So I downloaded Designer
X's Violence: The RPG the other day. It's intended as a satire
of the current state of gaming, and begins with a vicious (and
well-written) diatribe on the tendency towards violence in gaming as
an acceptable moral stance without consequence.
It's also just a little bit over the
top.
I will not argue that there is no
violence in gaming. I have certainly participated in enough.
Between tabletop, console and computer, I've probably killed,
knocked-out or 'arrested' enough people, animals and monsters to
populate a good-sized city. And it's been a lot of fun.
But to say that all gaming is focused
on violence is to ignore large parts of what really goes on. The
entire line of Sim games (beginning with SimCity
and culminating with The
Sims) are about resource management, and include violence only in
the most cursory way. A classic SimCity challenge was to build a
city that could survive an attack by a kaiju.
But mostly it was about building cities, seeing them grow, and
keeping them going.
Casual gaming accounts for a lot of
games, as well. Tetris
began the trend, which has cascaded into entire websites devoted to
puzzle-solving, non-violent games that even become the structure
around which social networks are built.
Tabletop RPGs definitely descended from
wargames, which themselves descended from training procedures
developed for military academies and for actual warfare. But the
role-playing can, and often does, take precedence over the wanton
violence.
One of the best sessions I ever ran was
a Shadowrun
campaign set in Denver.
For about three hours, two of the players had their characters
running around trying to find a wedding present for a third player's
character. No violence, no thefts, no crimes, just a group of people
“pissing around” (our in-house term) with characters and
situations having fun.
So to Designer
X, I say I agree with you, but you really do have to take a step
back from what you're looking at and recognize that gaming is a lot
more than just the most visible parts of it.
That said, I will probably run at least
one session of Violence:
The RPG, just to check it out. Might be an interesting mix with
Paranoia,
or Toon.
Hmmmm.....
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