Class discussion for "Living Epic" online course

[Roger Travis]

The idea is that this thread will be our virtual classroom. Someday, this will all be done in a virtual world, and we'll be putting stickies on a board somewhere in cyberspace. But for now, sing, goddess, of an exciting class discussion. . .

Instructions:
Write at least 250 words in this forum, for each module, on the subject of either the ancient bardic occasion or the comparison between it and the practice of adventure-gaming. Please focus your discussion on how you think an understanding of the bardic occasion in which the homeric epics were put together affects the way we should look at those epics today. As you follow-up on discussion, and post a second time, please also work in your experience in your Module gaming sessions as an analogy for the bardic occasion. When you have completed this discussion activity, return to the module in the HuskyCT platform to read the instructions for the next activity in your current module.

[David Colon]

As I listened to the lectures and read the postings here, I can't help but think of the inherent limitations of video games as a narrative form. As someone pointed out, there is no physical extension to these games. As others have said in their posts, the narratives tend to be a bit simplistic (especially, and obviously, in the case of Club Penguin).

But what interests me is that the narrative forms developed in games are emergent media -- they are developing literally before our eyes. The bardic moments of the Homeric tradition were relatively stable and have been (more or less) the same since time immemorial. But the electronic forms of storytelling in games are changing constantly. Earlier games followed a very linear path and the player's range of choices were severely limited. Indeed, that form is still dominant in popular games such as Halo and Gears of War. Other games, however, are venturing into rather unknown territories. Games such as Knights of the Old Republic (a Star Wars game), Oblivion, and Fallout 3 allow players to make significant ethical choices that determine the outcome of the narrative. Some of these games don't even require one to finish the main storyline and one can play the game and develop one's own narratives. The Nintendo Wii introduces a physical element to games and can require players to perform acts of physical skill (sort of). In some odd way, it all reminds me of a version of Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk with the difference that the "audience" constructs individualized narratives within the confines of each game/program.

And yet, I think this is also a reversion to older forms of narrative -- a "democratic" form of storytelling wherein one is not beholden to a fixed text. I know we've focused on the great bards and their moments, but let's not forget that there existed storytellers long-forgotten who customized their tales to suit their own tastes. Since the advent of writing (and especially movable type), I think we tend to look for "official" written versions of stories. Deviations are often seen as lesser versions of the "real" (print) version. Video games are letting audiences take a more active role in constructing narratives. So to conclude what are most likely self-contradicting statements, I think video games are a completely new version of a completely ancient means of communication

[David Colon]

Edward wrote:

[As a side note, I'm also interested in discussing the possible addictive nature of these games, as evidenced by the number of World of Warcraft Widows.]

I, too, have read about "WoW Widows". I'd point out though, that far there are far more casualties to football, golf, or many other such sports than to video games. Indeed, there are countless examples of relationships wrecked by academics lost in their studies. That's not to say gaming addiction isn't a real issue, but I think the larger issue centers around life-balance than anything inherent in video gaming.

[Richard Staron]

Ditto "Great Discussion"!

Finally finished the Runescape tutorial - brutal in places, as this is a new kind of 'reading' methodology for me - have to constantly scan the entire screen.

Re chance: in real life things like cancer, an ice storm, a student pulling a fire alarm to get out of a test do happen no matter how many degrees or lesson plans we might have, and that's what I am finding missing so far in the half dozen games I've been able to look at. In the Illiad they talk about "fate" and free will, but if the end is predetermined, then I fail to see where any free will is possible.

Even after the quite enjoyable videos - wish I had such talent - (our Greek and Latin professors never sang to us when we were translating!!) I am still a little misty on the bard and gamer being the same. True, they both make choices about a particular path or such, but the bard knows where she is going with the story, while the gamer is sticking their neck out with each movement, not really knowing what might be in the next room, and so forth. True, in the telling the epic does evolve over time, mixing new and traditional pieces, but the basic story stays the same. Perhaps someone is aware of an epic tale that does have multiple endings - that would be very interesting. In that situation the bard would be playing all the roles.

As an old-new gamer, I echo the itch to get out and move, and looking at the ponds and forests does get me thinking about our camping gear in the basement. However, here in New England it's around zero F, ground is snow covered and is not the best time to take to the mountains.

Comments on not taking the "gods" literally have me wondering whether such talk in the I&O is similar to current US talks about guardian angels on one's shoulder, or knocking on wood or throwing salt - more superstition than actually religious belief in the face of a rather chaotic real world. THe greeks for all their academic brilliance did put themselves in scientific binds with their ideas of the perfect universe, the absurdity of a zero, the heavenly spheres and so forth, and went to incredibly creative lengths to explain planetary movement, especially retrograde movements. So maybe we're all on that path of searching for meaning and part of being human is to mix religion/superstition and science/logic.

