Abstract

This (draft) paper considers the ideological and aesthetic implications of the terms “imagination”, “heroic fantasy” and “adventure” in descriptions of Computer Role-Playing Games (CRPGs). Its main focus is single-player CRPGs such as Baldur's Gate and Oblivion, compared with table-top RPGs, but it also addresses Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) and Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplayer Games (MMORPGs). It argues that the term “imagination” provides artificial coherence to RPGs as they have been adapted to the computer, and legitimates the genre’s cultural value as part of a tradition of folk literature and heroic fantasy. However, in practice, the structure and logic of RPGs, notably the “heroic” role of the “adventurer”, may be better understood by comparison with the Spanish “picaresque” genre, which is characterised by episodic narratives of rogues who disguise their identities and ruthlessly exploit others for the sake of status and material gain. The paper concludes that part of the appeal of (C)RPGs owes to their ideological tension between romanticised feudalism and an amoral individualism characteristic of laissez faire capitalism.

Discourses of Adventure: From Heroism to Profession

Walter E. Meyers, in Fantasy Games and Folk Literature (1983), describes the rise of RPGs as the rebirth of “heroic fantasy” and “epic form” in contemporary culture (p. 2481). Mizuko Ito argues that MUDs “concretize heroic fantasy stories” (1997, p. 89). Friedman observes that “as we experiment with ways to better communicate on the Internet, many of the tropes of adventure gaming are being borrowed by new virtual spaces” (p. 87). Mark Stefik, however, perhaps takes this description to its extreme, concluding that “digital worlds have deep symbolic connections with mythology” (260), and that the exploration of digital worlds “awakens our inner adventurer, reminding us to explore new experiences and seek the spice of life that fires the imagination” (p. xxiii). This rhetoric functions metaphorically as an index of Stefik's utopianism more than a description of processes of digital exploration. Certainly, CRPGs, MUDs and other virtual spaces may be described as “digital worlds,” characterised by identification with an “adventurer,” or “hero,” and are, like RPGs, often referred to as “heroic fantasy.” However, “adventure,” “fantasy” and “hero” are extremely problematic terms when describing or understanding the structure of CRPGs. In this chapter, I discuss the problems with notions of “heroism” as they apply to CRPGs and computer games in general in terms of metaphors of “adventure.”

Adventure as Heroic Fantasy

I have no intention of engaging in the debate about what exactly constitutes fantasy as a “genre.” It suffices to observe that the protagonist is generally a hero engaged in adventures or quests in a feudal, European-styled world. The mode of narration is typically omniscient third person, and its movement describes panoramas of a fictional world and a gallery of human, demi-human and nonhuman types. Fantasy fiction may contain comic or satirical moments, but it usually maintains the serious, moralising tone of the epic, romance and the pastoral.

Contemporary fantasy in this vein is “rooted in ancient myth, mysticism, folklore, fairy tale and romance” (Jackson, p. 4), and that the most of the recurring motifs in fantasy—magic, mythical and archetypal people, and dualistic cosmologies and/or conflict—derive from these older forms. In secular culture, of course, magico-religious symbols have become disenchanted, or impoverished, and separated from their original meanings. Hume argues that

our adventure literature offers a completely secularized, ego-centred equivalent to stories that once had transcendant elements. Without the mythic signification for the exaggerations and monsters, the form seems cheaper. Its lack of concern for ultimate questions – questions irrelevant to a totally materialistic world – similarly lowers the spiritial level. . . . One might call them crippled myths, forced to operate in a material universe which has no heaven and no gods (Hume, 1984, p. 66).

During the Enlightenment, disenchantment with mythical modes of meaning was compensated for by the belief in Reason and the consequent significance of the liberal individual. Today, however,

we now live with a society and sciences in which the individual is a negligible statistic. . . . The immensity of the macrocosm and the complexity of the subatomic microscosm alike make man [sic] aware of his own pitiful finitude. Yet we crave a sense of meaningful relationship with the universe, as our history of myth-making testifies, but the relationships that science can properly trace—physical, biological, and chemical—do not give people that sense of their own importance that they crave. (p. 42)

It is significant, then, that Sheila Finch-Reyner (1985) argues that fantasy writing today owes much of its structure to the “monomyth” of the “archetypal hero”

of mysterious or extraordinary birth who encounters challenging adventures in a recurring motif of circumstances, a catalog of elements that proves uncannily similar to Spinrad's commercial formula [referred to in the next section]. [Joseph] Campbell speaks of the hero's quest across a menacing landscape for some boon or knowledge to take back to his people; aided by both superior and inferior supernatural powers, he battles the forces of darkness and may win only through is physical prowess and courage; he is tested to the point of the supreme ordeal, after which he is able to restore his own country to health and freedom. (p. 131)

Campbell divided the hero monomyth into three stages—departure, initiation and return—and various sub-stages, acknowledging that different hero myths excluded or emphasised different stages but that there always follow the same sequence. Closure of the monomyth did not involve simply fulfillment of a quest, but the fulfillment of a “quest cycle”: the totality of a mythic pattern. It is in this sense that the hero myth relates to the term “epic.” Epic, in its strictest sense, refers to long narratives “on a great and serious subject, told in an elevated style, and centred on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions depends the fate of a tribe, a nation, or the human race” (Abrams, 1988, p. 51). However, in the early European romance and pastoral novels, the disassociation of mythical structures from their original meanings, and their consequent reduction to mere narrative structures, meant that mythic parallelism between the hero and his quest gave way to serendipitous adventures. The “epic” structure may function merely as a means of legitimating or creating a sense of artificial coherence on a random series of “adventures.”

Furthermore, what has become important to theorists of fantasy today is not simply the specific psychic or mythic patterns in fantasies, but “a basic myth: [that] man is important, no matter what the scale of the universe” (Hume, 1984, p. 46). Given that Hume defines literature as a “meaning-giving experience,” fantasy's “meaning” is an assertion of the ongoing meaningfulness of the individual and individual action. Fantasy, then, appropriates mythic forms, especially the structure of the hero myth, to dignify the importance of the individual, usually by creating an “epic tone,” and is characterised by “ego inflation, excitement, the illusion of strenuous activity, violence and intense emotions” (Hume, p. 64). The relationship between the “epic” and “English literature” may be undermined from this point of view. English literature appropriated whatever resources it had available to dignify the importance of England as a nation, the universality of its values, and the justification of colonisation, war, patriarchal authority which, if one is glib, amount to so many kinds of ego inflation, excitement, the illusion of strenous activity, violence and intense emotion.

Unheroic Characters

To talk of “heroic narratives” implies “un-heroic narratives", although it suffices at this point to distinguish between “heroic” and “unheroic” characters within “heroic narratives.” Heroic narratives are usually characterised by a process whereby the “hero” is separated from other humans and recognised as exceptional in some way. To prevent less-exceptional humans from being seen as anti-heroic, the hero must retain some human flaws or limitations shared with those on whose behalf he acts. Consequently, in classic or traditional mythic of folk literature, we find qualified heroes that are diminutive, with physical infirmities, who are stupid or foolish, of inferior social position, or whose redeeming values—cleverness, trickery, innocence or honesty, for example—were not valued by those in the historical context in which the tale was written (Butler, 1979, p. 15). Qualified heroes, if course, may attempt to dignify humanity if they facilitate identification with the hero and minimise the distinction between the extra-human (hero as ideal) with everyday mortals (the Everyperson as not-ideal).

