Vegan RPGs: Hear me out... wait! Don't go!

Here at 103% Complete we strive to fill all the niches that everybody else misses, which seriously eats into our juicy clickbait revenues. As the title of this post suggests, we're looking to inform and entertain the audience intersection between those who are interested in the politics of veganism and those who enjoy videogames enough to read what I'd (generously) regard as an obscurely popular video game blog.

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Because the OED isn't very nuanced in its definition of veganism, I'm going to take the definition put forward by The Vegan Society itself:

'Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.'

So what does this have to do RPG games? I'll tell ya. The popularity of RPGs and MMOs with an RPG bent to them have resulted in the development and maintenance of increasingly complex game worlds, with rich character creation, field combat and crafting systems already the norm in the big budget titles. The developers behind such games want to create a world into which the player can inject as much of their creativity and personality into their gameplay as they wish to. These varying degrees of expression are part of the huge draw these games have. 

The possibilities are endless

We see in the Mass Effect series that notions of gender identity need not be heteronormative, In Eve Online you can carve out a niche as an operative in a megacorporation and have an equally valid experience as someone who exclusively engages in mining or space piracy. Even games like Minecraft without strict metrics for victory and success invite roleplaying servers to pop up. But (and this is where I get to the vegan bit, I promise) could you exist and thrive in such a world as someone who actively would rather not exploit in-game animals wherever possible? Even if you're not a vegan in real-life it may be an interesting roleplay option. I know people who roleplay being a shopkeeper in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which I remind you is a single player game where shop ownership is not coded into the game. Being a vegan mage is far from the oddest roleplay option out there.    

So how can a would-be vegan player fall foul of animal exploitation in their RPG gameplay? Let's look at some common categories.

Food: Diet is the obvious place to start with real life vegans but in many RPGs, keeping on top of your characters' nutrition isn't integral to being competitive. Topping up your HP and MP can usually be handled with spells, potions or just a good night's sleep. However, more often than not it is the slabs of beef and wheels of cheese that provide the greatest benefit as consumables in games such as in Contact and Punch Club, where simply frying a steak exceeds the usefulness of any plant based cooking in the game if it even exists at all. You can get away with a vegan diet in the Paper Mario series, even if there is the option to literally smack animal called Whacka across the head and consume the swelling bruise that results from the assault.  

You have to brain this adorable creature in order to obtain a huge health potion.

Gear: Generally speaking, most Western RPGs eventually get to the point where you're working primarily with metalwork to produce armour and equipment. Cruelty ridden leatherworking and tanning options are usually superseded by metallic, magical or other inorganic materials. If you really can't find an alternative to leather in the early game, you can usually 'do it in your pants' until you level up, even if your pants are made out of... fur. Dammit, Skyrim! On a side note, being creative in Minecraft takes a massive hit because coloured blocks (cubes of dyed wool harvested from cubic sheep) are a no-no. 

The big problem with gear comes when the game has a loot based crafting system, which requires you to kill enemies (usually creatures) in order to assemble the items that you need. Even if your game's economy is driven entirely by gold, most traditional RPGs require a whole lotta compulsory killing to proceed one way or another which leads us to...

XP/Progress: Killing monsters and mobs to get XP helps you gain LV which you absolutely need in most games to make any progress whatsoever. Unskippable bosses. Death and blood is usually hard to avoid. Undertale is a notable exception to this rule which leads us to really 'lawyering up' the definition of veganism, which includes 'as far as is possible and practical'. One of the narrative themes of Xenoblade Chronicles X is the peaceful coexistence with nature wherever possible. Predatorial beasts will hunt you down but many of the creatures will never pose a threat to you and your team and it is perfectly possible to leave them well alone. Although the apparent 'threat to humanity' is never realised if you don't purge these 'pests' at all. Seems like some thinly veiled pro-hunting propaganda to me...

*Michael Jackson's Earth Song plays*

The 'random encounter' mechanic underlying most RPGs heavily implies that the indigenous creatures are attacking you directly, which somewhat excuses the player of any harm they do to the creature in order to survive. But since fleeing battle is usually an option, the vegan RPG player is encouraged to acquire the minimal murder related XP possible to progress through the game. If you want to do the most vegan run possible in Final Fantasy VII, you're going to have to restrict your grinding activities to enemies which are entirely inorganic in nature... and you're going to have to do without Knights of the Round because of the implied avoidable Chocobo abuse, which brings us to...

