The characteristics which distinguish a good computer role-playing game (RPG) resemble in many ways those which one will find in a good book. The overarching story of the RPG needs to draw in the player via an intricate plot, an interesting conflict, a steady progression of events, well-developed characters, a complex and detailed background universe, and an emphasis on themes and issues universal to the human condition. Though fantasy it may be, an engaging RPG, like an engaging work of fantasy literature, still speaks to issues human beings face in the real world. The characters of RPGs, be they humans, elves, orcs, or space aliens, exhibit elements of human personality and behavior which render real human players able to identify with them, either in the positive sense of emulation or the negative sense of avoidance of the behaviors they exhibit.

Yet the RPG adds to the fantasy genre an entirely new level of experience which books and even films lack, a facet generated by its interactive nature. No longer does the “audience” of an RPG consist of mere spectators. Rather, the players are themselves participants in the RPG’s world: not only participants, but often the key determinants of that world’s fate.

While all good RPGs have the aforementioned elements of a good book, different RPGs vary on how they treat this interactive aspect. Some RPGs, especially older ones, are deterministic on the macro level; the character might have some choices in the kinds of dialogue he engages in, or in the kinds of fighting tactics he uses. However, the overarching storyline is already preset, and success in the RPG is equivalent to progressing along that storyline. Examples of this sort of deterministic RPG include the Diablo series and the Longest Journey series.

With the progress of computer gaming technology, however, it became possible to create RPGs with multiple and vastly divergent plot possibilities. Transition games in this development include the Gothic series and the Neverwinter Nights series. In these games, while the overall world of the game still moves in one general direction toward a single climax, the player is free to choose one of numerous paths toward that climax. The order of events, the alignment of the player with various forces in the game’s world, and the player’s movement throughout that world are often left entirely free to his choosing. These intermediate-stage games still preserved the focus and linearity characteristic of a good book while giving the player a range of free choice reminiscent of a considerable scope of real life.

Many more recent RPGs, most notably the latter games of the Elder Scrolls series, Morrowind and Oblivion, have left little even of the broad determinism of the intermediate-stage games. These still have a main set of “missions” for the player to complete, but this sequence is buried among tens, if not hundreds, of equally complex, engaging, and time-consuming “side quests”: missions from a particular guild or organization in which the player wishes to advance, or missions relating to a given geographical location of a world often as extensive as an entire small country. It is possible to play such games for days without even beginning to progress along the main plot and without coming anywhere close to exhausting their possibilities. Combined with impressive graphics, such games create a world whose complexity probably rivals that of any historical ancient city-state or medieval principality. The player has an incredible range of possibilities in this world; he can genuinely invent a part of a life and see it lived down to the minutest details of food and sleep.

This is not to say, however, that the player-determined RPGs are necessarily superior to the deterministic RPGs. While the former can generate far more variety and intricacy, they also occupy far more time, which to most people is not readily available or not available at all. The deterministic RPG, played for an hour each day, can easily be completed within two to three weeks. After two or three weeks of playing a newer player-determined RPG for an hour each day, one will have scarcely begun it. Only a person of considerable wealth and therefore great leisure, or otherwise of firm security in the success of his future real-world endeavors without an additional time investment on his part, can comfortably and reasonably afford to engage in such a luxury as delving into an entire alternate world. For anyone else, the absorbing qualities of that world will serve to draw him away from the far more important concerns of daily life, upon which his continued prosperity and genuine happiness depend. But just as he can easily afford to read many good books without infringing on his work and relationships, so can a person who pursues a valuable employment and maintains a family comfortably play many of the shorter deterministic RPGs, whose overall time commitment might only range from six to twenty-four hours, which can be distributed over weeks and even months.

Role-playing games constitute a cultural advance which, with prudence, can greatly improve the character of the populace at large. Instead of being passive receivers of outside information or “entertainment,” the RPG players actively engage the world before them: a lesson they can apply to their physical lives as well. With the proper focus, an RPG can be a safe and enriching means of performing intellectual experiments in matters from tactics to ethics. However, the RPG can only become this means of improvement if it is used to supplement, not distract from, the more significant concerns of real life.

This TRA feature has been edited in accordance with TRA’s Statement of Policy.