Early on someone mentioned the apparent inherent violence in the more popular or adult games, and I was somewhat disturbed to have to kill rats and chickens in Runescape. This reminded me of the childhood games of cowboys and Indians, and I wonder what the long term effects of such behavior is. Does anyone know whether gamers are able to leave such gratuitous violence behind when the leave the game? From our own kids, the one who has played (and still plays) Dungeons and Dragons since he was 11 or so has never shown any propensity for violence or cruelty. He does now have quite a collection of swords, but blame us for taking him and his sisters to England at an early age and showing them the medieval world.

On a personal note I am finding this course quite interesting and it's done its magic in getting my mind off chemical formulas and photosynthesis, so for me this had become a true mind expanding time. I do appreciate reading the comments and marvel at the insights and constantly laugh at my ineptitude inside the games. I have gotten used to penguins and Runescapers running past me while I'm befuddled by some direction.

And, Happy New Year to everyone!

Richard

[Cathy O'Connor]

Richard Staron said:

Having just created a "penguin, (5 words I never thought I would ever say), and having looked at World of Warcraft, let me offer that it seems to me that the gamer is all 3: bard, action figure (hero or villain) and audience. The gamer becomes a bard AFTER a quest, large or small, because at that point she/he has a story to tell. The gamer is the "ulysses" with a small "u", the hero, villain or whatever, as she/he goes through the quest. The gamer is audience in that she/he must play by the inherent capabilities and limitations of the game's creator. But one big difference I see, especially in World of Warcraft, is that the gamer's actions, choices and results are NOT determined by gods. This is not to say that there isn't magic, but rather the gamer is able, by cunning and skill, to gather the necessary implements to complete the quest. One other observation is that I do not see any elements of luck or chance in Penguins or WofW, unlike real life.
So, can we say that the demise of "gods" in video gaming reflects not the lack of "gods", rather current culture where such things are relegated to private ceremonies? But by taking out the elements of luck and chance, are we not now saying that ultimately the gamer, through experience, should be able to conquer all?

Richard

[Cathy O'Connor]

I agree Richard in that a gamer could be seen as a bard after achieving a quest. For the first time they would be a novice or 'bard in the making'. After going through the readings, be it ever so slowly, the bard needs to have a clear and practiced understanding of the tale and the possibilities of where it may lead. Club Penguin does have a formula running through it which provides a predictability and a reliance on previous life experience or knowledge: e.g. - what it means to surf. I am off now to try WoW.
Cathy.

Cathy O'Connor said:

Richard Staron said:

Having just created a "penguin, (5 words I never thought I would ever say), and having looked at World of Warcraft, let me offer that it seems to me that the gamer is all 3: bard, action figure (hero or villain) and audience. The gamer becomes a bard AFTER a quest, large or small, because at that point she/he has a story to tell. The gamer is the "ulysses" with a small "u", the hero, villain or whatever, as she/he goes through the quest. The gamer is audience in that she/he must play by the inherent capabilities and limitations of the game's creator. But one big difference I see, especially in World of Warcraft, is that the gamer's actions, choices and results are NOT determined by gods. This is not to say that there isn't magic, but rather the gamer is able, by cunning and skill, to gather the necessary implements to complete the quest. One other observation is that I do not see any elements of luck or chance in Penguins or WofW, unlike real life.
So, can we say that the demise of "gods" in video gaming reflects not the lack of "gods", rather current culture where such things are relegated to private ceremonies? But by taking out the elements of luck and chance, are we not now saying that ultimately the gamer, through experience, should be able to conquer all?

Richard

[Roger Travis]

Richard Staron said:

I am still a little misty on the bard and gamer being the same. True, they both make choices about a particular path or such, but the bard knows where she is going with the story, while the gamer is sticking their neck out with each movement, not really knowing what might be in the next room, and so forth.

But I don't think the bard really does know more than the gamer. For me, the most revealing homeric moment in this regard is the moment in Od. 8 when Odysseus requests a song from Demodocus--Demodocus proves his bardic worth by gamely singing what Odysseus asks for, even though it clearly wasn't in the original set-list. Similarly, a virtuosic gamer has played a great many similar games, and always has a pretty good idea of what's coming next, to say nothing of the IMO very compelling argument that the real storytelling happens the second time through, when the choices start to mean something.

