Game Ideas Un limited: Prestige

  Most of you are aware that at one time I spent half a decade on a small Christian radio station, spinning records, running pre-recorded programs, doing interviews, reading news, and talking to an audience of unknown size.  The pay was substandard, certainly low for a young man with a wife, hopes of a family, and a college education; but it was work in the field I had hoped to pursue (music, not broadcasting), and although it didn't always pay the bills it kept us alive.

  My reasons for staying there were far too complicated to explain here now, and not terribly relevant to the focus of this article.  Yet while I was there I first heard an expression that I have remembered ever since.  It was said that radio on-air personalities are paid in prestige.  The salaries are rarely all that good, particularly on smaller or less popular stations, but the individuals who take the jobs are in our own way stars, known to vast dozens of fans who imagine our appearances, pay attention to our preferences, and hope to meet us.  In fact, local businesses sometimes paid the radio station to have us appear at their facilities, in the expectation that our presence would bring people to them (something which we also hoped would happen, as those appearances often paid the station bills and demonstrated to us and to the advertisers that we really did have listeners).  Sometimes part of the compensation we receive for a job is the prestige that is attached to it, the respect and admiration others show to someone who does that, whatever it is.

  This was brought back to me by the second book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and by the movie made from it.  In the book there is a character named Gilderoy Lockhart (wonderfully brought to life on the screen by Kenneth Branaugh), who takes the job of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Harry's rather prestigious and important wizarding school.  Lockhart has written a dozen books about his exploits against the supernatural powers of evil around the world, and he's making good money selling them, with his smiling attractive face on the covers, to impressed witch and wizard fans.  He holds the Order of Merlin (Third Class), is an Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile award.  He's come to teach Hogwarts students how he stands against the terrible evils in the world.  The problem is that he's a complete fraud.  He has never stood against any evils anywhere.  What he has done is visited with people who have, collected their stories in great detail, then used a bit of magic to make them forget that they did it, so he can make himself famous by publishing other people's stories as his successes.  He has no more skill at facing evil forces than Colin Creavy, first year student and Harry Potter fan.

  So why does he do it?  Why does he take the job?  There's such a risk that he'll be discovered, his deception revealed, as he tries to teach budding wizards a subject in which he has little experience and no skill.  It's doubtful that it would be for the money--his books are selling enormously well, and every time he appears at signings he winds up getting free promotion as photographers and reporters cover them for various wizard publications.  A professorship at a school, even an important school such as Hogwarts, can't pay much compared to that.

  The answer is that he does it for the prestige.  He wants to expand his credentials to include that he is Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Perhaps also he wants the prestige of having other professors at the school refer to him as their colleague, and to respect and admire what he considers his wide-ranging abilities (he actually proves to be inept at just about everything beyond stealing credit, generating publicity, and mugging for cameras).  He has a compelling desire to be Someone, and this position is his chance to move forward in that direction.

  It is that desire to be Someone that should be considered.  For those who have it, it is a compelling character motivation which is rarely sated.  Order of Merlin Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Arts Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award, along with best seller sales levels of his books, fans thronging his signings, and women getting silly around his pictures, are not enough for him.  It is not clear what, if anything, ever would be sufficient; but the chance to add this to his resume is something he can't let pass.  It is prestige, calling his name.

  There are people like this, people whose entire lives are motivated by the desire to have you notice them, who want adoring fans and will do whatever it takes to acquire them.  There are people less driven than that who still want to be seen as important, respected in their field, their names recognized by people they've never met.  Since there are people for whom this is a real motivation, it makes sense that our characters will often be driven by this as well.

Fame!
I'm gonna live for ever,
I'm gonna learn how to fly,
High!I feel it coming together,People will see me and cry,Fame!I'm gonna make it to heaven,Light up the sky like a flameFame!Ahh, I'm gonna live forever,Baby remember my name....

Fame
Michael Gore & Dean Pitchford

  So many real-life adventurers seem to have had this as the driving force in their lives, whether they climbed mountains, searched for the source of the Nile, attempted to reach the poles, or flew solo across an ocean.  Would they have done any of these things, were it not certain that others would notice and remember them?

  I should add as a caveat that this motivation does not appeal to everyone.  One of my sons (and wouldn't it be the height of impropriety at this moment to say which one) wants to blend into the background, to go through his world unnoticed.  He has always been this way, being the only toddler I've ever known who vociferously demanded that others stop looking at him.  Not everyone wants to be noticed.

  However, to one degree or another a lot of people want that recognition, and incorporating it into our characters can make them believable even when they do the unbelievable.  Why did he climb the impassible peak?  He wanted to be remembered as the one who passed it.  What made him go against the dragon alone?  He knew that success would make him a hero to the villagers.  What madness drove him to travel into uncharted uninhabited space?  He was going to make a name for himself.  These factors are all about prestige.

  Our fictional adventurers will in many cases be seeking the same thrill, the attentions and adoration of fans impressed by their successes.  As players, we can focus on this desire as part of what they do; as referees, we can include this reward in the game.  Have your player character heroes ever been treated to a tickertape parade, or whatever the equivalent might be in your game world?  Has anyone ever asked for an autograph, or wanted to be with them in a photograph, or suggested erecting a statue or a monument to them?  Prestige is what is sought; it can be insatiable, it can be fickle, it can be daunting.  Yet it can be obtained, and as such can be icing on the cake, particularly for those of us who consider cake that dry stuff that holds icing together and makes it culturally appropriate to eat it.

  Adventurers and heroes, like radio announcers, authors, professors, and yes, even game designers, are to some degree paid in prestige.  They do what they do in part to earn the respect and admiration of others.  Work that into your game, and you've made it that much more believable.

  Next week, something different.

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M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.