Yet, as Juan Prieto-Pablos (1991) argues, one of the most significant transformations in contemporary fantasy and science fiction has come from the recognition that human nature may itself be destructure, whereby a hero may become as dangerous as his/her/its protagonists:

The powers he [sic] can tap . . . have placed him into a source of fears that had traditionally been provoked by the villain: if man's innate tendency is destructive, what could an extraordinarily powerful hero do but to destroy with a force n-times greater? Could he not destroy even the world he has pledged to protect? These are the underlying questions in a significant part of contemporary fantasy and science fiction. (p. 66)

Zanger and Wolf agree (1986) with Prieto-Pablos that World War II was a significant reason for shifting representations of heroism, but they make their argument in terms of a tendency for contemporary heroes to be magicians who master “the technology of magic” (34). They argue, that the magician has become identified with “the scientist and the technologist,” and that figures such as Albert Einstein, Oppenheimer and Wernher Von Braun offer examples of the moral crisis or compromise involved in developing powerful technologies. Of course, while commercial fantasy and science fiction may be organised around a recognition of the destructive side of human nature, their closure usually recuperates the heroic myth. Heroes that are inherently destructive are often “tragic” in that they “pay for their deeds—even if they have eventually saved the Edenic world—by suffering isolation from it, death or exile” (p. 66). The hero may not be integrated into society in life, but he “saves” the world, he brings harmony back to society, and so is integrated into society as a myth, as a human who has accomplished the most heroic deed of all: self-sacrifice.

We can see variations of this across a range of CRPGs. In Diablo , the adventurer forces the “soulstone”—inside of which resides the demon Diablo —into his/her forehead. The closing narration tells the player that “although you have been fortified by your quest, you can still feel him, clawing his way up from the dark recesses of your soul”; the hero then decides to travel “to the mystic East” where you may “find peace, or perhaps, salvation.” The opening cut-scene for Diablo II shows the adventurer travelling east, stopping at a tavern, only for Diablo's power—represented by his lesser minions—to temporarily escape.

In Baldur's Gate , the main character comes to recognise that he, like his antagonist, Sarevok, is a son of the Lord of Murder. When we encounter Sarevok's mentor, Winski Perorate, he says

You must know his plan by now. You have practically followed his every move. Likely you are driven by the same desires as well, though you have chanelled them in a different fashion . . .

To say human nature may be destructive is one thing; to acknowledge that the values of heroism themselves are questionable is another.

In several dialogues the characters are given the option either to dismiss or goad or challenge the interlocutor, or to offer the same kind of “balanced” justification and invocation of “destiny” or “right”. More importantly, what emerges is the possibility of choosing a more “moral” or “comforting” answer for the sake of self-interest. This informed my own answers. I don't want a fight because I'm only a low-level character and the bar is full of potential opponents, some of whom might have information. I may simply want to get the narration over and done with so I can get to fighting, and some answers voice this lack of recognition of a moral recognition of the other. We become conscious of performing morality, an absurd idea of heroism, for the sake of getting experience points, and this heroism is trivialised as discursive the moment it is enacted.

The game also allows characters to act out violent roles, though this is incorporated within a sense of “balance” (a concept I will refer to frequently). However, what emerges is that players are penalised for acts of immorality, even when, within the gaming system, they may desire such immorality—may believe that the system allows/perpetuates it. For example, reputation affects the price of items we buy in the stores (see Tables 9a-9e in the Game Manual). When we steal and are caught, we are attacked by guards. The presence of “good” or “lawful” characters who join the party—such as the magic-user (enchanter) Wyk?—and the necessity for a large party to survive—means that we try to minimise imbalance within the party, even if we do have the power to dismiss those in the party who question our actions; and we almost endure the “conscience” of the absent Garion (who, appearing in a dream, takes an omnipotent status): “Gorion would never tolerate this.”

The “adventurer” of the hero myth is most recogniseable in the CRPG character class of “fighter,” “warrior,” “knight” and “paladin.” However, as is evident even in the above examples, there is a growing tendency in RPGs for characters to avoid heroic roles and to play thieves or assassins who prey not only upon NPCs but their fellow characters. In MUDs and online CRPGs, players who kill other players are called PK's: “player killers.” While more recent game engines incorporate statistics for “honour” and “reputation,” and try to recuperate role-playing elements that have a more social function, the underlying impetus of character development, especially in single-player games, involves episodic encounters with folk of varying races and beliefs whose gold is taken. Most RPGs emphasise the act of murder as a means of obtaining gold. It is fine to call them ‘monsters,' as if they were ‘animals,' but many monsters in D&D can talk, form communities, and have a distinct culture, whereby they function ideologically as representations of other cultures in the real world. RPG's now incorporate acts of theft as a way of gaining wealth (the game Thief is just such an example). In RPG's there is a dual tension between the desire to gain wealth and prestige by any means—and the rendering of the whole world as objects rather than subjects augments this desire for control—and a desire to see this aspiration and practice as heroic.

The ambiguity around the adventurer as being social or asocial is repeatedly acknowledged in the narration of Baldur's Gate at the same time it is enacted at the level of gameplay. In the first chapter, the characters enter a tavern and are confronted by an angry man who says there isn't room for “trouble-makin' strangers!”:

I'm sick of your freakish adventurers going out, consorting with gods know what, and dragging your trouble back into my home town! . . . .You mess up the local economy with your treasure, you upset the balance of nature, you flash your magic around, and because of it maybe somebody's son thinks its fun and goes out and gets himself killed! It's a bad example and somebody ought to kick your ass for it!”

The characters becomes suspicious at the motives for Marl's anger, and, upon inquiry, we discover that his motiviation is less political than personal: his now-dead son, who “was a good boy till your kind came through town! Filled his head with nonsense!” With each cycle of the conversation, the game uses a multiple choice form of dialogic interaction that allows four responses to Marl's accusations; taken together, these responses align themselves with four attitudes towards “adventure.” The player may, first, respond with an unthinking challenge: “If you think you have what it takes, bring it on,” or, second, with ridicule and the accusation that Marl himself is responsible for his son's fate: “Don't get mad at me if ‘somebody's son' couldn't handle being out from under Mom's skirt! Should've taught him to fight instead of dirt farming!” These two kinds of responses lead to battle. The third attitude is at turns sarcastic or conciliatory, but tends towards withdrawal; for example: “I'm sorry for you and your kin. Look, before this gets out of hand maybe I should leave.”

The fourth and most significant response allows the player to stay and justify his role:

—We solve a lot more trouble than we cause.
—Hold on! Everyone goes on their own path, and I'll not be held accountable for what the Fates deal.
—If you knew him [you son] like you think, then ask yourself if he wouldn't have gone anyway. It's a calling you're born with. Nobody gives it to you.
—The Realm's call, and you go. He sounds like a fine lad taken too soon, but doing what he was meant. If you'll suffer my company, I'll buy a round and toast his memory with you.”

If the player pursues this line of response, Marl objects that his son “was going to take over the farm and settle down. Maybe apprentice with Thunderhammer during the winter. He never wanted to adventure.” But then one of Marl's friends intervenes, reminding Marl that his son had always been a “firebrand,” and “wanted to make a difference, make the Realms a bit safer. Just like these folk most likely.” Marl ends up repeating: “He wanted . . . he wanted . . .” at last lamenting: “why couldn't he just stay home?!” If the player follows this form of response, and drink with Marl, he departs, and a message appears, saying that “The party has gained experience: 900.” So, despite its recognition of the problematic role of the adventurer, the game rewards players who speak to defend, justify and naturalise “adventuring.” It appeals to the hero myth, the mysterious and unquestionable inevitability of destiny, the necessities of acting heroically in a state of war, the desire for peace, the recklessness of youth, and in doing so it dismisses the criticisms Marl makes of adventurers as the grief of a father who cannot tell his own desires (to stay at home or settle down) from those of his son (who wanted to make a difference). In short, it subsumes objections against the influence of adventurers to the inevitable suffering every parent faces when they relinquish responsibility for their child, who, reaching maturity, leaves their parents and becomes responsible for their own actions.

