Comparing something as mystifying such as Life with a genre of
videogame may seem downright silly & vague at first. But there are
indeed some striking similarities between the character development
mechanics of a Role-Playing-Game (RPG) & that of Life.
In an RPG, you have to create a character first. You can choose race, gender & class. Classes determine the playing style of a character. There are mainly 3 types of classes. One is the Warrior who prefers an head on attack, the Rogue, who likes to sneak on enemies & hit 'em real hard and the Mage--who stays at a distance & controls the battlefield. Now Life is not limited to only 3 classes, there are multitudes of them & each person, whoever they are, belongs to a certain class.
In real life, we can indulge ourselves in any activity we want & the more time we spend, we gain experience on that activity. This is remarkably similar to the basic mechanics of an RPG. Take Skyrim, you can choose activities ranging from cooking to alchemy & the more time you spend on doing something the more experience points (XP) you get. You can get XP doing almost anything in an RPG just like real life. Once your accumulated XP crosses a threshold, you reach a higher level in the game and your overall skill in that area increases permanently. Again, just like real life. Then you can do things in that area you couldn't do earlier (naturally). Like in early stage in Skyrim, you can only build weapons & armor of Iron & steel. But as your skill increases, you can forge equipments on more exotic materials like ebony or even Dragonbone. I remember while playing Oblivion, my hammers always broke down while I had to do a repair. But as I spend more & more time on repairing things, my skill increased to the extent where no matter how many repairs I did, my hammers never broke.
On to some meatier stuff, then. In an RPG, every character, irrespective of their class shares some common attributes. In the Dragon age series these are called----strength, willpower, dexterity, magic, cunning & constitution. Each of these attributes has a specific effect on a character & it varies depending on the class the character belongs. Whenever anyone levels up in an RPG, he/she gets some points (say, 3) to spend on these attributes. Now here's the deal, in order to get the best out of a character, to make it as powerful as it can be, this choice is crucial. Characters in each class only requires 2 or at most 3 attributes increased in a specific ratio & it's quite natural----a warrior will require great amount of strength to hit the hardest, enough willpower to increase his/her level of stamina, to keep those hits coming all day long & also a few points in constitution to increase their survivability in battlefield. Rogues only need points in cunning & dexterity in a 2:1 or sometimes in 1:2 ratio. Spreading these points thin can be fatal for the character as it stunts their growth. Role-playing is the name of the game here.
To illustrate this further, I'll share one of my early experiences with RPG's. I was a novice in RPG when I played Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O) for the first time. I had a 2-handed warrior build. But as I leveled up & gained attribute points, I spread them thin across all attributes instead of concentrating on a selected few. There was a point in the game where I had to duel one-on-one against a character & it was a nightmarish experience. I died a dozen times in that area. There was the lesson, I couldn't build my character properly & the game was punishing me for it. In my next playthrough, my character was a dual weapon rogue and I made my choices according to only the needs of that character, allocated points in only two attributes (dex & cun) & equipped all the right equipments that boosted the character further. Again, I reached the duel stage. I was expecting my character to put up a real fight this time but to my amazement, the fight was over before it had any chance to become challenging. My character simply massacred the opponent without getting a single hit. See how much difference it made?
The main objective, the most satisfactory area in RPGs is becoming
what your character is meant to be----the destiny of any character is to
become the most powerful in their respective class, be it warrior, rogue
or mage & to focus only on those attributes that augment their
natural abilities. In real life too, people who achieve long term success
follow their guts & focus immensely on only a few areas which
utilizes their natural talents and that makes all the difference. They
become a master of some & not the jack-of-all like the above
mentioned build. 'Time' is in real life what attribute points are in RPGs, I believe.
At this point, you know that you belong to a certain class in life. But unlike an RPG, which simply gives us the choice to choose a class at the very start of a game, in Life we are simply born into different classes. But which class do you really belong in Life? There is really no surefire way of knowing the answer to this question other than following your instincts. Everyone is capable of doing something exceptionally good since their childhood & that's really an indication of the class they belong. You need to find what truly excites you, where your talents lie, what you can do all day long without getting bored, what are you deeply passionate about----knowing the answer to these questions will eventually take you to the answer to the big one and only after that you will be able to focus on areas that augment your natural talents.
If you look more closely on the objective of RPGs, you may find that it's about recognizing what truly matters to your character & letting everything else slide. Like a mage only needs points in magic & willpower & never in strength, dexterity or cunning. Some people just live their lives on "auto-pilot" or doing what everyone else seems to be thus following the herd and never gets to direct their lives. Society constantly tries to push us down a certain path & feeds us with enough "distractions" to forget all these "deep stuff" & just keep flowing with the current. Just like any RPG allows to auto-allocate attribute points so that the player doesn't have to think about all these, keeping things much easier but that only results in a weaker build. It always takes swimming against the current to get where you are meant to be.
