Philosophical Questions Raised While Worldbuilding For Video Games
Overview
With the exception of visual novels, I firmly believe in designing video games of every genre from a gameplay-based foundation--even including RPGs with stories. Not all RPGs do have stories; sometimes dungeon crawlers and roguelikes don't. With that in mind, though, when you choose[1] to make an RPG and it does have a story, but you start from gameplay and then flesh out story and setting, strange things happen. Unusual questions come up. You begin having lengthy, mysterious, and possibly unanswerable dialogues... with yourself.
On this page, notes will be used like footnotes, not typical wiki citations.
Warning
This page lists some of the questions I've had to ask myself while worldbuilding.
Before reading, please be cautioned:
Almost all of my questions are philosophical in nature and some may present deep or challenging concepts.[2] I approach philosophy mostly from an a priori[3] perspective (or as a priori as can be given the topic). Furthermore, most of my questions don't have provided answers. I almost named this page a Socratic Monologue[4] because of how little I realized as I grappled with all of these issues.
Some of my questions center around faith. None of them should challenge anyone's faith in God (I consider myself a disciple of Jesus Christ[5]) nor should they challenge anyone's lack of faith (I grew up agnostic[6]) While I can't guarantee that they won't, I assure you I didn't write this page with intentions to convert anybody to Christianity, agnosticism, or any other belief. I wrote it as a counterbalance for people like me; while it's easy to criticize some games' stories for being incoherent or having plot holes and there's nothing wrong with doing so[7], it's also true that making a perfectly sensible plot sometimes means tackling problems and paradoxes that have plagued philosophers since ancient times, especially if your setting has any fantasy elements.
By my interpretation of "political," none of my questions are political and I hope you'll feel the same. While I'm no longer agnostic when it comes to God, I remain agnostic on countless philosophical topics, which also means by definition that I'm agnostic on every associated political topic.[8]
My questions are disorganized and travel quickly in unexpected directions because I allow tangents to go where they will; I'd rather travel down their paths then cut off communication.
Finally, if it doesn't show by now, the writing style on this page is usually more formal and stuffy than other pages. I'm sorry about that. To be honest, unless I'm writing in character for a character like Leaf or Jig, I've kind of forgotten how to "turn off" my formal voice when I'm writing about philosophy.
The Question of Audience
Starting Point
1. If my species are mostly made of energy, do they have muscles or bones? 2. If not, then how are their body shapes so much like humans? Actually, even if so, then why are their body shapes so much like humans? 3. Is it because that's more familiar for artists? Is it because that's more familiar for people? 4. Am I designing characters with another audience in mind or primarily for myself? Is one of these routes better?
Branching Path 1: Designing Characters For Another Audience
5a. If I design characters for another audience, does that mean I'm not respecting my own authority and intention as a creator? 5b. Am I, like Socrates in Athens[9], acceding to the will of the majority to the detriment of myself? 5c. If I do not put out my own vision, then is there anyone else capable of putting out my vision? 5d. Following the thought experiment implicit in Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative, what would happen if everyone designed characters for their audiences? If we were to design characters based exclusively on proven statistics, would those very statistics not become a self-fulfilling prophecy? Would that not also be Plato's greatest nightmare--an infinite progression of derivatives, copies of copies of copies? 5e. But Plato's disdain for copies rested on the assumption that copies of an ideal grow ever more flawed in comparison to that ideal; must that be so? In the physical world, a closed system begets decay due to entropy, but if there is an abstract creative realm, must its properties be similar to the physical world or subject to similar laws?
Branching Path 2: Designing Characters For Oneself
6a. If I design characters primarily for myself, does that mean
Should I change their body shape? Do they store fat at all? Can they digest anything like Snorlax? (I had a good laugh at Dinosaur Comics' perfect dog years later.) Do they even need to eat? Can they even eat? Can they drink?
Are they self-sustaining or do they need to absorb mana? Do they take in vitamins from sunlight? Why would sexual dimorphism exist if they're mostly or completely self-sustaining? If I can't think of a reason for it to exist, does that mean girls and guys look the same? Does it mean they sound the same? Am I giving my characters skin, hair, and nails only because it looks nice and not because it makes sense in the context of this universe? If so, is that necessarily wrong? Would the presence of God in this universe justify such a thing? Would the presence of God justify everything?
Where in the body would a core be located anyway? Can you see it like Iron Man's replacement heart or Metallo's Kryptonite core? If the core is made of energy, how does it interact with skin? Is it like that one weird Metroid Prime creature with two independent halves connected by electricity? Do beings of mostly energy live forever? Do they age? Are they born full-sized? How do they reproduce anyway? Do they reproduce? Am I inadvertently creating the wackiest biology this side of E.V.O.: Search For Eden?
Footnotes
- ↑ I say "choose," but that might be considered a loaded word. A determinist or Calvinist would say I didn't choose anything since free will is an illusion (albeit an illusion that we may benefit from pretending is real, depending who you ask).
- ↑ Depending on your definition of "deep" and "challenging." I only took enough philosophy courses to make up 60% or so of a philosophy minor, so my knowledge may be limited compared to some of you.
- ↑ A priori knowledge is knowledge that can be derived without tangible, empirical investigation, i.e. knowledge derived from the definitions of words and their relations to one another. Two plus two must equal four given specific definitions of "two," "plus," "equal," and "four."
- ↑ The Socratic method is a teaching method developed by the Greek philosopher Socrates, who asked audiences a series of questions that would spur their critical thinking. It's often juxtaposed with didacticism, a teaching method that presents audiences with an unchallenged foundation for them to internalize.
- ↑ Albeit not nearly as far along as I'd like. To name a few positives, I'm very quick to forgive anyone (except myself, which I've always needed to work), one friend told me I'm the least confrontational person he's known and another told me I'm "such" a submissive type (she meant it in a positive way that she could talk openly without ever worrying about ruffling feathers), and I don't curse anymore. I've also read the entire Bible, minus the lengthy genealogies, and the New Testament twice. And I love and feel sorry for, like, everyone. All of them. Even the most hate-filled people--I just want to understand them, not hate back or dismiss them. Even though I haven't talked politics for about ten years, someone once told me that, of all the things and all the topics, she felt like she understood me most when I did talk politics because I seemed like a "bridge" between people instead of a wall. I've always appreciated that analogy and I hope it will always be true of me. Still, I have a long, long way to go in areas like charity, continuing to study the Bible, and disconnecting from certain societal assumptions, among many other things. I won't pump myself up as a superbeliever who has everything under control by any means.
- ↑ If the sheer number and types of questions here aren't enough to make that easy to guess!
- ↑ Criticism isn't the same as hate. I can name so many plot holes in Tales of Symphonia I might give it a wiki page just for fun, but I still love that game and its story like a sister--one of my top five of all-time and I've played almost a thousand games. Most of the reason I noticed plot holes at all is because I played it so many times. Tales of the Abyss has fewer plot holes, but much more gaping ones, and still ranks in my top 5%.
- ↑ This includes topics that are relevant to majorities of the Church. I'm not the Church and I'm not an exact representation of a statistical average in a major demographic. I'm an individual.
- ↑ According to Plato's representation of Socrates' death, or at least the accounts I've read, he talked his friends out of rescuing him from prison because he believed that he should be subject to Athens' decision since he chose to live there.