The game also naturalises the adventurer through its representation of monsters, hermits, and crazy folk in the wilderness. In Baldur's Gate , other wanderers are either monsters, NPCs, strangers with information or quests for the player, hermits, maladjusted, or crazy, or combination of these. Marl's son, Kennar, is killed trying to be an adventurer. Portal Binderwithe is a crazy old hermit. Nerwhal follows the characters around and, in trying to talk to them, interrupts gameplay, quickly becomes annoying, then frustrating, and forces characters to run away till he is left behind. The question stands: exactly what sort of person wanders around the countryside for their whole life, killing things? How different is an adventurer from such asocial types as the monsters he executes? How valid are his claims to morality?

In the first chapter of Baldur's Gate , characters are accused by a Knight of the Flaming Fist of “banditry and highway robbery.” Characters can talk their way out of being arrested or fighting the Knight, but the encounter highlights the problem of defending the activity of the adventurer. This bloodthirsty attitude is parodied in a later chapter where characters actually pretend to be bandits to find out who is behind the acts of banditry in the area and the sabotage of the iron mines. When asked why they want to join, characters have the option of saying: “It's a bloodthirsty job you have, and we like the killin'. Let us join and the roads will run red ‘neath our feet!”

Adventure as Profession

In identifying the role of the “adventurer” in (C)RPGs, it is useful to consider again the stages of the heroes quest. Preparation in computer games does not end with initial character generation. While heroes usually learn about themselves and gain helpers or aids—so that, at some level, their whole quest is preparation—in (C)RPGs the quest or adventure is largely defined by the the gaining of experience points, the acquisition of objects for one's inventory, and the consequent accumulation and development of character skills. Preparation and completion of quests are thus part of the same process which defines character generation, and gameplay can be understood as a continual process of character generation. While in many (C)RPGs, the character we “roll-up” may have a specific destiny, that is, an over-all quest, when we consider the RPGs from which CRPGs developed, and the “non-linear” aspects of CRPGs (such as Baldur's Gate ), character preparation is less preparation for a particular quest, than apprenticeship for a profession . While the “adventurer” may not live in a bureaucratic or bourgois lifestyle, he does not necessarily escape the logic of such an existence.

The exposition of many games sees the departure of the protagonist as the attempt of a young person to find his place—his profession—in the world, characterised by an apprenticeship, encounters with characters of higher levels, and by rising through various Guilds. While the mythical hero is re-integrated into society, and in some sense renews society, what characterises the (C)RPG hero is how he is essentialised as a professional whose natural state is asocial, or at least nomadic. The safety or renewal of society or the world as a justification for his activity is almost entirely rhetorical. Adventurer's may keep returning to towns or cities, but they never stay there. The adventurer does not engage in one particular quest to renew society, he goes on quest after quest, visiting the same kind of town's and cities that constituted his “home.”

Representations of townsfolk are a useful comparison in definining the role of the adventurer. In Daggerfall and Might and Magic , for example, townsfolk sometimes appear to be engaged in conversation with one another, but generally they just mill around, bumping into things, turning around and waiting for characters to talk to them; actual service folk, such as blacksmiths, bankers, priests and herbalists, always remain in their houses: when they close for the night, their doors are simply locked. The town folk in Diablo never move from their doorways: not only are their huts or houses their workplaces, they remain forever trapped on the threshhold of public and private. We can see light and floors through some of the windows, but the game does not let us enter. Consequently, it can be said that the character, the adventurer is trapped outside of the domestic, the familial, the social. Furthermore, in Diablo , we may talk to Ogden the Tavern Owner, but we may never go inside to rest at the bar, and we never sleep. We simply enter the “dungeon,” “encounter” monsters, return to town to buy more items or get healed by the priest, then go back into the dungeon. While some (C)RPGs allow for domestic activity, Diablo 's exclusion of it indicates its irrelevance to the ideological role of the “adventurer.” Although the adventurer remains outside of society, he remains part of society's economy.

Although RPGs usually offer both sexes, there is obviously a subtext in regards to traditional gendered roles. In one game of EverQuest I recall a female who said that she could not join a group because she was doing housework, and the sign “AFK” was often above her character. That she was playing a female half-elf ranger was evocative. The female representation immediately connoted the traditional gendered division of labour (men engage in heroic activities or adventure games, while women are confined to the domestic sphere and cannot engage properly in escapist leisure because their duty is to the family, not themselves). The image of the female as half-elf were provatively lithe and sexual representations of femininity, did not itself connote labour: it invited a distinction between the actual and idealised woman, between the woman who is engaged in the drudgery of the quotidian, and the woman is so idealised, so angelic and insubstantially immaterial—the quasi-magical character of elves—that she could not be seen engaging in any kind of activity. Through this we have a distinction between the labour of the “real” world and the idealised “virtual” labour in the game, yet because women and elves in the game do engage in the same kind of activities as the other classes—and because the player was as likely male as female—there was a lack of resolution between these oppositions. The figure of the ranger was of additional significance, given that this class does have a home in Surefell Glades, they are not characterised by the domestic but by skills of tracking, foraging, fishing and begging

Irrespective of gender, the adventurer also betrays a desire for upward mobility, though the desire for increased social status is displaced onto and achieved through the development of the character's ability to survive progressively difficult “encounters.” In (C)RPGs, characters gain “experience points” with each adventure, which they use to increase their attributes, skills or spells, and this development is understood in terms of “levels.” In AD&D , each “level” has a title. Compare the titles of the fighter, paladin and the thief:

Level Fighter Paladin Thief

1 Veteran Gallant Apprentice
2 Warrior Keeper Footpad
3 Swordsman Protector Robber
4 Hero Defender Burglar
5 Swashbuckler Warder Cutpurse
6 Myrmidon Guardian Sharper
7 Champion Chevalier Pilferer
8 Superhero Justiciar Thief
9 Lord Paladin Master Thief

Furthermore, characters who play long enough may become High Priests, Great Druids, Ranger Lords, Wizards, Illusionists, Guildmasters, Grandfather Assassins or Grandmasters of Flowers. Some CRPGs drop the titles for levels, but nonetheless, adventuring involves characters progressively realising the professional status of their role as/class of adventurer and/or gaining political or aristocratic status and power within society—or, in the case of the Thieves Guild, or other Guilds, their sub-society.

The “adventure,” then, is the ultimate stand-in for an actual occupation: it takes the individual away from home, beyond the private/public spheres, beyond any specific profession, into the largest workforce—the entire world—and the most generalised and profitable mode of production—appropriation of other's wealth, understood metaphorically as the finding of new markets, though it often involves straightforward murder and thievery. The emphasis on this process is more evident in CRPGs than RPGs, because while, in games like Daggerfall or Might and Magic , we may come to own a house or castle, we have no choice within the gaming system but to keep “adventuring.” The game's narrative demands that we fulfill a specific ideological role, or process, that is derived from a bourgeois existence but is so generalised, so idealised, that images or bourgeois existence are no longer able to contain it. The “adventurer” as profession, then, can be seen as an ideological index of a dialectical movement between extrapolation and transcendence of bourgois production and consumption.

Consuming Adventure

Joseph Grixti, in “Consumed Identities: Heroic Fantasies and the Trivialisation of Selfhood” (1994), argues that many contemporary texts represent the heroic persona as a false guise, as a performance beneath which exists an angst-ridden, suffering human being. At the same time, heroic narratives are “generally presented in packages which predispose their audiences to consume them as ultimately inconsequential entertainment” (224). For him, then, heroic narratives function ideologically by naturalising the myth of individualism upon which Western capitalism is predicated.

