"Reading" RPGs Without Taking Offense

by Carter Neal 

There are a couple of editorials on RPGamer that emphasize the role of ambiguity in RPGs. Most recently, Jeff Adashek argued that any RPG or fantasy novel that wished to make some kind of political or social statement must "couch" its message in "symbolism, allegory, and ambiguity." I could not disagree with this position more.

I think that to hold this belief is to demean RPGs, sci-fi novels, and fantasy in general. It is to think that overt political agendas do not have a place in a medium geared towards escapism. It is to relegate RPGs to a low brow position in the hierarchy of art, to consider them somehow not as socially or artistically important as works of serious art, of highbrow culture.

The theater, from Shakespeare to Sondheim, has continually been a forum for overt political arguments. This does not make the art any less worthy of aesthetic approval, or approbation. Anton Checkov's plays may not resonate with us as clearly as they did to his contemporaries, but we can still understand and appreciate them, whether they are ambiguous or overt. We should do no less for RPGs and fantasy / sci-fi novels.

The works of Tolkein, Asimov, and Square are full of meanings, some readily seen, others buried beneath an intriguing exterior. Final Fantasy Tactics has a definite message about the dangers of a corrupt church, and it even considers whether a church is necessary at all. It raises questions, clearly giving its own opinion on the matter, but it should not offend because it never gets personal. It never directs its criticism at you, rather it launches a critique of certain beliefs that you may have, at certain institutions to which you may belong, and towards certain foundations of a culture to which you may belong. FFT does get a bit heavy-handed, but no more so than Chaucer did in his Canterbury tales; we should treat the both equally.

How do we do this? How do we engage RPGs on the terms of novels and other works of literature? To me, this means that we consider how an RPG has changed us. What is different about me after reading Whitman? After playing Zelda, or FF7? If I had a good time then that is something, and the aesthetic experience can be thought about and discussed. But if something else happens, then maybe more thought is needed. If I am offended, why is that? What about the game offended me?

I think most people are offended by FFT because their view of the church is different from Square's view. Square seems to be saying that the past abuses of the Catholic Church continue today, only in more subtle ways. In the way that the church members were deceived by their very own religion, Square appears to be asking us to consider that members of the church are today being deceived by the hierarchy and beliefs of the church into doing things that Square sees are wrong. Most Catholics, I imagine, do not see the church as a vehicle of deception, or as something that commits wrong acts. Here Square and Catholics part ways, and it is possible to stop our inquiry here, and chalk it up to a difference of opinion. But it is more interesting to me if we continue and ask why Square sees the church in this way.

Most of Square's disapproval of the church can be understood, I think, in terms of Western imperialism. While Japan was never formally a colony of any Western power, the Japanese economic system and constitution were devised in Harvard after the second World War. Western influences, from capitalism and democracy to Christianity, have had dramatic effects upon Japan's culture. All you had to do was watch the Olympics in Nagano to see this. If we place Square in the context of Japan in 1998, and we argue that their focus in FFT is a harsh critique of Westernism in general, and not Catholiscism in particular, then their use of the Catholic Church becomes an allegory for everything Western (and after all, what is more Western than Catholicism?).

Our offense at FFT can now be understood as coming out of different perspectives upon the Catholic Church and Western culture. I want to say two things in closing. First, overt political statements can and must be made in RPGs if they are to ever transcend their present position. And two, very rarely when dealing with good art are things as obvious as they first appear. Oftentimes, careful consideration of everything connected with a work of art, from the position of the artists to the intended audience to anything and everything else, will provide many new and remarkeable insights into its meaning.