Cerise Magazine

By Samara Hayley Steele

Identity Crisis

(Five Notes Regarding Gamer Identity)

A•va•tar (noun) ‘a-və-,tär
5: an electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user

-The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Flashback: 1996 (eight years before our heroine’s first LARP)

A sixth-grader sits alone on a mossy log, her bony legs dangling over the edge, her short fingers wrapped around a ridiculously large Gameboy. A riveting .midi song dances up from the electronic box, and the simple notes merge with the birdsongs of the surrounding forest.

The girl hides here every afternoon, safe from the ridicule of her family. It’s better for them to think that she’s off kissing boys or smoking drugs then for them to know the truth: She is a gamer-nerd. No, worse than that: she is a female gamer-nerd who likes RPG games for boys.

Suddenly the gray box in her hands starts to beep. The hero is dying!

No! The girl frantically pounds the B-button.

Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. It’s the death rattle of a digital heart.

I can’t die now! The shift from third-person to first is subtle.

Suddenly the forest disappears and gray box is replaced by a long silver sword. Without a second thought, she points it at the skeletal warrior in front of her and lunges for its throat.

A breeze shuffles through the trees and red autumn leaves flutter to the ground. But the girl doesn’t notice. She is an Elvin warrior now, tromping through caverns and dungeons, battling bats and puddles of ooze, scouring a magical land in search of the woman he loves.

And the girl will be that man until dinnertime, when her mom will call her name and she will remember who she is (or who she is supposed to be), brush the leaves from her hair, and slowly walk home.

A•va•tar (noun) ‘a-və-,tär
4: a variant phase or version of a continuing basic entity

-The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Anthropology 441: Cybernetic Identity (approx. eight years from now)

Hello class! Hope you’ve all had a good weekend! Today we are going to talk about avatars.

Can anyone tell me what an avatar is? That’s a good answer, John. [writes “CHARACTER” on the whiteboard] An avatar is a character. But what makes an avatar different from, say, a character in a book? Anna. Right on the money, Anna! [writes “CONTROL” on the whiteboard] Control.

Now let’s talk about Levels of Control.

Have any of you ever played an old 1990s-era console-system RPG? For example, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy VII? Wow, that’s more of you than I expected.

So, in these games, what aspects of your avatar can you control? Yup. [writes “PHYSICAL ACTIONS” on the white board] Umm-hum. [“CHARACTER NAME”] Oh… Well, that’s an interesting one. Love interest. Yes, you can sometimes choose which character your avatar will “hook up” with. But there are limitations. For example, you can’t hook up with a random shopkeeper or peasant. So… [writes “PREDETERMINED CHARACTERISTICS” on the board and under it writes “LOVE INTERESTS”]

How about personality. [draws a sloppy picture on the board] Who can tell me about this guy?

Shy, yes. A good-deed doer. Boring. Curious. Tolerant of annoying fairies? Hum… Well, it looks like there are many different interpretations of Link’s personality. But the important thing is: he has a personality. [writes “PERSONALITY” under “LOVE INTERESTS”] He has a predetermined identity, and when we play the game, we must interact with the game world from within the borders of his modality.

So if a player wishes to enter the world of the game, she must do so through the conduit of an avatar, and in order to do that she must make some sacrifices. This is what posthumanist theorists call [“THE PLAYER/AVATAR CONTRACT”].

In order to enter the Land of Hyrule, you must assume the identity of a male elf who goes out and does good deeds, but isn’t afraid to also rob and vandalize the homes of strangers.

Now let’s think about some important elements of The Player/Avatar Contract:

[PowerPoint Slide Appears on Board]

• Avatar Origins – who designs the avatar
• Reflexivity – the feedback loop that exists between the player, the avatar, and the character; increases incrementally as the player’s control over the avatar increases.

As for the origins of a mid-1990s console game avatar, we know that these games were predominately designed by male employees at large Japanese corporations.

And reflexivity. There’s an interesting one. The more control a player has over an avatar, the stronger the reflexive feedback loop becomes, and thus the player’s out-of-game personality becomes more affected by that of the character…

Now, let’s switch gears and talk about LARP.

First, origins. Can anyone tell me when tabletop RP started? That’s right, the late 1970’s. And who wrote the rulebooks? For the most part, men.

And when did LARPs first come around? Yup, the late 1980’s. And we know from the reading that the first LARPers used tabletop rulebooks to structure their games, and then wrote new rulebooks themselves. And, of course, a huge majority of these writers were men.

Now, these are the origins of the game, but where does the avatar come from?

That’s actually a very difficult question, and after all these years…I still don’t know the answer.

Let’s have a discussion. What do you guys think?

[Forty minutes later there is a sloppy chart scrawled across the whiteboard:]

Homework: Write a short paper (500-words min.) delineating the relationship between the level of player control over the avatar and the effect of the reflexive feedback upon the player’s out-of-game personality.

A•va•tar (noun) ‘a-və-,tär
3: an embodiment (as of a concept or philosophy) often in a person

-The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The Page Turns…

The first thought of my second day as a LARPer is not, “So here I am, in a smelly Boy Scout cabin, dressed as a cat-girl.” Nor is it, “Time for me to get started on fixing those pesky misconceptions about my character’s personality.”

Actual first thought of the day:

What the hell was that?

Something large had crashed into the side of the cabin, shaking the ceiling and floorboards, startling me from sleep.

I sit up, disoriented. One of my cloth cat ears drops from my head and slides off the bed, landing on the dirty, pine-needle-covered floor. I look around at my protectors, expecting them to be on their feet and rushing out the door to investigate the noise. But they are still wrapped tightly in their cocoon-like sleeping bags; indifferent or asleep, I can’t tell.

I glance out the small window over my bunk.