However, Grixti does not pay much attention to how the consciousness of the trivial nature of heroic identification—as a sort of masturbatory act of self-indulgent egoism—leads to an ambivalance towards the hero. As I have argued above, the hero or adventurer may also be synonymous with explorer, imperialist, colonialist, thief and murderer. Criticisms of capitalism, and the imperialist and colonialist practices which instantiated it and allow it to continue, have entered popular culture to the point that readers of fantasy may have skepticism of or disparagement for the hero. If they still read heroic texts, they may simultaneously gain pleasure from identifying with a heroic figure, be skeptical or critical of the heroes values, be aware of how “heroes” offer an unrealistic sense of self, and how they function ideologically to make their disempowerment easier to bear. Gamers may feel anxiety, perhaps guilt, about gaining pleasure from such a dubious activity, or may reach a level of self-conscious pleasure at the absurdity of the whole situation; this will generally lead to a B-Grade or kitsch aesthetic.

It is important to note here that theories of identifying with the hero in a narrative are difficult to reconcile with broader theories of how readers identify with protagonists in general. If we are to regard all protagonists as heroes, the concept of the hero loses all specificity and explanatory force. Identification is a discontinuous and dynamic process, in that readers identify with multiple subject and object positions in a narrative. They may identify with the anti-heroic aspects of the protagonist, and the heroic aspects of the antagonist — in fact, they may identify with the antagonist more than the protagonist, depending upon the dynamic relationships between the text, the reader and context. Theories about heroic identification, then, do not foreground the ambiguity of heroism and the popularity of anti-heroes.

This is, of course, the characteristically “postmodern” experience of pop culture, related to the consumption of vulgar and illiterate comic strips, B-grade books and movies, the style of kitsch. If heroism is “consumed”—if the hero is merely a narrative vehicle for the production of spectacles—it is a gross simplification to simply argue that identification with a heroic protagonist (qualified or otherwise) can be explained as escapist or as offering a positive (and beneficial) sense of self (importance).

In contemporary fantasy, then, heroes not only tend to act by themselves and/or for themselves, they may be engaged in activities which are morally ambiguous or immoral, and anything but heroic. In attempting to dignify individuals and individual actions, the whole notion of heroism, predicated on the notion of action on behalf of the social, and of harmonious integration, is problematised. Grixti argues that there is not only an increasing skepticism in regards to heroic activities, accompanied by the popularity of qualified or anti-heroes, an increased level of absurdity in the depiction of heroic exploits, a lack of seriousness in regards to readers' identification with them. Heroism is often comic, but rarely satirical, and can only be partially explained in terms of escapism, since the accompanying spectacle rather than the acts of heroism became the form in which this escapism is truly manifested. I would extend Grixti's argument by suggesting that heroic identification is often subordinated to the level of spectacle. However, it has become increasingly obvious that the values of traditionally “heroic” action—individiduality, patriarchy and colonial activity, simplistic morality, of violence and (re-) vengeful retaliation rather than diplomacy as a means of resolving conflict—are problematic, or undesirable.

The Adventurer as Picaro: The Structure and Logic of (C)RPGS

Myers notes of RPGs that “while it is entirely possible within the structure of the game to buy a house and set up shop as a shoemaker, the interests of the players insure that their characters will have a livelier time of it: the typical character's career is not bureaucratic or bourgeois, it is epic”; he then adds that RPGs are “necessarily episodic or picaresque” (p. 2485). Myers does not identify any contradiction between, on the on hand, “epic,” and, on the other hand, “episodic” and “picaresque,” but this gap is extremely significant. Fantasy fiction, RPGs, and CRPGs, often have a seriousness style or subject matter, are on an enormous scale, and are characterised by prolonged identification with a super-human character upon whose fate the world may seem to rest. However, the disenchantment of the mythical form in a gaming context, the episodic nature of gameplay, and the actually mundane activity of gameplay means that CRPGs are in no way “epic” in the traditional sense. They may be characterised by an “epic tone,” but in CRPGs, like heroic narratives in general, the inclusion and emphasis of elements of the hero monomyth varies, and this variation reflects less some underlying mythical or “epic” pattern than the convenience of plot and gameplay.

However, we can make one generalisation about how the structure of most CRPGs problematises the hero monomyth: (C)RPGs place enormous emphasis on the preparation and departure of the adventurer, but minimise—or have trouble maintaining—the significance of the return. After Myers uses the term “epic form” to describe the RPG, he notes that “the plots developed in . . . [D&D] will naturally be episodic or picaresque” (p. 2485, my italics). The broader implications of this casual reference is evident in an article by Norman Spinard, in which he characterises the formulaic genre of in terms of “a single heroic lead, male or female, but more often male, [who] is propelled by special destiny on a picaresque quest across a danger-and-wonder-ridden landscape through many thrilling physical adventures” (Spinard, quoted in Finch-Reyner, p.131, my italics). Myer and Spinard use the term “picaresque” in a loose sense, but they nonetheless indicate a genre or concept that places in question their respective descriptions of fantasy and RPGs. The picaresque does not sustain the epic's emphasis on the important, universal and heroic, favouring the mundane, profane and repetitive life of an anti-heroic protagonist. In addressing the discursive construction of identification with characters in computer games, and the narrative logic to which they tend to conform, I argue that the picaresque “genre” is more useful in organising an analysis of (C)RPGs.

Lazarillo de Tormes , originally published anonymously in 1554, is generally accepted as the first picaresque novel (or its prototype). The Life of Guzman de Alfarache (1599), The Entertaining Life of the Rogue Justine (1605), The Life of Square Marcos de Obregon (1618), The Swindler (1626), are other Spanish texts identified as picaresque. These texts emerged in 16th and 17th century Spain, at a time when the nation's political and military power in the world was declining. The aristocracy was threatened by a restless, rising middle class, and poverty, vagrancy and begging had become increasingly common and visible. Religious persecution and Counter-Reformation beliefs had developed, as had “a supposedly inherent Castilian pride mixed with an equally characteristic loathing for honest toil” (p. 38). Later, Spain came to endure “a European-wide war and the rise of capitalist enterprise” (Riggan, 1981, p. 38).

Where fantasy dignifies humanity, the picaresque's “emphasis on the lowliness of men [sic] is a response to the literary assertion of man's [sic] dignity” that is “an alternative to . . . humanistic distortions of the true human condition” (Reed, 1981, p. 31, my italics). While the nature, or existence, of the picaresque “genre” (or, alternately, “counter-genre,” or “subgenre”) has been subject to much debate, it is usually characterised as a parody of and/or alternative to the romance and pastoral narratives which provide a model for contemporary fantasy. So, unlike romance, which tends towards harmony, idealisation and supernatural elements, the early picaresque novels offer broad, realistic and profane descriptions of a society in chaos in which the protagonist's physical suffering figures highly. The emphasis on the harsh realities of existence in the world relates to the picaresques moral ambiguity. The picaro's world is not only without transcendence or harmony, it is “chaotic beyond human tolerance” and in a state of “every man [sic] for himself” (Wicks, 1974, p.241).

As a consequence of the picaro's isolation, desperation to survive, misfortune or choice to become criminal, and of the world in which he finds himself, he is unconcerned with moral issues. His agency generally reflects less upon his individual choices and more upon his social circumstances, which also means that it is difficult to judge the picaro's choices in moral terms. Though, as his “adventures” progress, he may have opportunities to choose between legal or illegal options, the reader, having borne witness to the formation of the picaresque, is aware that these choices are not “free” in any absolute sense. The dramatic irony of the picaresque relies on reader's recognising the picaros ongoing inability to see beyond his history and change himself and his situation.

