The key to understanding how these things might not be at odds with our Christian ethos is by considering game worlds vs the world as it is. There is a divorce between fantasy and reality and most people can distinguish between the two fairly easily. And morals in the fantasy world don’t necessarily have to comport to those in the real world (unless morals in the fantasy world transverse the barrier between the two and end up affecting the person in the real world—such as sins in the mind like anger, lust, blasphemy, etc.).

Here’s a basic example that doesn’t even take into account a specific faith system. In Super Mario Bros., players take on the role of an overweight plummer who crushes turtles by jumping on them. In the real world, this would be entirely inappropriate, a gross act of animal cruelty. Yet in the game world, we do it easily and without thought to its real-world analogue. The moral component is missing, because we’re very well aware that the gameworld is fantasy.

As these gameworlds come to mirror the real world to greater degree, those who will find themselves able to divorce the fantasy from the reality will begin to shrink. Which is why you’ll see a number of Christians who cannot imagine how other Christians can play a game like Fallout 3 and still hold to a consistent Chrisitanity. Currently though, even these more realistic games are still pretty obviously fantasy-based.

In Fallout 3, I can talk to admittedly grotesque transhumans who have been alive for over two hundred years. I run and jump while carrying hundreds of pounds of weaponry without slowing, even if I have the physique of a petite female runner. I can enter a world that’s never known me and with which I have no experience and in a very short time become its most celebrated hero. I can get shot multiple times, break bones, and suffer radiation poisoning and then simply visit a doctor to get better. There are myriad signposts to point the player to the fact that she is engaging in fantasy. And if fantasy, then the normal operative moral rules do not apply. At least not int the same way.

So then, what is the purpose then of fantasy play? Enterainment is an obvious possibility. But many game-players engage for more than just entertainment. There is the challenge and satisfaction of competetion (whether against others or against a system of rules). There is the exercise of the mind as well. Beyond just the complexity of problem-solving, strategy, and tactics, the narrative systems of games present all kinds of ideas and abstractions to think about. Experiences can cultivate thoughtfulness and experiencing things outside the realm of one’s normal experiences can spark a new path of thinking and allow one to reevaluate prior conclusions. And in experiencing the stories of people who are not like us, we learn empathy. These are some of the great uses of literature as well. In walking a mile in the shoes of another (even if that other is wholly built of fantasy), we learn to better appreciate the human condition.

Personally, the gratuitous violence of some of these games (e.g. Fallout 3) does little to tittilate me. I’m not fourteen and so I don’t think that killing is cool. I am largely a pacifist and yet in Fallout 3 I killed without remorse because 1) that was the story that I was presented with and 2) I wasn’t actually killing anything (since I’m well-aware that the raiders or townspeople or super-mutants I killed were merely interface mechanisms of the game system, not real people or creatures).

As far as the karma system goes, it really wasn’t at all related to Hinduism. It was a misnamed attempt at a reputation system—since its only effect in the game is to determine how other people think of you. That said, even if it was a system fully consistent with Hinduism, I wouldn’t have had any problem playing the game despite my Christianity. Again, this stems from the fact that participation in a gameworld doesn’t demand acquiesence to that gameworld’s belief- or moral-structure (if it has one). Just like how I can (and have) read and enjoy a book on the life of the Buddha doesn’t mean I’m participating in Buddhist beliefs any more than your experience with the New Testament makes you a follower of Jesus Christ.

Again, it’s all a matter of distinguishing between the world that is and the experimental worlds that are not.

Then there is the games karma system. Karma is a part of religious system involving multiple lives and the burning away of the individual self. Karma in Fallout 3 is some kind of John Lennon “Instant Karma” nonsense masquerading as complex morality: The avatar kills a character that enslaves ‘children’ and it gets “good karma”. But if the avatar takes the dead character’s belongings, it gets “bad karma”. The avatar get’s “good karma” for killing an amoral elitist, but is not allowed to sleep in the dead man’s bed because it is “owned”. The avatar can’t kill any ‘children’ but it can enslave them. No ‘child’ murders are allowed in the game because that would be crossing some moral line, even though the game makers actually think that killing any other character is amusing as hell, and the bloodier the better. Of course, there is a dissonant sound when the avatar does something ‘bad’ and I suppose that this is considered a negative consequence.

Again I am not judging you, or even your behavior. I just honestly cannot think of game less related to, or respectful of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

One thing I really found interesting with Fallout 3‘s karma system was that it was only partially based on NPC witnesses. In other like games, so long as you do something bad yet no one sees or your victim doesn’t have time to cry out, your karma doesn’t take a hit. Yet in Fallout 3, while the result of being caught red-handed can be mild or terrifying, there is an invisible deity (the F3 game system) who tracks and reports on your every infraction.

So whereas in many other such role-playing experiences, I would find myself playing the stealthy thief character who would commit a multitude of crime but never get caught, in Fallout 3 my style of gameplay changed dramatically. My first time through, I played as a genuine do-gooder and because of the moral system, I was unable to engage in any of my typical subterfuge without getting caught. It was fun and a bit of a challenge and it was a struggle sometimes to not just end certain characters in the most utilitarian fashion. This was the first time that a game’s moral system actively altered my manner of play. (I think The Witcher would have done something at least vageuely similarly had I continued playing—I was experiencing hardware issues at the time).

The second time through, I played as a lawless Asian woman, punked out and essentially of raider disposition, both in look and attitude. I nuked the good town of Megaton (after killing and looting everyone there). I joined the slavers of Paradise Falls. I turned in the android. I destroyed both the superhero and his masked nemesis. I had people trying to jump me at every turn. In it’s way, it was crazy and wonderful.

And unlike with Bioshock, there is a huge benefit to being an evil character in Fallout 3. The game was not only easier to complete and interact with if one held no concern for the rules of society, but I was never at a loss for money or guns. I actually kind of prefer it when it’s harder to be quote-unquote good than it is to be bad.

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Obviously there are a lot of games out there not worth playing, but at least Fallout challenges players to think and to make difficult decisions–at least then we have something to talk about!

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