Pokémon:  I'm sorry but Pokémon is just out of the question. The 'they want to fight' argument just falls apart under any critical examination. The entire game is about violent animal bloodsport. You can hang around in the starting town in a perpetual state of helping you mum to move in to your new house, but once you take that starter Pokémon... you're an exploitative monster. Shame on your and your house.  Monster battlers of almost any other variety fall foul of this too so all of you hardcore Bomberman Tournament fans out there can just hang your head in shame.

Pictured above: Barbaric bloodpsort

So next time you enter your own preferred virtual fantasy world, try and examine how dominated your experience is by the exploitation of animals in that world. As for me, I'm heading back to my Animal Crossing village, where the bugs and fish specimen collections remain proudly empty and my debts to Tom Nook, remain very high indeed. 

       

   

Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” Should Have Been a Video Game

The notion of adapting works into different media has always been prevalent in popular culture, although this is often a cynical attempt to make money from brand recognition more than anything else. I recently watched a few episodes of the Joss Whedon TV thing, or “program”, if you will, “Dollhouse”, and it inspired me to write an article.

For those of you who don’t know, the “program” is about a company that effectively deals in slaves, or “dolls”, in modern America. The dolls, however, have willingly signed up to have their minds wiped, and then have new personalities inserted to suit the needs of the customers. This can range from fulfilling sexual desires or emotional needs to making them into temporary assassins or spies, depending on the client. After they have done the job, they have their mind wiped and reset back to their default mode. After a few years of servitude they are given their old personality back and sent back out into society. If I explained that badly, feel free to do a quick Wikipedia check.*

Joss Whedon, showing off his new banister.

 Whilst I think the “program” is okay, I couldn’t help thinking it was a missed opportunity. The creators clearly put a lot of time into devising a unique and interesting premise, and then building a world in which this premise can be explored in different ways. I couldn’t help feeling, however, that this premise would have been far better suited to a video game.

There are two good reasons for thinking this. Firstly, the idea of interchangeable personalities within the same character is a brilliant gameplay concept. Not only does it give a narrative explanation for why one person can do so many diverse things (unlike, say “Grand Theft Auto” or “Fallout”, where we just accept that a talented murderer is also brilliant at flying planes or fixing satellite dishes), but it also gives excellent progression and limitations on a character. It can also be used to explain why you lose useful abilities between levels, as your character has been reset and can no longer hack computers or speak French. Compare this to the “Metroid” games, which have to come up with increasingly convoluted ways of explaining why Samus has none of her equipment at the start of each game.

Such as the incident at the start of "Other M", where Samus loses her character traits, empowerment and likability.

The second reason I think the “doll” idea would work so well is the narrative potential. Throughout the course of “Dollhouse” we learn more about the previous life of Echo, the central protagonist and one of the dolls. Whilst I think “Dollhouse” does a decent job of exploring her past and her motivations, I think this could have worked far better in the form of a video game. A confused perspective works to a degree in a television “program”, but when we experience that character’s confusion in an interactive way it becomes far more engaging. There is an episode of “Dollhouse” where Echo has memories of breaking into a laboratory, and these break through her memory loss, helping her artificial personality do it’s job. This is fine to watch, but I feel it would have worked a lot better if we were playing as Echo, and had the choice between relying on her amazing but artificial skills or her personality, something that is a central and seemingly invincible part of her. This tension seems so much more exciting in a video game format.

I think it’s such a shame that there is a perceived cultural hierarchy, that seems to suggest that film and television are always the best formats. It is a simple fact that some ideas suit some media formats better than others. Should fans be constantly pushing for a “Halo” film? Would “Citizen Kane” work as a television series? Could “Watchmen” work the same way as a film?

I'm pretty sure Alan Moore loves it when his deconstruction of an entire medium is reduced to "ooh, look at her bum".

 Well, at least for the last one we know the answer. And it’s no.

*A fun game to play with Wikipedia with a friend or friends is to hit “random article”, read out the title (and nothing else) and then you all have to draw your interpretation of that title in 5 minutes. Jak and I have spent many an evening playing this, and I now have a whole stack of drawings that look like the holy book of the shittest cult ever.