For Wicks, the protagonist of a picaresque novel is necessarily a “picaro” (usually translated into English as “rogue,” “knave,” or “sharper”): a pragmatic, unprincipled, solitary figure who just manages to survive in his chaotic landscape, but who, in the ups and downs, can also put the world very much on the defensive. The picaro is generally a low born orphan who endures great poverty and hardship as he is passed or passes from one cruel or demanding master to another. The master-slave relationship is not only a recurring motif in the picaresque, but one of its motivating narrative situations. From his mistreatment by his masters, the picaro quickly learns to steal from or deceive others to survive, for revenge, or to gain wealth and social standing. However, his fortunes rise and fall through the episodes of the novel and his wandering, chaotic existence generally remains unchanged. Consequently, for Wicks, the picaresque fictional mode involves an unheroic protagonist, worse than we, caught up in a chaotic world, worse than ours, in which he is on an eternal journey of encounters that allow him to be alternately both victim of that world and its exploiter.

Wick's argues that these encounters, or episodes, can be reduced to a picaro-landscape relationship, a “basic novelistic situation” described as a movement “from exclusion to attempted inclusion and back to exclusion” (1972, p. 245). Each situation involves

[a] a confrontation (self-willed or forced by ‘fortune' or some adversity . . . ) out of need, [b] some scheme to satisfy that need . . . , [c] a complication that endangers the picaro's safety, and [d] the extrication of the picaro. (Wicks, p. 244)

This movement from exclusion, attempted inclusion to exclusion again does not correspond with the dramatic structure of the whole novel, it is the basis of each episode in a novel composed of a (potentially infinite) number of such episodes.

For Wicks, as well as Guillen, another characteristic of the picaresque is first person narration. Usually the picaro, having become a “a dubious success figure, a despondent failure, a convicted felon, or a religious convert” (Riggan, p. 42), looks back over his life, recounting the experiences that brought him to his present situation. His narrative, Wicks argues, is also characterised by a panoramic structure and the representation of a vast gallery of human types. The human types are representative of the landscape, or social order, but they are also “seen in generalised cross section as satirical portraits” (Wicks, 1974, p. 245). The prideful Spanish character figures highly, but, more generally, the portraits and landscapes identify types of criminals and the tricks of their trade, the general vices and follies of humanity, and the social crisis of Spain. The picaresque novel is also characterised by motifs such as unusual births, grotesque (and usually vulgar) incidents, and role-playing.

These picaresque characteristics have, of course, been much debated, especially in terms of which translations, imitations and mutations can be considered truly picaresque. Harry Sieber offers the following distinctions:

(1) The picaresque novel sensu strictu comprises a few Spanish works closely associated with the Lazarillo de Tormes and the Guzman de Alfarache. (2) The ‘translations' of these novels were largely adaptations which feature the formal elements of the genre (narrative point of view, episodic structure, satiric purpose and the ‘servant-master' relationship). (3) The ‘imitations' tended to be blends of the adaptations and ‘native' fiction and sensibilities. (4) As a result the picaro became or was replaced with the English ‘rogue' and ‘foundling', the Italian ‘vagabundo', the German ‘Schelm' and the French ‘gueux' or ‘gentilhomme'. (5) Finally, his ‘picaresque' adventures and level in society were made to conform to the peculiar satiric, social and historical contexts of each country, the general effect of which was to turn him into an ‘anti-picaro'. (1977, pp. 58-9)

Sieber's classification seems to suggest Frank Kearful's view that the picaresque is best seen as a genre “in its own national, historical, formal, thematic, and stylistic contexts” (1977, p. 383), in that it narrates a process whereby a “pure” genre was hybridised with other literary genres. It also parallels Guillen's (1971) tripartite distinction between (a) picaresque novels in the strict sense, (b) novels that “may be considered [picaresque] in a broader sense of the term only” and (c) “a picaresque myth, an essential situational significant structure derived from the novels” (57). However, for Richard Bjornson, the picaresque did not initially achieve the formality of a genre (1977, p. 4), and for Robert Alter there is a “genuine tradition of picaresque fiction” (1964, p. vii) beyond the Spanish texts. Walter Reed (1981) confuses the issue further by theorising the picaresque in relation to the emergence of the novel in general to the point that the term loses its applicability to textual analysis.

What becomes evident when one considers these different approaches is that whether or not the picaresque is a genre, reading practice or critical tool depends upon one's theoretical scope and orientation. If the early picaresque novels were parodies of other genres, and if picaresque texts reworked pre-existing generic forms, they were never pure. Sieber's linear narrative of the transformation of the picaresque genre is, then, less a temporal history and more a conceptualising schema. Its (5) stages assume prior stages, are arbitrarily differentiated, and some or all of them may co-exist. Furthermore, it is not necessarily ordered by causal or temporal progression, and we can read its categorical distinctions as foregrounding the continuity between characteristics of the “picaresque” and other “genres.”

My intention here is not to consider the issue of the historical transmission of the picaresque, nor to determine whether or not RPGs like D&D are picaresque. It suffices to acknowledge that Gary Gygax's D&D was inspired by the writings of by Poul Anderson, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber and J.R.R Tolkein and Jack Vance, and many of these texts (especially Vance's Dying Earth series) were characterised by picaresque elements, such as roguish or anti-heroic protagonists, episodic rather than epic narratives, and realistic representations of society. My argument is that picaresque characteristics can be found in (C)RPGs themselves, and that that they provide a more useful point of comparison and departure in analysing their structure and ideological work than vague references to “heroic fantasy.”

It is worthwhile to begin with the observation that thare are not only parallels between the “anti-heroic picaro” and the supposedly “heroic” adventurer of RPGs, but some etymological relationship. As Sieber notes, the picaro is usually translated into English as ‘rogue, knave, sharper,' into French as ‘gueux, voleur' (‘begger, thief'), into German as ‘Schelm, Abenteurer' (‘rogue, adventurer') and into Italian as ‘pitocco, furbone' (‘vagrant, rogue'). (The Picaresque, 1977, p. 5). The phrase picaro de cozina (‘scullian') initially (in 1525) referred to those engaged in menial tasks and were “usually found in and around kitchens, stables or out on the streets as a basket-carrier” (5), but that the term ‘picaro' soon (c. 1545) was pejorated to connote vagrancy, begging, and delinquency. More importantly, “even at [an] early stage, the worthy “heroic courtier” [“cortesanos”] was being confronted by the vile, wicked and “anti-heroic picaro” (7).

This comparison with the ‘heroic courtier' is significant, given, first, the German translation of picaro as Abenteurer and the gradual transformation of the picaresque journey into an “adventure,” and second, the picaresque attributes of “adventurer” in RPGs, manifested most obviously in the character class of the “thief.” Just as the picaro was once used to satirise ‘heroic' ideals and bourgeois pretensions, the term remains useful in indicating the ideological work of the “adventurer” and specific “character classes.” Put another way, if the term “picaro” underwent a shift in meaning from identifying one's social role or situation to one's immoral if not criminal behaviour, similarly, the adventurer's behaviour, which is often delinquent if not criminal, is often justified by his social position/profession as an adventurer.

The motives of the character are, of course, easily confused with the motives of the player. The picaro is a protean figure who can not only serve many masters but plays different roles, and his essential characteristic is his inconstancy – of life roles, of self-identity – his own personality flux in the face of an inconstant world” (Wicks, p. 24). The above adequately describes the RPG player, as well as a picaro. In RPGs, the adventurer may have a well-defined role, and a character may prefer a single character type, but a single player may play multiple roles, and play is characterised by the replacement of one's own personality with another. His “desperation,” so to speak, is informed by a different socio-historical context; or, put another way, the broader context of his role-playing: the “inconstant world” of (late) capitalism. A player does not choose to “play” a character with characteristics of a picaro because of a desperation to survive, and of course the role of “adventurer”—even, in some cases, the roles of “thief” and “assassin”—is more readily accepted as a profession in the (C)RPG player's world than the role of the picaro. That is, it is possible to confuse the character's choice to “adventure” with the choice of the player's choice to “adventure” in a RPG and to choose a particular class. The player and character may both want the same kind of heroic respect and wealth as the picaro, but, unlike the character, the players of RPG are often motivated by the absence of such heroic and wealthy roles.

