Patreon Only Early Access - Who's Commanding Shepard in Mass Effect?
Added 2020-06-13 10:19:03 +0000 UTCHello!
So, heads up: this is a long one. At over 50 minutes, this is the longest GMTK video I've ever made. Don't worry: that's not going to be a habit - I've just had, ahem, some time on my hands lately.
But hey, I wanted to discuss a huge topic: how the shared ownership of Commander Shepard impacts Mass Effect as an RPG. So hopefully the bumper run time makes sense and you enjoy it.
Any and all feedback is massively welcome. The video will go out next week and will need changing anyway (it needs an ending and the Patreon credits) so happy to oblige any tweaks, errors, or feedback you may have.
Cheers
Mark
Comments
I think the thinking behind it is that Paragon and Renegade measure your reputation. Either as a widely admired figure or as a dangerous person who shouldn’t be messed with. Which is why consistency in your actions makes the reputation more powerful.
Tom T
2020-06-15 15:20:57 +0000 UTCThis is an interesting (and admirably comprehensive) look at Shepard, but it's also really not how I've ultimately understood the Paragade system. Ultimately: I don't think that Paragade ultimately *is* about Shepard. As you point out, the games strongly encourage you to double down, and in the vast majority of cases, one is as good as the other. In that respect, it's a way of judging the genre of the story you're watching, not the morality of the character at the center of it. It *is* a Bioware RPG, so NPCs *will* engage in weird and deeply uncomfortable hero worship, so we're picking *their* morality as much as we're attempting to muddle through Shepard's. A lot of this points towards the nebulousness of what Paragon/Renegade actually mean and how that gets muddled from writer to writer and player to player, just as with D&D alignment before it, but I think it's a relevant framework even if we start from the standpoint that Paragade "works" to the point of meriting analysis.
Marty Crenlon
2020-06-14 21:22:57 +0000 UTCNot offended! Thanks for the feedback. My videos are always a starting point for a larger conversation like this, so as long as it's inspiring deeper thought about game design then I'm counting it as a win
Game Maker's Toolkit
2020-06-14 19:50:12 +0000 UTCHey so this is a bit of criticism, and not of the short kind that can be changed; just wanted to say that up front. I think this video is good, and it explores an interesting question, but I don't think it goes far enough. I think you get close to game theory, but shy away at the last moment, in two sections. First, in the middle bit, you mention how the companions in ME often (depending on the game) agree outright with the player -- by being captain, the captain is given infinite deferment. Your tone and the pacing of the episode imply to me that you find this odd, and quizzical. When I listen to this, I think that it sounds fascist -- the heroic player is always right, others, who are always under their command must obey (the game *forces* them to obey, but also implicitly makes this seem right that they obey). Why is Shephard a "hero"? Well, because they're the main character, and they are marked as a hero by their unique ability to deal death out easily to all over character. In fact, in the missions for each character in ME2, as you said, the Commander, not the side character, decides the moral quandary. Shephard, in many ways, becomes the arbiter of death, themselves, by virtual of a save system, unable to die truly. This cult of hero worship, heroes marked as greater than death, but also lovers who death by giving it out easily to their enemies (and who will in the end themselves die), is the defining characteristic of Mussolini's fascism. It sounds odd, and it is odd, because it really doesn't make sense (lol, newsflash -- fascism doesn't make a lot of sense), but this was a historical reality. I think in *many* ways, the Commander plays into this trope, and leads players into playing into fascism as well. Even the writing of ME epitomizes this fascism -- we are above the law, we answer to only the Council, who we can choose to kill if we wish, but this is *okay*, because it's *us*. The game never seriously questions itself, because it can't -- if the Player must be empowered, then the Commander must be empowered, and if the stakes are life and death, then the Command must be empowered above and beyond death. These are the building blocks of fascism, and if I really wanted to make a bold claim, I'd say that it is not unusual then that gamers display so many fascist tendencies in online rhetoric -- it is easy to buy into the fascism of "player empowerment". To return to your video and off of my soapbox, I think you might think some similar thoughts to this -- I think you were gearing towards that in your final discussion on that point. Maybe not about Umberto Eco's definition of fascism, but I think about why this empowerment has my negative side effects on the art of the game. I wish that you'd explored that more. To me, that discussion *must* happen to really articulate what "role playing" in games means -- especially when we role play as important people (which we so often do, especially in BioWare titles -- imagine a Shephard as a shopkeeper! Would be fun!). I also wish you'd gone into a bit more detail into what it means to be a "player character". I think your discussion is fundamentally about that question -- are we Commanding Shephard, or are we Shephard? You broached this when discussing ME1's companion paragon system -- if I control shephard's input in Dialogue, and those inputs change my companion characters, then am I not also controlling my companion characters? In a sense, through a terrible and subtle interface, yes. In which case, are my companions "player characters"? And in a large sense, what is "control"? We often say in games that if the controller does not direct the actions of a character (especially in regard to verbs like "move", "shoot", or "jump"), then we do not "control" them. But do I not control Skyrim in Skyrim? The country's fate is at my command, and each character life comes and go at my input. The interface is far more subtle of course -- to control Horse Thief (the main character) I just move a stick and they move. To control "Skyrim" I capture bases and make alliances and several choices and assassinate emperors or Renegades. But I am still *controlling* Skyrim. So in this sense, I think the country of Skyrim, too, must be on your linear chart of "RPG" to "Set Character". Once again, I think you're aware of this sort of issue, and even made half steps to broach it. I suspect this is why you brought up the letter in Gone Home -- it shows a hard limit, an argument by the medium against the player, telling them that you cannot do whatever you choose. In a world where I can change continents and lives at will, being prevented from reading a letter is deeply dis-empowering, and I mean that as a compliment. In total, I liked the video's production, but at 50 minutes, I think it needed to get into this deeper realm. Otherwise, it just didn't cover enough ground for me. I apologize for the criticism Mark -- I really like your stuff and hope you aren't offended! This one just didn't hit it for me
Jonathan Spira
2020-06-14 18:57:01 +0000 UTC
