It's Payback Time!

   The eighth in a continuing series of articles related
                to the psychology of gaming

As always, several people commented on last issue's Psychology of
Gaming article. I was glad to see that I'm not the only one who
gets so personally involved with her pixilated people!

Bev sent in an interesting letter in response, part of which is
reprinted in the Letters section. But the end of it really caught
my eye:

     "[...On the theme of] level of involvement with games, I know
     Lyn [Bev's friend] always gets very vindictive after getting
     the upper hand in Settlers, and always relentlessly destroys
     every enemy building in sight, until she's occupied every
     square inch of the game world. But I'd always feel a bit
     sorry for the poor old enemies, and in Settlers 1 I always
     left the opponents' castles standing in a little ring of
     boundary markers, and put a forester nearby to fill up the
     ring of markers with a thick screen of trees - looked more
     attractive, somehow..."

It got me thinking - am I magnanimous when I finally get the upper
hand over my opponents in a game, and just do as much as I need to
win, or do I delight in wiping them off the face of the Earth (or
whatever planet we happen to be on)?

Okay, I'll admit it. Not only do I take gaming very seriously and
any attacks on my party as a personal affront, I find it very
frustrating when I can't complete a dungeon because the monsters
are too strong and keep killing me. I remember one time in
particular, playing one of the Might and Magic games. There was a
dungeon full of cyclops where my party got killed time and time
again. I'd go in, get attacked, kill one monster, and while I was
dealing with him, several more would pile in, wiping out my party.
I'd go off to another area, go up a few levels, and head back into
the dungeon to have another go. This happened a few times before I
was finally at a high enough level to kill off the baddies who had
killed me so many times before. I can clearly remember what
happened next ... I was indulging in various forms of
self-congratulations, walked round a corner, and met a gang of
higher level cyclops coming the other way!

Dead again! I restored, and once again went through the procedure
of pumping up my characters so that they were finally able to
re-enter the dungeon and win the second battle. I must confess
that I took great delight in slaughtering every one of those
cyclops and there was no way that I would have stopped while one
was still standing.

On the other hand, there is also a big part of me that likes
things to be completed with no metaphorical ends left untied,
whatever the job. I don't like to feel that I haven't done things
properly. If I'm clearing a dungeon, I really clear it, so that
afterwards, I can walk through the area unmolested and rest
without being rudely awoken.  This is one reason I hate RPGs where
monsters regenerate. It's untidy and unfair! The areas I've
cleared are like trophies. I look at my maps and think, "Right,
I've finished that bit, now what?" It's a bit like having a check
list and mentally ticking off each area as it is completed.

So, is my urge to completely wipe out the monsters a permissible
part of my 'tidying up' routine or is it sheer vindictiveness? For
me, it seems that it can be one or the other at different times
and in different games. Sometimes I'm happy to just do the minimum
but that's usually in a strategy game rather than an RPG. This was
the case with some of the Settlers levels. After restarting a
level several times and finally reaching the gateway after a long
struggle, I was usually so grateful to see it that I'd just belt
through to the next scenario without thinking of having any sort
of revenge on the other guys who'd held me up for so long.

But in an RPG, I don't like to leave any of the opposition
standing. I felt I hadn't totally finished one Might and Magic
game because a few of the robots in the final levels were behind
partitions which I couldn't break. It rankled that I had to leave
them there.

Am I just trying to excuse the way I annihilate the opposition by
talking about my urge to complete a game or am I really
vindictive?  I certainly never consider any form of revenge in
real life on anyone who I feel has wronged me in any way. But in
gaming, that's different!

As always, I asked psychotherapist Adrian Blake for his views. Is
it more healthy to leave the remaining opposition standing? Or,
when we don't, can we look on it that we are actually exercising
(and maybe also exorcising) parts of our natural combative
behaviour that would get us arrested and jailed in the real world?
He said:

     "What we are talking about here is the conflict between our
     sense of morality and the darker side of our personality.

     In psychology this is known as the shadow, the part of us
     that we disown because it conflicts with our self-image. We
     shove into the dark cavern of the unconscious those feelings
     that make us uneasy - hatred, rage, jealousy, greed, lust,
     shame. We all have these feelings, but don't want to admit it
     (even to ourselves)

     The shadow is the part of us that is everything our moral
     part is not, the Mr Hyde to our Dr Jekyll. We have an inkling
     of this foreign personality when, for example, overcome with
     rage we excuse ourselves by saying 'I was not myself', or 'I
     really don't know what came over me'.

     What 'came over' was the shadow part of our personality that
     is disowned because it does not fit how our conscience feels
     we 'should' be.

     We all have a Mr or Mrs Hyde inside us. It's how we deal with
     this part that is the crucial factor.

     In a very positive sense Jung (who had much to say about the
     shadow) believed it could be a great positive force but in
     order for that transformation to happen it was essential it
     was essential it was acknowledged, rather than denied, that
     bringing it into the light made it possible for it to evolve
     into a power for good.

     Wiping out computer monsters and accepting it is sheer
     vindictiveness is a good start. It's harmless and we're not
     then pretending we're acting from some nobler motive.

     The obstacle to this process of course is our conscience
     which, not wanting to accept the 'unacceptable' in us, may
     well reject it by responding 'What, me?' Never! Other people,
     yes, but me..? I only wiped out those computer monsters for
     their own good'."







                              - o -