That is, despite the logical progression of the narrative—their trope of the quest—the sequence of “adventures” became less significant than their ability to progress the narrative. Contemporary fantasy novels and RPGs reproduce an “epic tone” through the use of archaic and/or verbose language, a serious and/or moral tone, and through extreme length, facilitating long-term identification with its heroes. The picaresque novels parody the lofty ideals and just purpose of such epic tone (or rhetoric) in their episodic structure, panoramic view of society and their gallery of characters. Places, individuals and events may find their sequence in the narrative by reference to their chronological place in the picaro's life, but the sequence of events is not particularly meaningful because the picaro learns little from them. The “panorama” and “gallery” of places, people and events gain significance, then, in that they are indexical of the picaro's place at a particular point in time and allow the author to construct a broad overview of society.

That is, characters may choose to play a picaro, or an equivalent role, such as an extremely poor, lowborn first-level thief who seeks power and wealth in society but must always pretend to be another character class, such as a fighter, when he moves in public-political circles, and operates within the same kind of community of rogues that we find in picaresque novels such as The Swindler . Of course, a character playing a thief who steals from or kills his friends in a game isn't necessarily a picaro. The point is, we must step back to consider the broader and immediate social context of the gaming practice to evaluate the nature of such identification to determine what is happening in such instances, and when we do we can see characteristics of the picaro or picaresque author more readily in the relationship between players and characters. If the author of the picaresque saw contradictions or social crises in society, and satirised them through the picaresque, so too the player of an RPG is identifying with ‘criminal' elements as a means of vicarious fulfillment, of the insufficiencies of ‘normal' modes of identification and ‘normal' role models; if the picaro stole from other people to survive, to treat others as cruelly as he has been treated, the player who plays a thief is acting out the ideological subtext of capitalism—despite the ‘pretext' of civility and work-ethics, it is nonetheless a world of competition, of alienation, of outsiders; in this case, it is more the player than the character that is the picaro, the ‘failed outsider,' who seeks, in each encounter, to re-enter the world, to take from it what he wants.

Wick's describes the episodic structure of picaresque novels as a “Sisyphean rhythm,” referring to Pablos' comment in Guzman de Alfarache:

And being come now to the height of all my labors and paines-taking, and when I was to have received the reward of them, and to take mine ease after all this toyle, the stone rolled down, and I was forced like Sisiphus, to beginne the world anew, and to fall afresh to my work” (quoted in Sieber, p.63).

Blaber and Gilman argue that, “if we consider the Sisyphean task as one never having been completed and as always repeated, there is no real originary moment, no real telos” (Blaber and Gilman, 1990, p. 23). Put another way, by alluding to a myth of eternally recurring and unchangable state of affairs, the picaresque novel naturalises the socio-political causes of the picaro's experience as eternally recurring and unchangeable. The narrative structure consequently mimes the repressive social structures in which the picaro finds himself, so that not only do the picaro's experiences of impersonal judgement, physical suffering, and pointlessness reach mythic proportions, the picaro himself is mythified (or at least romanticised) in terms of his changelessness and suffering.

The significance of this structure in RPGs is related to its significance in the picaresque. The “Sisyphean rhythm” contrasts with the dramatic rhythm of most realist narratives in the West, including most fantasy narratives, in which tension is established, gradually builds (though periodically diffused by minor climaxes), to be resolved in a climax. The conclusion of the picaresque novel is notably undramatic, determined by the time the picaro commits his experience to paper, and the picaro's general circumstances do not change, to the extent that further episodes are always possible. There is a certain logic to this timelessness. While the comic hero moves through stages of exclusion, attempted inclusion, to actual inclusion (see Blaber and Gilman, p. 29), the picaro moves through stages of exclusion, attempted inclusion, back to exclusion again. That is, the picaro attempts integration with society at a time of social crisis or change—at a time when “there appears to be sufficient disruption in the social fabric to allow the interweaving of a loose thread”—however he finds himself marginalised “when the ‘norm' is reestablished” (Blaber and Gilman, 25). Of course, even in the classic Spanish picaresque novels, society does not become stable in any ideal sense, for the social inequalities identified by the picaro persist.

Arguably, the “norm” that is reestablished is the picaro's marginalised status, and while the picaro's career is a consequence of his low birth, his desperation to survive, and bad luck, we can relate his marginalised status and his ongoing problems to his inability to accept the social order as natural and his desire to belong to a higher class. The picaro, after all, does not sees social role and “norms” as natural but as artificial: he views respectability as a posture and believes that wealth should not belong solely to those who inherit it. Social roles must be constantly maintained through an endless struggle against the perceptions of others. The picaro consequently faces two types of antagonists: those who believe in the social order—those whose ‘romantic' view of the ‘natural' order of society can never accept one of low status to enter a class ‘unnatural' to him—and other ‘realistic' picaros who, seeing ‘normality' as merely a game, compete with the protagonist for the same social resources.

The picaro is, then, revolutionary at a time of social crisis, but he seeks no crowd with whom to revolt (the society of thieves in The Swindler is hardly revolutionary, recreating the hierarchical and conflicted society beyond it; and, in any case, Pablos ultimately betrays it). The picaro internalises social crisis by desiring change through his constant dissatisfaction, but in seeing society as existing in a state of every person for himself, the picaro finds himself against everyone. He is, then, doomed to remain an isolated individual, a failed outsider, caught up in a chaotic world in an eternal journey in which he may become master, exploiter, free and independant, but will become a slave, victim, dependant or imprisoned.

Certainly, there are different kinds of CRPGs, some of which have a minimum of charts and tables, and others that maximise them; there are also different kinds of CRPG players, some of whom regard the rules casually, and others who take the rules extremely seriously. Also, both RPGs and MUDs enable the dramatic rhythm to be suspended for indefinite periods through dialogue. However, tables like the one above define the general dramatic rhythm of RPGs as episodic, and this closed, episodic structure predominates in single-player CRPGs (if not all computer games). In (C)RPGs, episodic structure is evident not only at the level of gameplay, but at the level of code, through iteration. Computer programming is, after all, modular: a C program, for example, is broken up into modules called ‘functions,' each of which deals with a particular task. Every C program begins execution at a function called main, which usually calls other functions. For example, if you wanted to write an CRPG program, function main might call three functions: ‘check_wandering_monsters,' ‘input_player_actions,' and ‘calculate_ results.'

main()
{ initialise_game_values ();
while (!game_over)
{ check_wandering_monsters ();
input_player_actions ();
calculate_results (); }
}

All function main is doing here is repeatedly calling function ‘game_over' (to check to see if the victory conditions of the game have been achieved) and calling the functions for wandering monsters, calculating player input, and calculating the results, until the game is over. If this were the code for Baldur's Gate , there would be hundreds or thousands of function calls, but the basic game structure would remain modular and repetitive.

Unlike myths, then, in which the structure of the narrative of a whole is important, the content of each episode in RPGs and CRPGs is largely irrelevant in terms of the game's over-all closure. (C)RPGs may have “victory conditions,” but they are composed of a potentially infinite (open-ended) series of (at the level of code) logical iterations and (analogously, at the level of gameplay) episodes or ‘encounters.' In many CRPGs, such as Might and Magic VI and VII, we do not know our major quest, or at least do not fully understand it (as in Baldur's Gate), and as a consequence, gameplay involves walking around aimlessly looking for (clues about) the major quest, and engaging in smaller quests and encounters.

