It was only about a week ago when it happened, and only just now did I realize how stupid I really was.
Oh, no. Not just stupid, but fall down flat on my face, catch the spit in my mouth, jump up and fall right back down again stupid. Yeah, it was that bad.
It was in my local gaming store, in a little shopping complex in Diamond Bar, California, and I was checking out the RPG that makes every gamer cringe in fear. The game that kicks us in our cribs at night, and forces us to realize just how alone and in the dark we really are. And no, it wasn't anything remotely gothic or hip.
It was Call of Cthulhu.
(Come on out from behind there, it's not really here. Imagine, a grown-up gamer like yourself hiding behind an Adventurer Screen. Sheesh.)
Anyway, as I was paging through the blasphemous texts, a kid stepped up to me with a sick little Beavis grin on his face and said, "Huh, CoC, huh?"
I ignored the fact that he had begun and ended his statement with 'huh' and said, "You know it." I smiled, fingering the Keeper's Handbook, just drooling at all the delicious information therein.
"Stupid, man."
I chanced a glance his way, not daring to say anything. Yet.
"I said it's stupid. What's the point?"
I allowed a glimpse of curiosity to glimmer across my face, my expression begging the sage wearing the Metallica T-shirt to speak more wisdom to me.
"I mean, you can't even try to be heroic."
He giggled, picked up his copy of the new weapons list for his favorite RPG and strutted away.
Call of Cthulhu: Unheroic?
That made something inside of me stir. Something dark and angry and hungry. So I sat up all night, thinking about that statement. Then, like a nightgaunt silent and swift, it flew into my head, tickling my brain, and I began to laugh.
Like I said, I was stupid then.
But, I'm better now. And now I'm !?@% off.
Heroes
Heroes are, perhaps, one of the first ideas that humanity ever came up with. The American philosopher Mortimer Adler wrote extensively on the subject, making heroism one of his "Great Ideas," and of course, Joseph Campbell spent his entire life researching the Hero's journey.
And now, we have an entire industry devoted to the subject. RPGs are designed to simulate myth-making. We are making legends with our pencils, paper and dice, and somehow, we've completely corrupted the idea into a burlesque of the original. Here, let me explain.
Think of some heroes. Go ahead, right off the top of your head. Better yet, think of some people that America regards as heroes. Many sports stars come to mind. People like Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson and Magic Johnson. But why are these guys heroes?
Well, Jordan is certainly successful in his trade. He makes millions of dollars every year playing a game he was born to play, and Bo Jackson shares the same title because of his diversity of talents, and of course, the immense talent of Magic goes without saying. But Johnson has something that the others do not, and I'm not talking about AIDS. He has courage. Real pure plain red hot guts. He put his life on the front page, spoke out about his condition, gave his money and his life, and put his fame on the chopping block. Courage.
And that's what heroism is about. Johnson didn't deserve the title 'hero' until the moment he decided to do something about his condition. AIDS didn't make him a hero, but his selflessness sure did. Magic Johnson decided to make a difference, despite the consequences. The other two are just doing what comes naturally. Remember, they have talent. Do you develop talent? No. Is talent a difficult thing to acquire? No. You're born with it. Born to become a sports star, born to exhibit your physical abilities. Big whoop. It doesn't matter if a person has talent, all that matters is what they do with it.
And then there's George Foreman. That's a biiiig man. Again, a case of natural physical prowess. Here's a man who achieved the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World (in other words, the guy who could beat you up with the most effective and most brutal method known to current science). And when he achieved that ... he realized there was nowhere else to go, nothing more to do.
So he started a search for ethics. For what Aristotle, Plato and Socrates called the Good Life; what Nietzsche called: "the only noteworthy human activity."
Now, many of you are probably wondering, "What do sports heroes have to do with Call of Cthulhu?" My friend, it has everything to do with heroism.
Heroes act. They do. And they do without thought to consequences they may have to face. That's what made Henry David Thoreau a hero. And Gandhi. And Martin Luther King, Jr. They were heroes because they acted, even if the consequences called for punishment, or pain or imprisonment. Or death. That's who true heroes are, folks.
Now... let's take a look at heroes in role-playing games.
RPG Heroes
In many fantasy RPG's, we play "heroes," and these heroes go out swinging swords and stinging spells and fight the forces of evil ... for a reward.
. Q: Why do we save the town from the evil Wizard-King?
A: Experience Points, Gold, Fame, Power, Magic Items and to gain the amorous attentions of the pretty barmaid in the tavern back home.
So, in essence, what we are doing is prostituting our heroism. We are selling our services as heroes to do the good deed we should be doing anyway because we are the only ones who can.
Why did Frodo take the ring to Mordor? Better still, why did Samwise not keep the ring when he had the chance?
We in the RPG community use the term "we", because in the past I have been guilty of it as well), have manipulated and mutilated heroism into gold gobbling. We who are supposed to be the experts in the field. We who interact with modern mythology, who make new stories of old gods, and interface with our imaginations. We have done this.
And how do we gain all the gold and glory?
You know exactly how we get it. Go on, say it.
That's right, we kill.
No, I'm sorry, but there is just no way to get around this.
Kill murder kill.
Kill the kobold, kill the troll, kill the dragon, kill the (insert random victim ... I mean villain ... here)
So, to sum up: Heroes are people who kill for money, glory, fame, power and political position.
Now, I can see why Call of Cthulhu isn't very heroic.
After all, investigators in CoC have absolutely no reward to took forward to when encountering the terrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. Those who succeed in thwarting the servants of the Dark Gods usually wind up maimed, imprisoned, insane or just plain dead - and sometimes they encounter fates even worse than death. if not, they are certainly estranged from society because of the lingering contamination that dealing with Mi-Go, Deep Ones and the Dark Young of ShubNiggurath leaves on their soul. They're just never the same.
And, why is it then, that these investigators act against the darkness, even if there is no reward? Because, friends and neighbors, they are heroes. They act, because no-one else will. No-one else can. Like Stan "The Man!" Lee once wrote, "With great power comes great responsibility." Knowledge is power, folks, and knowing that something is creeping up on the oblivious pod-people that most of us are demands that we do something about it, regardless of the consequences. That's called duty. Duty. Look up James Q. Wilson's book The Moral Sense, and read the chapter on that subject. You'll walk a little different.
That's why I don't run games that make gore and violence and profiteering a heroic thing. That's why Call of Cthulhu is the most heroic RPG on the market. There are some others, too, but when it comes down to it, none of them even come close to touching CoC.
And if you ever have the opportunity to enter my interpretation of the worlds of HP & Co., you will find tentacles and terror, slime and sludge and the seventh dimension, but you will also find the most beautiful of human expressions: heroism.
Role-playing offers us a chance to play out the roles of our heroes. To see how you and I -- Jack and Jane Mundane -- can achieve the greatness that heroes can. To fight against impossible odds, not for the reward -- but because we must.
Back to Shadis #22 Table of Contents
Back to Shadis List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master List of Magazines
© Copyright 1995 by Alderac Entertainment Group
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com