To put it another, perhaps even more persuasive way, homeric epic was in fact, originally that story with multiple endings that you're wondering about--there was much more variation than we tend to be comfortable imagining.

Could you explain a little more about how you see chance and fate functioning differently in epic and game? I think I'm missing your point, since it seems to me like you're confusing the world inside the story with the world of the bardic occasion. When my penguin runs into a windmill, the game, like an epic, could for example tell me that Poseidon blew me off course, which inside the epic is really just a grand way of saying the same thing. :D

[Joe Osborn]

Roger Travis said:

And yet. . . there are others, who engage in what strikes me as most like bard-to-bard engagement, who treat the games given them by the developers as a young bard would treat the work of an older bard. And some of them go on to be developers, and the world begins again. Remember that the model isn't just the bard and the audience-it's the bards who have gone before, the bard of the occasion, and the audience of the occasion, some of whom may one day be bards themselves.

I think this is a really key insight. I've felt recently that a good way to phrase this idea is that all of the static, predefined, "formulaic" elements in a game -- the characters and characterization, the plot, the art assets, the music -- are composed according to some rules in their respective creators' heads. These rules can be rules of aesthetics, rules of internal consistency, rules of personal preference, and so on. Ultimately, the specific backstory, art style, and other static attributes of a game are particular "play-throughs" of these sets of rules.

Take Tarn Adams's "Dwarf Fortress" as an example. This game plays like a sort of fantasy game generator, procedurally generating a world, races, deities, religions, historical figures, characters, and plots before the player gets to interact with the world. After the player's actions, the world is changed according to what the player has accomplished. In short, the system "plays" itself for a while -- the older bard -- and then the player gets to sing a tale, which is recorded for posterity in the world.

This is an easy example, but it can even be seen in games like Club Penguin: it's easy to imagine a simulation game about placing coins and obstacles in the jetpack stage in such a way that the penguins who follow them will have to make certain decisions. This game was played by the designers to the extent that they found a useful set of placements, then the results were recorded and reproduced without the intervening steps of creation. An artist must have created the set of possible penguins and accessories, in keeping with an established style -- these artifacts are all frozen stories, just as the copy of Odyssey we read is an ossified telling of a tale.

I really hope we get to consider games like Dwarf Fortress and Rogue-likes in this course, since they seem to be living, breathing storytellers in their own right through their procedural systems (and they're free, to boot!). Even SimCity could be a minor example (and SimCity Classic is also free online).

[Edward]

Roger Travis said:

if you're looking to get a glimpse of the true potential you might actually want to start with a very simple game, Passage, which is a real conundrum--and it's under very interesting discussion in another thread in this forum!

Just played this game - indeed very interesting. Intriguing how it's difficult to get to the lower levels but so easy to stay on the surface. ;-) Thanks for recommending it!

[Jan Vita]

I have never played a video game until today when I attempted to play Penguin Club and Rune Scape. What came through right away was that I did not have an understanding of the formulaic nature of video games, making it very difficult to experience a story. Perhaps a young "homeric bard to be" felt the same way. The answer to the question - what does it take for a player to make an artistically interesting performance? - begins, I think, with familiarity of the formulaic nature of video games, practice, and interest. I get that both forms (homeric epics and video games) CAN tell stories;however, I think they each require different skill sets by the player/composer to create successful performances. (As a side note, in my observations of kids in school, boys are much more interested in video games than girls. Why is that? If playing video games is predominantly male oriented, what does that indicate? Can video games be used to improve literary interest and narrative composition for young students, particulalry males? ) Getting back to the games as a story, if I imagine myself as the character in the Rune Scape, my story would focus on a completely lost female who had to observe what others were doing before I could proceed. The narrative information on Rune Scape was key to getting me started. I sought advice from the sages to learn what I needed to do. I knew I was embarking on an adventure while feeling ill-prepared to navigate various lessons or tasks. The sages were very helpful and encouraging - thank goodness! Lesson learned - when lost, others can be helpful.

[Roger Travis]

Thanks for suffering through those painful first hours, Jan! I know exactly the feeling you mean, and I agree that it must have seemed that way to audiences hearing the bards for the first time--so many conventions! Why is that guy called "swift-footed" all the time, for example? Does it mean something more than being fast? Why don't we ever see him run if he's so swift-footed?! :D

Here's something I wrote over on HuskyCT a few days ago, to push the gender discussion along.