In other CRPGs (Baldur's Gate again), even when we have major and minor quests to undertake, we are too weak to pursue it and so spend our time engaging in smaller quests and random encounters. In CRPGs that facilitate non-linear progression (and Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall is notorious in this regard) we may ignore the major quest and find our own, perhaps to develop our character along the lines of a particular gaming style. In Might and Magic VI and VII some gamers praised the fact that the game allowed them to continue adventuring after the completion the major quest; in Diablo, after we have killed Diablo, we are taken back to the screen which allows us to play again, but we are allowed to use the same character. So, on the one hand, the episodic structure of CRPGs partly defines it, and though CRPGs do have narrative closure on major quests, this is often experienced as an arbitrary onclusion. On the other hand, non-linear CRPGs often suffer in that, whereas CRPGs are largely driven by character development, when they lose narrative focus we find ourselves wandering aimlessly, waiting for monsters, and have nothing to measure our character development against.

As I argued above, the picaro is repeatedly excluded from society in successive episodes, and this exclusion can be related not only to the necessities of survival, but his outlook on society. It can be argued that the major difference between the picaro and the adventurer here is while picaro's choose illustrious names to hide their dishonourable ancestry, adventurers are noble or become noble, and their exploits are never anonymous or marginal but legendary. However, this is to forget that the RPG adventurer usually begins poor and/or weak, suffering humiliating violence from pathetic monsters like goblins, and while he often rolls or makes up a family background or history, it rarely, if ever, becomes important in gameplay. The adventurer not only moves away from his bourgeois origins, he acts as if he is an orphan, without family or any social responsibilities. Dafoe, in reference to picaresque novels, distinguishes between those who inherit a noble estate and “those who earn their status . . . through hard work” (quoted in Sieber, p. 53); but Dafoe “indicates that honour is attainable by handling the goods of others, an idea Lazaro expresses ironically at the end of his career as he profits from his manipulation of the Archpriest's whore and wine” (Sieber, p. 53). Likewise, the adventurer does not become any more noble, despite his legendary status. He may seem to help others, and may appeal to laissez faire or chivalrous ideologies, but in the last instance he is helping himself.

The interest in crimnal ‘tricks' and motivation, the vicarious pleasure of intersting criminal episodes, the nakedness of human violence and competition, a primal model of economic man, religious, sociological or psychological models of deviance. In the shift to RPGs and CRPGs, we find that ‘morality' takes many forms in relaionship to the player and character. In RPGs the entire spectrum of identification is available, for games have becomes systematic rules by which we can identify with anyone or anything. In AD&D we are able to be thiefs and assassins, and the new game Thief indicates the continuing appeal of this kind of identification; in Might and Magic 6 and 7, characters are able to become necromancers, lichs and so on; in RPGs we may be loud-mouthed and sexist marines, psychopaths, hostage negotiators, or clerics, priests and monks. In computer games like Going Postal we are the mass murderer; in other games we are a serial killer.

Such games may romanticise, make fun of, trivialise, or make absurd the acts of violence, revolutionary energy, breakdown, limits of madness in society; the point is, the player provides the pathology. Therefore, while RPGs or computer games may in general have picaresque elements, principally the episodic structure and accumulative nature of the typical ‘encounter,' the fundumantal characteristic, the presence of a picaro, depends upon how the player plays his/her character; in any case, the picaresque is not something either present or absent in any one game, it is useful to recognise the ongoing tension between the picaresque myth and other kinds of myths, such as the chivalrous knight, and the generic adventurer.

The master-servant relationship in the picaresque is here evident as a trainer-pupil relationship, in which, for a character to achieve the next level, he must “visit” a higher level NPC. Whereas the picaro's relationship with his masters were forced upon him by others or by the desperation of his situation, the trainer-pupil relationship in RPGs is one of choice. Certainly, in both cases, the picaro and the adventurer develop skills that make them more independent, but the picaro is nonetheless often trapped by his master, and while in some RPGs training takes time (requiring that characters be temporarily excluded from adventures), in CRPGs such as Might and Magic training occurs instantaneously. Furthermore, training is reduced to an economic exchange accompanied by the sound of money changing hands.

The picaresque, then, shares some characteristics with the fantastic (genre). It depicts role-playing, the play of/with language, narrative indeterminacy, problems of ego-loss, identity and meaning(lessness); it is often subversive/satirical of existing realities. Its grim materialism and distortions of psychology associate it with the grotesque and the (vulgarised) carnival. It derides a transcendentalist aesthetic or nostalgic humanism, and betrays little or no nostalgia for a lost moral or social hierarchy. However, it does share with the fantasy genre an eternal (quasi-mythical) protagonist, and expresses a desire for individual pride and social mobility and the luxury of aristocracy. It offers the “romance” of adventure through the forbidden or exotic details of social rather than magical Others, (lower class labourers, or criminals and outcasts rather than elves or unicorns). It creates the pleasures of escape, and is readily adapted to the fantasy formula. The picaro creates a sense of energy and animateness at the same time he manifests a sense of meaninglessness and purposelessness, the lack of achievement and a false sense of development, of the self as imprisoned in an unjust world. This is evident in the myth of Sisyphus, which gives mythic weight to the picaro's meaninglessness, presenting the picaro as timeless, someone who never learns to change his ways.

We can say, then, that the picaro is "A pragmatic, unprincipled, solitary figure who just manages to survive in his chaotic landscape, but who, in the ups and downs, can also put that world very much on the defensive" (Wicks, p. 24). The adventurer joins a group of other adventurers, who together remain apart from society, and manage to survive in a chaotic landscape, who may suffer certain defeats and setbacks but also gain certain relative victories. While they may appear principled, as I have argued above, the RPG is structured around ‘encounters' which, like picaresque episodes, involve ‘heroes' taking money away from ‘monster.' The picaro becomes a thief out of desperation, of hardship, because of he is marginalised, but the ‘adventurer' chooses this role as a profession, as a social identity, which, though it takes him/her outside of society, is nonetheless an accepted role in that world's society. Of course, the choice to adventure can be confused with the player's: the player and character in the RPG world may want the same kind of heroic respect and wealth as the picaro, but the player of an RPG may want to adventure to alleviate the monotony of a lifestyle which allows this kind of leisure activity. However, while characters become more powerful by adventuring, the encounters with which they are faced increase in difficulty: they face monsters who are roughly the same level of power. As a consequence, the actual level of difficulty remains the same, and while “in the ups and downs, [the adventurer] can also put that world very much on the defensive” he, like the picaro, “just manages to survive in his chaotic landscape” (Wicks, p. 24). Campbell also observed a parallelism between the hero's development and the landscape he moved through or the challenges he faces—that is, how the quest's the hero is ready for are those he receives.

