The Meaning of Life and Your Game
Maybe you're not one of those people who sits around the fireplace, taking long, slow drags from your hand-carved wooden pipe, with wistful images of gods and morals and causality flitting about in your imagination, but if you haven't at least thought about the meaning of existence at least once in your life then you were clearly raised by rocks. You might, in fact, be a rock. And not coal either, because at least coal can burn passionately about something once in a while.
But even if you are a rock that happens to be able to create games, chances are your future players will have thought about intangible things like ideas and ethics and logic, or at least are capable of such things. We poor humans simply can't help ourselves! Philosophy is in our blood. Maybe philosophy IS our blood. What is blood? What is philosophy? What is... is? Anyway, I hope you get my point.
If you do not think philosophically about your game's story and environment, then other people will. You see this any time someone points out the plot holes in games, or stories in general (seriously, just RIDE THE EAGLES INTO MORDOR.) I'm not saying your story has to be 100% air-tight in order to be great (LOTR case-in-point,) but you should at least give some thought to the motivations of your characters, the actions and histories of various factions in your game, why lightning damages a boss when fire doesn't, etc.
But wait, isn't that just common sense? Why do we need to bother with philosophy? Here's the thing: common sense IS philosophy. A particular kind of philosophy, anyway. At its root, "common sense" is simply asking obvious questions instead of acting thoughtlessly. It is an appeal to logic in the face of limited resources (usually time.) So the best way to actually use common sense when you're developing your game is to STOP. Take a moment to think. What are my characters doing and why are they doing it? The more you do this, the more likely you are to avoid introducing plot holes into your story.
I should note that "common sense" is a bit different from "lore," which is basically all the things you're told to do or avoid doing without really being given any reason. For example, "don't stick a fork in an electrical socket" is lore, while "metal conducts electricity, therefore if you close an electrical circuit by shoving a metal object into an electrical socket, electricity will pass from the socket, through the fork, through you, and into the ground, probably causing you a lot of pain in the process" is common sense. The former merely gives instruction, hoping you trust the instructor enough to follow his advice. The latter questions the concepts and motivations of electricity, the properties of matter, biology, etc.
TL:DR; philosophy matters, so use it!
-
2
6 Comments
Recommended Comments