is all yours.

It is easier, though, to watch a movie than read a book, to play a computer game than sit down with friends and enter the unknown and mysterious world of imagination. But is it worth it?

This post is inspired by James Maliszewski's bit on the Ranger. What came to mind while reading it is what a hybrid Dungeons & Dragons is. On first blush, it would seem that D&D is, or attempts to be, a kind of standard, generic fantasy in which you can do pretty much anything you want: grim and gritty, epic and mighty, sword and sorcery, or even "fantasy in space" ala Spelljammer. But there is a core template, what some call "D&D Canon", that includes and combines many factors that don't appear in any other fantasy venue, or at least not quite in the same way.

Examples are obvious. Let's start with monsters: The beholder, the mind flayer, the lich, Demogorgon and Orcus, the Drow, rot grub, etc. And then there are the classes, races, even equipment, money, and treasure. Many of these D&D archetypes are known by the vast majority of gamers (who doesn't know what a vorpal sword is?). The point being, there is a D&D ethos that is distinct from other forms of fantasy.

Part of the charm of D&D is that it is specific, it does have its own feel to it. When you look at roleplaying games there are a wide variety in terms of a basic spectrum of generic to specific, from GURPS to Mechanical Dream. For over thirty years Dungeons & Dragons has been (by far) the most popular RPG, and the exemplar of "standard fantasy." It is almost an a priori assumption that its success has been dependent upon being the "first to the ballpark." But is this the case? Certainly it is a factor, perhaps the most important one. But I would argue that it is not the only factor towards its continued success, which is also--even primarily--because of what it actually offers: the template, the gestalt of archetypes and fantasy memes, and the continued tradition that remains internally consistent through edition (and designer) changes.

As I write this, I see three elements that must be nourished for Dungeons & Dragons to continue its success:

1. Tradition. Remain at least somewhat consistent to established tradition, from what has worked and continues to works--and what makes up that "D&D vibe." This involves recognizing what is truly intrinsic to the game.
2. Innovation. Bring in new elements, new styles and themes that befit new generations of both fantasy ideas/trends and gamers.
3. Balance. Specifically in terms of generic vs. specific, standard "Vanilla" fantasy vs. weird or unique, realistic vs. fantastical. This relates to both tradition and innovation: staying true to the core D&D template, but bringing in fresh elements, especially those that are resonant with current cultural--and genre--trends. To put it another way, include the basic archetypes, but don't rehash them endlessly in the same old form.

Certainly there as those that stick to 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons or even "basic D&D". There will be those that stick to 3rd edition--perhaps because of the Open Gaming License. There may even be those that remain faithful to the ugly middle child, 2nd edition (although I would imagine many fewer than 1st or 3rd editions). But D&D will move on--obviously! And I am curious to see what comes next. I only hope that the three elements above are recognized and interwoven. That we will see continued innovation and new themes, yet that it will remain D&D at heart.

I've always considered it the MySpace of blogs, but I decided to join partially inspired by this guy's blog, so I that I can join in the fray there and elsewhere (it seems that Live Journal has a lot of RPGers and specfic writers in general, all the better to get my Geekdom craving satiated).