Games as theatre.

Games have always, for me, been a great way to tell a story. What's interesting, is how gaming naturally gravitates to archetypes that can be traced all the way back to ancient forms of theatre like commedia dell'arte. Characters that we expect to see in every form of entertainment can trace their origins back to the archetypes echoed in commedia. And rightly so. Readers of Joseph Campbell will often find themselves seeing the same stories played out over and over across the history of humankind.

What's wonderful about the commedia is that it was improvised. Characters had lazzi that they would perform, but depending on the city or town they were performing in, the various characters would take on protagonist or antagonist nuances. If a town was sympathetic to the plight of il dottore de bologna, then he would be the bumbling kind-hearted professor, who stumbles in at the right moment to save the heroine, or if the troupe was performing elsewhere, the good doctor would become the accomplice of the nefarious Pantalone.

This is where gaming offers some wonderful opportunities to explore this notion of character perspective. Depending on who and how you choose to play, you can immerse yourself in the empathetic perspective of the characters who might otherwise be seen as villains. Sports is very much like this. Edmonton hockey fans have seen their dream team go from top of the heap to the role of underdog. This perspective is very different for native Calgarians who have always seen the Oilers as the evil empire that must be toppled. Who is "right." That all depends. Where are you from?

As an actor, I have had to play characters whose perspective I did not share. It was my job to figure, understand, and empathize with that character. This is a very intense and world-altering thing. What did I get from those experiences? I realized that everything is not as it seems. Good guys are sometimes not all good, and bad guys are sometimes not all bad. I learned that people do horrible things because they think they are doing the right thing. For me, in life, I have learned to let the story play out a little before I begin to form alliances and take sides. It isn't easy, but patience is great for revealing things are otherwise hidden.

Games play an important role, for me, in offering everyone an opportunity to discover the same things I did as an actor. What I would like to see is the game storytellers begin to bring this richness to their work. The Sith are not necessarily evil. It's a matter of perspective. The Jedi are not necessarily good. What if a game featured a Jedi suicide bomber... what if...