#205 - Comparisons
Most complain of not having anywhere to go - he complains of having too many destinations."
One thing I never seem to like very much is customization in my RPGs. I'm sure some of you are marginally familiar with what I'm referring to, but just in case I'll try to give it a short justification. In this case, I'm talking about the idea that characters can instantly learn spells or skills by a few clicks of the button - the idea that you can equip something (like everyone's favorite Materia from Final Fantasy VII, for example) and suddenly be gifted with magic. This has been known to go even further, to the point where you can equip skills to increase a character's overall ability - for example, the C-rank skill "Strength" that can be equipped to a Skill Book in Grandia Xtreme, which suddenly makes a character ... well, stronger.
To me, the concept is fun, but silly. It presents two major problems for me.
The first one is the sudden loss of connection to the game and the characters. There's a school of thought in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons that suggests that player characters would have above average ability scores (as opposed to average dice rolls) because said characters are adventurers of some role or another, and would have likely spent a great deal of time learning an art. Just to be called a Fighter, even on level 1, it would be assumed that the character had possessed enough training to rival others of the same class...or perhaps I would be better off saying that we would assume there is a reason the character is a "Fighter" and not merely another civilian. That being said, being able to suddenly learn new skills or make yourself stronger with items can be alright in very small amounts, but when you get to the point of say, the Junction system in Final Fantasy VIII, or the Job system of Final Fantasy V or Final Fantasy Tactics, it makes no logical sense.
I realize I'm talking about a game here, but bear with me.
Maybe I'm a stickler for the 'oldschool,' but it seems completely impractical that a character who starts out as a strong fighter can, in very few steps, become a physically weak but incredibly gifted Black Mage. Imagine it in a more realistic sense - you're the star shortstop for , but one day you wake up and decide that you're going to become a forensic scientist, or something of the like. Now, you went through college and did alright with your general education, but let's be honest - you went to school because you were basically drafted to play baseball there, and you put most of your effort into that. You've played baseball since you were a kid. It's what you do.
And then you take off the baseball uniform and put on whatever a forensic scientist would wear, and suddenly you have a job in that field and have accumulated enough basic knowledge in it that you're above a normal person without any education...but you are, by no means, a master in the field.
Granted, you're starting off at the beginning, but just like that you possess skills that most people do not. With no real explanation. Ok. I concede that for some of it there is an explanation, but it's usually pretty weak. I just happen to think the Black Mage is weak because he is. That's how he spent his life. He studied the arcane arts furiously, and because of that, maybe he's a bit out of shape. He has no knowledge of certain types of weapons, and isn't strong enough to wear certain types of armor because either they disrupt his spells, or he's just not built to carry them. Of course, it's possible to be a Black Mage and have some physical skill, but that's not really how the world works. Most of us are balanced in some way, shape, or form - some are incredibly gifted, for example, but have strong character flaws. Some are strong of body but not-so-much of mind; some are the opposite. Some people are somewhat athletic and somewhat intelligent, but do not really excel at either side of that spectrum.
This is how people can be beautiful on the inside but ugly on the outside, as some have been known to say. Each person is a product of their own pasts and experiences based on all sorts of factors. I can't just wake up and give myself Louie or Vince's ability to draw, or Dave's ability to go out and meet people, or the physical prowess of Roger or Travis. I can't make myself determined like Marin; I can't drink like Corinne; I can't work six days a week and upkeep a house while driving people to work like my mother.
Or perhaps I could, but it would take time. Which is exactly my point for reason number one - I lose a connection to a character when he suddenly goes from being the strongest attacker to being the party healer. It doesn't make any sense to me. It's fun, sometimes, but overall character customization detracts from my RPG experience.
Reason number two is that character customization is entirely too open ended. I find that I spend more time debating what I should do with each character than I do actually playing the game. You end up fussing over balancing the group out even when the group changes faces, and spending tons of time sifting through menus. You end up wondering if you're doing the right thing because eventually you're going to be caught in a tight spot - will you have the skills necessary to survive it? You never know. It makes the game a lot more difficult than it needs to be, to a certain extent. What if I'm trying to level up magic skills and give a lot of characters magic type abilities, and I get lost in a dungeon full of monsters resistant to magic? Or vice versa - you take a party and buff them up with attack and defense abilities only to find that halfway through the dungeon, there are monsters that are almost completely immune to normal weapons. What then?
The uncertainty is unnerving. The 'comparison' here is where I am in life right now, I think. I'm the kind of person, probably moreso than most people that I know, who's a "jack-of-all-trades." I possess a great deal of skills, but I do not excel in any of them. Take work experience, for example - tons of time in custumer service has given me an eye for details in arranging products, but I still find myself catering to myself more than the public, displaying things I perceive to be good or popular. I know more about making customers happy, and people happy in general, than most - but I still lack the patience to take any pride from it, and my temper often imbues it's way into my work. Slowly, in quiet ways. I've learned to see why things go the way they do in retail and such and become a better shopper, but I still waste money on things I don't need. I could probably go on.
I never really excelled at anything in high school, or the things that I excelled in were also things I lacked the confidence to pursue. So college was, and still basically is out of the picture. People used to tell me that I was an excellent writer back in the day, but...and not to sound too condescending, but what would they know about good writing? Most of them could barely maintain basic grammar, let alone write something with meaning.
I was the best timpani player in the band and should have studied percussion in college, or so some people were known to say...but again, these are people like my family, most of which have only minor experience in performing, or other members of the band who would have no idea what's involved with playing anything I played because they played brass instruments and the like. I didn't really choose to play the timpani, it's something I got stuck with in ninth grade because I was the only freshman in a section of upperclassmen.
I had no choice but to learn. I couldn't fill any other role there. And it proved to be good for me, because the cool upperclassmen didn't really want to talk to me anyway. It was nice to play something on the other side of the room and not have to deal with them.
I can play sports better than a lot of people, but I'm nowhere near as good as most of the people I play with. I love the challenge but I lack the ability and strength to play for long periods of time like they can. Sitting around and playing video games and using the internet has made me into a shell of the 'athlete' I used to be.
I'm still good at games, but what good does that do?
I can use basic HTML but I can't even construct a simple webpage. I can't even modify this blog or my livejournal.
I can watch anime and pick up phrases constantly, but I can't force myself to study Japanese anymore than I have already. And given the amount that I've heard through my life and time that I've put into it already, I don't feel like I've made the progress that I should.
Yet I understand more of it than a hell of a lot of people.
Sometimes life really is like an RPG. Maybe there's something to that customization after all - maybe it pulls my connection to the characters away, but reaffirms my connection to life just a bit more.
Who knows.
~Don
