Introducing: The Pacifist Gamer
Pacifism:
“the opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes or gaining advantage”
I am proud to introduce The Pacifist Gamer, an experiment in alternate gaming styles. Hopefully this will be a series that I can continue over the course of a few games so as to explore how deeply violence is embedded in games and their structures of reward and progress. My main aim is to play games that usefully require some amount of violence in order to achieve their goals but have the ability to be played at some level without directly fighting or killing any opposition. I don’t mean games such as Thief 3 or Splinter Cell where such practices might be encouraged but rather games that provide the opportunity but don’t actually expect anyone to take that path.
For this exercise I have a few rules that I will adhere to:
- As a direct result of my actions in the game I will not cause harm to anything or anyone
- If something inherent in the game/level design leads to the harming of something I will try to prevent it if at all possible
- Others around can act as they please and I will not impede their progress
Those are the three for the moment and I already have a couple of games planned for this exercise with the first being Morrowind, and the second a choice between Plants vs Zombies and Left 4 Dead. If anyone has any other suggestions for games that might be fun to undertake as The Pacifist Gamer please let me know.