The meadow outside is dappled in dew and the grass is shimmering with the white morning light. Then, suddenly, a hairy human head fills the window. It is caked in thick brown and black paint. It presses its face against the chicken-wire, curls its lips, opens its eyes wide, and roars.

I scream, loud and long. Finally, my lexicon returns. “There’s a thing! A thing! Out there!”

I expect my companions to leap from their bunks, grab their swords, rush out the door, and kill it. But all of them are still wrapped in their sleeping bags.

The Wolf rolls over and yawns, “Whatever’s out there’ll go away pretty soon. Don’t you worry, Ellie.” His makeup is cracked and smudged, making me think of Picasso. I realize my face must look like modern art.

I nervously eye the small wooden door. “What if the thing gets in?”

Meanwhile, the creature has backed away from the window and is now repeatedly slamming its body against the building. Thump. Ker-thump. THUMP!

“There’s no way it can get in here. We’ve got an Eldritch Lock on the whole building.” The Wolf burrows back into his covers.

Something about this situation doesn’t seem right. These people are supposed to be warrior-heroes! They are not meeting my expectations.

“What if the monster wanders off and kills someone?” I say. “Shouldn’t we try to stop it now?”

The Wolf chuckles; a fatherly laugh, as though I had said something adorable.

He sits up. “You know, it’s been a while since someone so innocent came around here.”

He throws off the sleeping bag and slides out of bed, sword already gripped in his hand. He had been sleeping with it under the covers, ready in case of attack. He had also been sleeping with his boots on.

“If it means so much to you, I’ll go out and kill it,” he grins and winks at me, then charges out the door.

Crap-dangit! I pull the sleeping bag tightly over my head.

Why can’t I do at least one thing without being called “cute” or “innocent”?

A•va•tar (noun) ‘a-və-,tär
2: an incarnation in human form

-The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The Pure-Hearted Zombie (Two Hours Later)

I am sitting in the grass in front of the cabin, feebly attempting to eat canned peaches without silverware.

Suddenly a poorly-costumed teenager jumps from the bushes, yelling, “I Curse You with Death!” A beanbag sails from his fingers and hits me in the foot.

I stare at the little red beanbag for a moment, annoyed, then carefully set my peaches on the ground and slump forward.

The Necromancer touches my shoulder and says “I Call Upon Chaos to Animate Undead.”

He waits.

“Um,” I say. “What does that mean?”

He seems annoyed. “You’re a zombie now,” he quickly explains. “You can’t talk or run. And you have to do what I say.”

“Oh, okay.” I stand up and hunch my shoulders forward.

Arcturus, who is been sewing up a rip in his short sword nearby, turns in time to see the Necromancer pointing at him and commanding me, “Kill him.”

I turn and amble toward my protector.

I didn’t have a sword, and hand-to-hand combat is prohibited in the game, so all I can do is frown at Arcturus and try to look as zombie-like as possible (which isn’t hard with uncombed hair, smeared face paint, and a missing ear).

“Oh my god,” he shouts, “Ellie’s been turned undead!”

Suddenly half a dozen men burst from the cabin and charge at me.

Beanbags fly.

“I Curse You with Death! Death!”

The teenager has excellent aim and two of the fighters drop.

Arcturus is still up and he rushes toward me. A pained look creases his grizzled face. “I don’t want to do this!” he says, and stabs me hard in the ribs.

I fall over, dead again.

Death smells like cold grass.

Arcturus grabs my arm. “I need a healer over here, NOW!” he shouts. Never mind the fallen men.

The battle lasts less than a minute and soon the Necromancer is also smelling the grass.

After I have been healed I return to my can of peaches, while listening to Arcturus tell and retell the story for the rest of the morning. “It was terrifying! Ellie has such a pure heart! It ripped me on the inside to see her body used for evil!”

A•va•tar (noun) ‘a-və-,tär
1: the incarnation of a Hindu deity

-The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Getting Into Character

It is a subtle shift from first person to third, from she to I, and it often feels like you are losing yourself.

Perhaps it is a symptom of laziness. Too many mental shortcuts. Instead of thinking, “What should my character do now?” you are thinking, “What should I do now?” And then the character is like a river than has breached its banks, flooding the landscape of your mind, flowing freely through the conduit of your body and into the real world.

You start thinking differently, saying things you normally wouldn’t, doing things that shock you. It is almost like the character is playing you. Some people say it feels like being possessed. Others call it an expression of the creative process.

Many writers, poets, and artists will tell you that they experience a similar phenomenon: sometimes the art seems to take on a life of its own; and no matter what they had envisioned, it comes out differently when it flows from the hand to the paper.

The artist submits to the will of the muse.

But when you LARP, your body is the canvas, and your costume, thoughts, and actions are the paint.

Before I truly got into character halfway through my first LARP game, I had though it would be just like playing a video game, only I would get to design the character instead of Sony or Nintendo. With this in mind, I created a static personality before the game, and thought I would be able to simply lay it over myself, like a carefully sculpted mask.

But when the avatar, the player, and the character all share one body and one mind, where does one begin and the other end? Who is designing whom?

Four years later I am still trying to decipher what exactly happened on that day, the second day of my life as a LARPer.

All morning I had been annoyed and resistant to the labels the men gave to me. I struggled for control and tried to align my avatar’s actions with my carefully crafted character design.

But it wouldn’t be until mid-day, when the leather clad-woman would appear in the tavern, carrying news of the death of a friend, that a subtle shift would start to occur within me. And I wouldn’t even notice that something had changed until it was far too late to turn back…

Samara will be dealing with some job and living situation concerns for a while and may need to take a break from this series - the editors hope to be able to publish more of her work in February, if not before!

Article © December 2007 by Samara Hayley Steele.