Myers argues that the improvisational character of RPGs is characteristic of communal folk-telling, but theorisations of picaresque mode of narration offer a different model for understanding the complicated nature of RPG narration. Wicks argues that while third person texts may have picaresque elements, “only if the picaro himself handles the entire narrative load will the account be imbued with a unified and complete ‘picaresque' point of view and thus be wholly ‘picaresque'” (Riggan, 40). This assumes, of course, that the picaro has a sustained and consistent point of view, and, certainly, the picaro is a consistent creature. While the picaresque is often cast in the form of a Bildungsroman, a narrative of the development of a central character into adulthood, picaresque novels are rigorously episodic, and picaro's usually learn little more in each episode than how to be a (“better”) picaro. Although picaros may seem to reform themselves, this reformation is usually problematic or amibiguous. Guzman de Alfarache, for example, claims to have converted to Christianity, and ostensibly narrates his experiences as a warning to others; however, as Riggan argues, Guzman not only relishes recounting his immoral adventures and showing off his wit, his conversion may be insincere, and so his new role in society may be simply that: a “role.” Picaros often present themselves as something other than themselves, using illustrious names and fictional pasts and professions, so as to move through social circles. Indeed:

[t]here is always the distinct probability that long years of perpetual mask-changing and verbal chicanery have rendered the picaro incapable of anything except role-playing, so that his entire narrative becomes a pose, whether consciously or unconsciously assumed. (Riggan, p. 42)

Similarly, in (C)RPGs there is a tendency for some gamers to translate everything into gaming terms and confuse player and character. I will refer back to this in the next few chapters. This indeterminacy is significant. First person narration “carries with it an inherent quality of realism and conviction based on a claim to firsthand experience” and “imparts a tangible reality to the narrative situation and a substantial veracity to the account we are reading or ‘hearing'” (Riggan, p. 18). At the same time, the “natural limitations of human knowledge and judgment and memory” (p. 19) mean that first person narration also involves an element of unreliability. In the picaresque, this unreliability reflects the motives of the picaro, who is “unable to repress a good deal of relish in reliving old successes and considerable bias against reprehensible figures in his life” (p. 44). The picaro enjoys demonstrating his “quick tongue, a dissimulative facility, and an ability to lie convincingly,” which he has used “to gain certain ends and to overcome adverse circumstances” (p. 49). That is, the purpose and truth of the picaro's narrative is itself suspect.

That the picaro's “pose” may be “unconsciously assumed” is significant, because the picaresque's first person narration is characterised by the narrative distance between the picaro as narrator (in the present) and the picaro as an actor (in the past). This narrative distance is exploited to foreground the picaro's unstable identity and for the purposes of dramatic irony. First, the disparity between the “I” that narrates and the “I” who is being narrated is related to the picaro's role-playing, and can be read as symptomatic of his inability to achieve a stable social identity. The picaro is also so conscious of the the role he is playing that it becomes more and more difficult to identify his “real” identity. As Blaber and Gilman note, while “the trick motif and the role-playing are subsumed in readings that equate the picaro with mythic or traditional tricker figures . . . the trickster functions as a scapegoat or redemptive figure for society, whereas the picaro, while possibly an avatar of the trickster, is much more ambivalent” (26). That is, the picaro's trickery does not have a social function, nor does it mask any true wisdom. The picaro is not a redemptive figure. While we may find his trickery and role-playing amusing, we see that its consequence is anguish and isolation.

Second, the gap between the picaro as narrator and picaro as actor facilitates dramatic irony. The reader of the picaresque frequently becomes aware that the picaro shares the characteristics with those he criticises, especially the desire for upward mobility and a lack of respect for fellow humans. The reader also recognises that decisions or actions which the picaro considers clever, logical and/or necessary to gain advantage of a situation only perpetuate his difficultes. If the picaro often relishes recounting his adventures and showing of his verbal skills, this is also true of RPGs. As Myers notes, most RPG players are “literate beyond most expectations, especially if ‘literate' is taken to mean ‘enjoying literature for its own sake'” (2486).

Like the picaro, players who retrospectively narrate their character's experiences often distort them to emphasise heroic actions, clever dialogue, grotesque violence, or absurd/perilous situations in which chance plays a deciding role. Furthermore, when a party of characters split up during play, to rejoin later, players may have their own agendas when they recount what happened to the others, leaving out some particularly embarrasing incident or the fact that they found something of value which they do not wish to share. Players may lie about what happened to mislead other players or for the sake of it. In such situations, the player's appropriate the narrative authority of the DM, being able to stage events in first person in the manner of the picaro.

One might argue that, in the picaresque, narrative distance between the present narrator and the picaro whose adventures are being narrated informed its satirical function, while in RPGs the emphasis is more exclusively upon the pleasure of narration and identification, and that narration is often subordinated to the mechanical process of gaming. However, dramatic irony does exist in that the DM knows things about the characters which they may not know, and players often know something that their character does not know; to be true to their character, however, DM's and players must feign ignorance, and place their NPCs or characters in dangerous, ridiculous or ironic situations. In many CRPGs, players will knowingly lead a character into a dangerous situation whether or not it is true to their character, in part because the premise of the game demands such unrealistic heroism.

So, the RPG mode of narration is not simply one of communal dialogue, it is one of quite conscious artifice, of narrative manipulation over, time space and power, of disassociation between the player and character. While there is “rational co-ordination” in the dungeon, the picaresque mode of narration suggests that, at the same time, each character tries to subordinate the narrative to his own voice, to play with—or lose one's own identity in—shifting modalities of identification.

Single player CRPGs can be seen as recuperating picaresque modes of narration that the RPG moves away from, as well as developing the modes of narration within RPGs. The single DM is replaced by an anonymous group of game designers who are absent in the immediate sense, and present only as a “narrator” whose monovocal voice tries to repress multiple voices. While the picaresque first-person narrator may be unreliable, the RPG and CRPG narrator is objective third and second person. The objective GM and CRPG narrator may choose not to reveal certain information until prompted, or until a certain point at time; however, what they do reveal is true, and the selection of detail is informed by the unfolding plot, not the psychological distortions of characters. So when RPG narrator's speak in first-person on behalf of NPCs and ‘monsters,' they may be unreliable, and, similarly, NPC's in CRPGs may lie to the player. However, the description itself is taken to be empirically valid. While the RPG includes various modes of narration and identification — in fact I would argue that the RPG structure is designed to facilitate as many kinds of narrative as possible — picaresque modes of narration are not only possible for the DM or players, they may come to dominate in a particular gaming style or sequence.

Although RPGs are more highly structured than any carnival, early RPGs nonetheless allowed for rules and dice rolls to be manipulated; like carnivals there was pleasure in seeing a carefully structured module producing entirely unexpected scenarios and situations because of unpredictable player choices, of the creative aspect of conversations, negotiations and politics; there was a kind of pleasure in seeing an ordered party of adventurers deteriorate into the chaos of combat; and there was the pleasure of allowing the rules to be ignored as players started talking about other things. Single-player computer games altered these pleasures considerably, however we should not regard this alteration as abrupt or definitive.

The Shadow of the Adventurer

I am in no way arguing that there is no identification with cultural heroes in general, or, specifically, in (C)RPGs, merely foregrounding how various kinds of identification occur simultaneously. In CRPGs, heroism is often a matter of using a certain language, that is, the “genre” of heroism can be seen to be invoked by registering heroic phrases. If, as Rosemary Jackson argues, “fantasy is the underside of reason,” then the “underside” of heroic fantasy fiction is a logic of individualism and competition whose worst characteristics are manifested in the figure of the picaro (though the picaresque “genre,” being parodic, foregrounds these problems in a matter analogous to postmodern research).

The emphasis on RPGs as "heroic", and linking this to the "mythic" origins of "fantasy", is as misleading as the early rhetoric about the liberatory possibilities of digital worlds. This emphasis on potentially liberating or empowering qualities of new media and consumer agency is part of the political rhetoric of much cultural theory, but privileging marginalised or culturall devalued forms can make us forget that it is easy to misrepresent the gap between the actual and the possible. Computer games may often having some progressive or productive political implications, and multiplayer games may constitute public discourse, but most CRPGs are single-player games, and almost all PC gaming is experienced privately as a leisure activity. CRPGs are not productively reduced to heroism, as they are more characterised by <em>contradictions</em> between the revolutionary and the repetitive, the universal and the mundane, and the heroic and anti-heroic.