The Gaming Outpost

I don’t know what I’m going to talk about. For a column, that could be something of a problem. Here I’ve decided to write roughly a thousands words a week and I’ve spent the last few minutes looking at the white heading on the blue background of my notebook’s screen: Symbolic Order. At least I know what I want to call this thing. And maybe that’s as good a place as any to start.

I chose the title for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, the words sound cool. There’s something neat about them, some hint of hidden meaning, of playing with concepts, and everything else that makes the postmodern side of me say, “oohhhh.” Second, it’s a wonderful concept. The symbolic order. If you’re not up on your Jacques Lacan, look it up; you’re in for some cool–if demanding–reading. It’s the trinity of the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic. When taken as a whole, these three become reality. Or, at least, reality as we, being linguistically bound beings, are capable of experiencing it. To oversimplify, the Imaginary is images, the Symbolic is language, and the Real is That Which Cannot Be Said, lending it some odd sort of Cthulhu-esque significance.

But what does any of this have to do with gaming?

Lots.

I’ve been into role-playing games since fifth grade. As an eleven year old, I would sit with my friend on this strange little rusty metal box in the back corner of the playground at recess. We’d have the contents of the red D&D basic box spread out in front of us, complete with the cheap dice you had to color in with a crayon. He was always the DM and our adventures primarily consisted of me playing a thief (a preference that persists to this day) wandering through dungeons my friend was insistent I map out at every step of the way. I wasn’t for mapping then, I’m still not today, but he was very firm in this. I went along so as not to jeopardize any wealth–or pretty barmaids–my character might accumulate.

I like to think that I’ve grown as a role-player in the eleven years following those lunchtime games. I’ve certainly acquired a large enough collection and spent enough money to lay some claim to forward momentum. During that time, I’ve developed a real love for this hobby and have begun to explore it from a non-fan (to coin a probably inappropriate term) standpoint. I’ve started to dig into role-playing as something more than a fun way to hang out with friends. To study it, I guess, in much the same way movies and literature are studied. And that’s where the symbolic order comes in.

I firmly believe reality is language. The world is text. However, it can be a difficult thing to explain to people or to get them to even consider as a possibility. After all, it’s a frightening concept. I was at a philosophy discussion two weeks ago and the moderator had chosen the topic: certainty and doubt. We were arguing about the definition of belief (for the purposes of somehow equating certainty with belief) and one woman threw up her hands and said, “This is all just semantics.” I nodded and told her that everything is semantics. She brushed me off, shook her head, said, “I don’t believe that.” Which was an interesting response in light of the topic at hand. But the point is, she didn’t (couldn’t?) believe that reality is language. Perhaps if only given a model…

Role-playing games. They are reality as language and language as reality. Characters are symbols on paper. Worlds are descriptions from the mouths of game masters. Everything is spoken or written. There is nothing to see or touch or hear (disregarding handouts, miniatures, background music, and other such periphery add-ons). Role-playing is a perfect demonstration of the symbolic order in action. The Imaginary and the Symbolic are the spoken words, the marks on the paper, the numbers on the dice. The Real is everything else, everything filled in by the players’ minds. Everything left unsaid. Reality, real outside-of-game reality, works the same way. But I won’t bother getting into that because I’d probably bore and/or alienate (most of) my audience.

So that’s why I’m calling this column “Symbolic Order.” Because it fits. Which begs an important question: What, exactly, is this column about? Well, to be honest, a bunch of things, gentle reader. First and foremost, it’ll delve into role-playing games at what I’ll refer to as “a deeper level.” RPG’s fascinate me and I plan to bang at them a bit with all these poststructuralist theories I’m so very fond of. I’ll do Derridian readings of Dungeons & Dragons. I’ll apply Lacan to the process of GMing. I’ll look at Freud in relation to Vampire: The Masquerade. In short, I’ll have fun and I’m hoping you will as well.

Also, this column will, on a non-regular basis, contain reviews of Products Worth Paying For. To be honest, this industry produces a lot of crap. But it also births a considerable wealth of high quality, interesting, and desirable publications. I’ll talk about those. I won’t talk about games that don’t fit that category because, well, it doesn’t seem worth the time. I’m a picky and demanding bastard, so you can be sure any products that show up in this column are at least of some very high percentile. I can’t guarantee that your tastes will run parallel to mine but I can say that I’ll do my best to seek out the gems hitting a store near you.

Lastly, Symbolic Order may go off in strange directions occasionally. (Being the editor means I can get away with that. Just kidding.) This being the Gaming Outpost, I shall do my best to stick to that topic. However, gaming is undeniably huge. Because it is, on a very base level, a simulation of reality, anything that fits under the umbrella of that term is valid in a column about gaming. I can’t give any more details than that at this moment but I do have one related-to-gaming-but-tangentially-so column written, so you should get a better idea of what I’m talking about soon.

Okay, so I’ve hit my thousand-word limit. I hope the above serves as a good introduction.

Next week: Race and Class and (maybe) some reviews.