First, the dominance of the traditionally male pursuits of militaristic glory and competitive goal-oriented activities in the current gaming scene seems to me to be an artifact that comes from the early development of video games from simple computer algorithms to more complex ones. It's no wonder (IMO), then, that we have an idea that gaming is a male pursuit, rather than the view I think we'll eventually have, that certain kinds of gaming are male pursuits--just as (as you note) it's clear that homeric epic was a male pursuit (with the very, very important caveat that in its late stages we can see what might even be called proto-feminist concerns arising [one word: Penelope]). I'd even venture to suggest that early forms of oral storytelling would have, through analogous technological constraints (that is, bards just weren't very good at telling nuanced stories yet), have given a similar impression, which faded as the technology developed.

Second, and complementarily, there are many, many more women gamers than you would think. More and more studies, especially those coming out of the Pew Center, are reflecting this, but if you ask your students you'll probably find out what I hear every time I ask mine: girls play games, and yet they don't *play games*--that is, the way girls play isn't the way boys play. We may not get a complete grip on this until we stop calling them games and start calling them somthing else. . . my own leading candidate is "Interactives."
One of my fond hopes for VGHVI is that we'll have a fellow someday who wants to do the "Games and Gender" course we've all been waiting for!

[Jason Efland]

After going through the readings, posts and lectures, several thoughts cam to mind but one more so than others. Something that always struck me as a student when studying the ancient classics was when the bard called to the muse. The idea of receiving divine inspiration seemed fascinating to my secular mind. While I understand those muses would not be actual entities, I believe the act of calling upon the help of a muse is relevant to the study of the bardic tradition in today's epics.

As an avid gamer, I have my brand loyalty to various developers and publishing companies. Assuming the player is the bard telling the story then it seems natural that the Developer is the muse. The Developer is preserving the story that the players want to unlock and share with their audience (more on this thought later). In the Medieval tradition, from what I remember, bards had a series of stories at their disposal. More so, they were expected to perform the crowd's favorite story and in a manner pleasing to the audience. This is strikingly similar to the creation and marketing of video games today.

While the storylines in Club Penguin and Runescape appear juevinile compared to games like Fall Out 3, Call of Duty or my favorite Age of Conan, it is important to examine the significance of those games in conjunction with the bardic tradition. If anything, do not video games create a wider array of bards today? The muses (Dev teams) create a base storyline for a target crowd. Would it be likely to see a small child performing in front of an audience in the ancient world? As it is today to see children playing video games in a family living room. I am reminded of an anecdote from my childhood. My junior high years saw my friends and I playing Shining Force for Sega Genesis (This game introduced me to roleplaying games and I consider it one of the greatest gaming influences in my life). The game was designed with countless hours of gameplay in a very linear manner. My friends and I would take turn playing the game while others watched the story unfold. In this case, I see Sega as the muse. They inspired the story. They wrote the dialogue and created the instances and conflict. My friend playing was the bard. He went through the battles and dialogue to determine what would happen and how it would happen. As turn based battles unfolded, the two audience members would yell out commands or exclaim in excitement or mourn the loss of a character. The player was expected to paly according to our wishes/demands. This made gaming a performance and if the audience was adamantly opposed to the contiual actions of a player they would insist on "switching it up". As mentioned in previous posts, I'm sure there were popular bards or talented bards, just as there were the untalented. Sometimes a player was not skilled for a particular level so we would bring in a new gamer. Just as I am sure some bards were more skilled at various devices and stories and perhaps in time the audiences would become aware of this.

I might have wandered from my original intent but in the end I believe much of a game's story lies in the creative minds of the developer. They must pass down the "bulk" of a game to the player in order for that individual to create the story in their own world and for their own audience.

[Jason Efland]

As Roger wrote "To put it another, perhaps even more persuasive way, homeric epic was in fact, originally that story with multiple endings that you're wondering about--there was much more variation than we tend to be comfortable imagining."

This statement strikes true with me. Some DVD's will display alternative endings to their movies. This is a section I often skip because moving watching is a passive activity for me. However, when I play a video game with multiple endings I am enthralled. I love the idea that my decisions will bring about a differnet conclusion than another player's decisions. My question, if homeric epics had multiple endings, would a bard customize the tale based on his audience or based on his personality? If so, one might see the parallel between the homeric epics and the video games with multiple endings. Players in Knights of the Old Republic for example will receive differnet endings based on their moral and ethical decisions. If a player is playing through Knights of the Old Republic on their own then it would imply that they are the bard and the audience. Thus, because the bard(player) and audience are one and the same, the bard's(player's) choices based on personality would be a direct reflection of what the audience is anticipating and the end result would be the same as with the ancient bards.