A love note to an overlooked game feature.
Games are such a multitude of things: sport, mental stimulation, art (?), and design. And sometimes, a lot of times, we roleplay. We free our fantasies and become the narrators of our own stories. Recently, like every other person on my social media timeline it seems, I have been playing Baldur’s Gate 3. It has been hailed as a masterpiece, much like its predecessors, of roleplay and game design. Now, I do not want to make big criticisms of that game here; it’s indeed a lot of fun. But the structure of it leaves me longing for more in terms of role play.
1. Roleplay
To me, roleplay in video games usually comes down to letting the player fill in the gaps of what the game has to offer. This is rather hard in games such as Baldur’s Gate 3 with its detailed story. The narrative propels itself forward from previous events, not really from the player’s personal goals or their imagination. The player may pour their fantasy into the character’s past, but not its present.
I thought about what games offer me the most in terms of roleplay. This, of course, without reflecting on what we gain from this type of play besides enjoyment. To me, it’s games like Minecraft, Skyrim, or Civilization that do it best. Where you can play pretend, set goals, and complete them, infusing gameplay with new meaning.
In Minecraft, when I build a base or a village, every building has to have a history. A raid happened, so we built a wall. We built a lighthouse there to protect our ships from the dangerous cliffs. Perhaps we were the raiders and captured this village to access nearby mines. Even though a history is in the past, here it is directly connected to the game and the present. After all, we built the lighthouse, captured the village, etc.
In Skyrim, I once made a character, a Breton archer, whose only goal was to own a house and marry. I avoided quests, my usual stealing, tried avoiding enemies as best I could. My character became a hunter and a fisher. She got into a few fights, sure. Maybe she even had her worries about the civil war, but really, she was just a simple person. Eventually, she did marry and bought a house in Whiterun. It’s a simple story, but Skyrim’s open leveling and handling of ways to engage the player made it work.
Every time I play Civilization, at the start of the game, I scout around. And in those early rounds, before settling my first city, I decide… what is my culture? Where are its lands? Playing on Huge Earth with Alexander, I was placed in Brazil. Naturally, my culture was connected to the vast jungle of the continent, and I wanted it settled without gaps. The coast secured. The people prospering. And it was this motivation that sparked conflict and drove the game for me.
But, I’ve written enough about roleplaying in general. What I want to talk about is this secret feature that I mention at the start, it’s rather ancient, really: Writing!
To be able to include your fantasies objectively in the game you are playing makes all of this even more real. Minecraft already has that with books, which I love to use for all manners of things: writing notes, histories, journals, or planning my next moves.
When I return from an expedition, from the mines or the ocean, I enter a tall tower. The torchlight warms the room at the very top, where bookshelves cover the walls. A lectern with a leatherbound journal sits at the center. I poured over the books that short night, writing and perhaps embellishing the adventures I had.
2. Writing
In Skyrim, a popular mod (Take Notes) lets you do the same. Although Civilization does not have that feature, similar games like Stellaris let you make your own faction with its own backstory, founding your culture and its goals in a sense. (Though a way to claim lands, journal, etc., would also support at least the kind of gameplay I enjoy.)
In fact, Baldur’s Gate 2 also has a similar feature: you can write journal entries alongside those added for story or quest reasons. Writing notes and scribbling on maps are also undervalued features.
Of course, I understand why this feature is not everywhere since it’s probably not too expensive to implement. Most people would not make use of it much, and it’s no surprise that I — a blogger who enjoys writing — loves such a feature. But I do think, for those who enjoy it, that it adds in a significant way to grounding their roleplay into the world the developers created. Features such as notes, having them integrated in-game rather than on separate files or notebooks, can also be useful in lots of games. You’re playing Call of Duty when work or school calls, but you just came up with a potentially fun loadout. Will you remember? Platforms like Steam might also create a good user experience by including at least such a feature into their overlays.
Ultimately, we all want to feel ourselves in the world that we play in, and I wish developers would give us this small gift. To be able to pen your stories in magical tomes as a wizard or jot down notes as a detective.
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tell me how you feel in the comments below
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Andrej Markov 