It's remarkable how much similarities RPGs share with real life & it's really fascinating to imagine Life as a big RPG itself and all of us as players----gaining experiences, moving up levels, breaking new grounds & exploring new areas. If you really want to start looking at life through this exciting paradigm then your first quest ("mission" in RPG term) will be to find out what you truly love to do & get involved in it. Don't back down on who you are, follow your heart & enjoy the game of Life.
In an RPG, you have to create a character first. You can choose race, gender & class. Classes determine the playing style of a character. There are mainly 3 types of classes. One is the Warrior who prefers an head on attack, the Rogue, who likes to sneak on enemies & hit 'em real hard and the Mage--who stays at a distance & controls the battlefield. Now Life is not limited to only 3 classes, there are multitudes of them & each person, whoever they are, belongs to a certain class.
In real life, we can indulge ourselves in any activity we want & the more time we spend, we gain experience on that activity. This is remarkably similar to the basic mechanics of an RPG. Take Skyrim, you can choose activities ranging from cooking to alchemy & the more time you spend on doing something the more experience points (XP) you get. You can get XP doing almost anything in an RPG just like real life. Once your accumulated XP crosses a threshold, you reach a higher level in the game and your overall skill in that area increases permanently. Again, just like real life. Then you can do things in that area you couldn't do earlier (naturally). Like in early stage in Skyrim, you can only build weapons & armor of Iron & steel. But as your skill increases, you can forge equipments on more exotic materials like ebony or even Dragonbone. I remember while playing Oblivion, my hammers always broke down while I had to do a repair. But as I spend more & more time on repairing things, my skill increased to the extent where no matter how many repairs I did, my hammers never broke.
On to some meatier stuff, then. In an RPG, every character, irrespective of their class shares some common attributes. In the Dragon age series these are called----strength, willpower, dexterity, magic, cunning & constitution. Each of these attributes has a specific effect on a character & it varies depending on the class the character belongs. Whenever anyone levels up in an RPG, he/she gets some points (say, 3) to spend on these attributes. Now here's the deal, in order to get the best out of a character, to make it as powerful as it can be, this choice is crucial. Characters in each class only requires 2 or at most 3 attributes increased in a specific ratio & it's quite natural----a warrior will require great amount of strength to hit the hardest, enough willpower to increase his/her level of stamina, to keep those hits coming all day long & also a few points in constitution to increase their survivability in battlefield. Rogues only need points in cunning & dexterity in a 2:1 or sometimes in 1:2 ratio. Spreading these points thin can be fatal for the character as it stunts their growth. Role-playing is the name of the game here.
To illustrate this further, I'll share one of my early experiences with RPG's. I was a novice in RPG when I played Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O) for the first time. I had a 2-handed warrior build. But as I leveled up & gained attribute points, I spread them thin across all attributes instead of concentrating on a selected few. There was a point in the game where I had to duel one-on-one against a character & it was a nightmarish experience. I died a dozen times in that area. There was the lesson, I couldn't build my character properly & the game was punishing me for it. In my next playthrough, my character was a dual weapon rogue and I made my choices according to only the needs of that character, allocated points in only two attributes (dex & cun) & equipped all the right equipments that boosted the character further. Again, I reached the duel stage. I was expecting my character to put up a real fight this time but to my amazement, the fight was over before it had any chance to become challenging. My character simply massacred the opponent without getting a single hit. See how much difference it made?
At this point, you know that you belong to a certain class in life. But unlike an RPG, which simply gives us the choice to choose a class at the very start of a game, in Life we are simply born into different classes. But which class do you really belong in Life? There is really no surefire way of knowing the answer to this question other than following your instincts. Everyone is capable of doing something exceptionally good since their childhood & that's really an indication of the class they belong. You need to find what truly excites you, where your talents lie, what you can do all day long without getting bored, what are you deeply passionate about----knowing the answer to these questions will eventually take you to the answer to the big one and only after that you will be able to focus on areas that augment your natural talents.
If you look more closely on the objective of RPGs, you may find that it's about recognizing what truly matters to your character & letting everything else slide. Like a mage only needs points in magic & willpower & never in strength, dexterity or cunning. Some people just live their lives on "auto-pilot" or doing what everyone else seems to be thus following the herd and never gets to direct their lives. Society constantly tries to push us down a certain path & feeds us with enough "distractions" to forget all these "deep stuff" & just keep flowing with the current. Just like any RPG allows to auto-allocate attribute points so that the player doesn't have to think about all these, keeping things much easier but that only results in a weaker build. It always takes swimming against the current to get where you are meant to be.
It's remarkable how much similarities RPGs share with real life & it's really fascinating to imagine Life as a big RPG itself and all of us as players----gaining experiences, moving up levels, breaking new grounds & exploring new areas. If you really want to start looking at life through this exciting paradigm then your first quest ("mission" in RPG term) will be to find out what you truly love to do & get involved in it. Don't back down on who you are, follow your heart & enjoy the game of Life.
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