During my school days there was one common theme throughout daily life, character development.

It was thrust upon us so much that I totally dismissed the point that the teachers were trying to get across,  as one would do with anything shoved in their face at a young age.  That said, I guess the point did eventually come across without me knowing.

Their aim was to build our respective character’s.  Make us stronger, and able to face the big bad world without crumbling at the first big issue we came across, and give us the tools to succeed.  It was almost like a, “Suck it up soldier.  Get on with it” mentality.  Preparing us for battle.  Maybe if more schools did this there would be less emo’s around?

My girflfriend is a huge fan of Role-Playing-Games.  Especially the Japanese variety.  The aim of these games, for those that don’t know, seems to be to develop a character or team of characters to the point that they can progress and eventually finish/win/beat the final boss – and reach the end goal, ie. finish the game.

With these games, there’s a huge journey along the way.  Character development comes by the means of a points based system.  That is, do certain things and you’re then able to increase character elements/skills of the people you’re controlling.  Once done, you’re then able to take on more things, and progress further in the game.

I never quite understood the appeal of these games.  It seemed to me that games were a means of virtual-training (how geeky!).  My favorite at the moment being racing simulations.  I figure that I’m bettering myself while playing these sims.  I’m also a fan of first person shooters, again, justified because I believe I’m increasing my reaction time and awareness of my surroundings (how incredibly geeky!!).

RPG’s on the other hand, given what I said above, didn’t quite make sense to me.  But now they are starting to.

In my mind, developing a character in a game was a waste of time.  Why not put the same energy into developing your own character, the one you have, in real life.  The one that will actually help you in reality.  You.

What I was missing was that there’s a final goal in the game.  An ending.   An achievement.  That comes within a relatively short amount of time, enabling you to see how one would progress in real life should there exist a similar end goal.

With that in mind, going through the motions of building up a character in a game, trying things out with the ability to reload should you realise that you’ve made a grave mistake and don’t want your character to turn out that way, and getting to the end goal can be seen as a kind of training for what you have to do in real life to develop your character.

It shows you that there are steps along the way, and that even if you choose the wrong way there’s always a way back.  It clearly shows the benefits of spending time to achieve a change in oneself, and clearly shows that anything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and spend time on it.

These RPG’s mirror reality to an extent.  Know the goal, build yourself up to face it, attack it, and win.