Developer(s): Obsidian Entertainment
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Hours played: 35 hours
An aspect of WRPGs (also looking at you, FromSoft) that used to not gel with me was creating a ‘build’ at the very beginning of a game. Defining the kind of playstyle I was going to adopt before learning what any of these stats do; potentially locking myself out of experiences before getting to know the world; choosing what kind of person I was going to be. It was (though only to a small degree) anxiety-inducing. In reality, the design of these games meant that my path to the final boss wasn’t determined at birth – you can evolve a fluid playstyle through assigning stats later on, dialogue options, exploration, etc. and some games even allow you to ‘re-spec’ your stats once you find a certain NPC. And yet, I wondered if there was something bigger at play here.
Fast forward to today, I have a newfound appreciation for this feature. On the one hand, creating a build allows each playthrough to feel personal and encourages replaying with new tactics. On the other hand, my psychological hypothesis is that for someone going through his 20’s, who has been very openly neurotic about wanting to ‘belong’ somewhere while being crushed by impostor syndrome, digital roleplaying offers me a unique challenge and reward: can you find your place in this brave new world with the stats you’ve chosen for yourself? If you can, you will have fully immersed yourself there. You will feel a sense of belonging. And I can’t get enough of this feeling.
I have selected Fallout: New Vegas to illustrate my points not only because I’m currently playing through it and it was the inspiration for this article, but also because its exquisite design reasserts at every step that you are carving out a place for yourself in its world. It’s easily one of the more dynamic and thoughtful AAA RPGs out there.
Early days in the wasteland: impostor syndrome
Impostor syndrome (or phenomenon) was first coined by Pauline Clance, who defined it as “internal experience of intellectual phoniness” (Clance, pg.71) in high-achieving individuals. This feeling is increasingly prevalent in gaming communities where social media and the ability to partake in the discourse surrounding games can leave players feeling inadequate. It is why we see articles validating Elden Ring players’ experiences after they discount their strategies as “cheeseing” the game. For those who identify as ‘gamers’, not immediately clicking with a new game can be a blow to their self-concept.
Stepping out into the blinding light of Fallout: New Vegas’ wasteland, this is exactly how I felt. All the terminology I had accrued from other (typically fantasy-inspired) RPGs was useless in the face of so many new, interlinking systems and social norms. Every corner of every room felt fraught with failure. You might accidentally steal something and lower your karma. You might chow down on gecko steak and iguana bits to the degree that you give yourself radiation sickness. You might stuff your pockets with everything you can get your hands on to find that your speed has been reduced to a snail’s pace. You might sell items in your inventory to make space, only to find out later that they had a hidden application that is now lost to you forever. If you’re anything like me, wanting to play at least semi-optimally, perfectionism (a common response to the impostor phenomenon) may get the better of you and put you off from playing.
But remember, this inadequacy is somewhat by design. As a courier in the New Vegas wasteland who delivered the wrong package at the wrong time and received a bullet in your head for your troubles, you are cast at the bottom of the New Vegas food chain. It’s no coincidence that the main quest points you in the direction of some rinky-dink towns and scattershot outposts, and forces you to make nearly a whole lap of the wasteland before hitting the Vegas Strip. Feeling confused and lost, maybe stumbling about a bit, brings you and your player character closer. Trust in the narrative process. The RPG genre comes packaged with the expectation that, if you persist with the game, you will get stronger and eventually conquer the Strip.
Finding your feet: understanding your strengths
In an American Psychological Association article summarising the literature on overcoming the impostor phenomenon, Kevin Cokley (Palmer, 2021) urges sufferers to celebrate successes and take stock of reality: “The accomplishments don’t have to feel significant. “It can also be little things that, taken together, show you to be an incredibly competent, high-functioning professional.”
Fortunately for us in the virtual playspace (and not the cutthroat working world), games are often designed to recognise our achievements and offer intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Keep on exploring New Vegas and you’ll find the weapons, gear, and items that allow you to get the most out of your stats. If the game is really well-designed, this whole process of guiding the player by the nose will feel completely invisible to them – important for feeling-impostors looking for any excuse to downplay their achievements. New Vegas excels at guiding the player’s eye and making them feel like geniuses when they follow the trail of breadcrumbs: landmarks loom high into the skybox; roads on the map lead to tantalising dead ends; radio broadcasts pique the player’s interest; NPCs have a lot to say about neighbouring factions and their operations in the local area. This snowballs until you catch yourself thinking “now I can do this quest which will give me currency to buy this equipment which will allow me to go to this area.” Before you know it, you’re rolling credits. And you got there by following your own intuition.
The road ahead will not always be smooth. You can still get stumped about where to go to advance a quest. You can still blindly wander into a quarry of deathclaws and get skewered. But if these types of games (as well as the immersive sims they take inspiration from) teach us anything, it’s that playing sub-optimally can yield the funniest results, the most innovative tactics, the closest and most satisyfing victories. As that same APA article puts it “Let go of perfectionism” (Palmer, 2021). Reject the inner critic (here protrayed by a toxic gamerbro) and play along with a bad run rather than loading a quicksave.
In my own gigachad-nerd-who-whacks-things-with-big-sticks playthrough, I stumbled across an abandoned rocket manufacturing admin building, the REPCONN Headquarters. My high Science stat suggested that I should hack the computers to trick the robots’ facial recognition software into letting me wander off-limits. Before I could find the terminal at which to do that, however, I may have pissed off a sentry bot and triggered the alarm (should have invested in Sneak). The duality of gigachad nerd was tipped firmly in the gigachad’s favour as I rushed around the complex bonking robots on the head – a surprisingly effective strategy. I didn’t realise my sneaky heist fantasy, but one I hadn’t even considered. These ‘happy accidents’ provide us with unique stories we can share with friends or the community surrounding a game – which further strengthens our sense of belonging in those groups. Playing past perfectionism is a win-win.
The system pushes back: belonging and self-actualisation
As two of the rungs on American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it’s unsurprising that game and narrative designers weaponise human desires for belonging and self-actualisation in their game loops. In a study exploring the positive relationship between roleplaying and socialisation, Michael S. Sargent states that “community access and feelings of belonging were an important part of the role-playing experience, […] participants reported the context of fantasy play decreased their social anxiety which allowed them to interact with their own emotional content [in] meaningful ways.”
When your DM is a computer, it’s doubly impressive when a game has ways to validate players’ actions, present them with ways to reinforce their chosen identity, and perhaps most importantly, restrict them from other choices. One particularly memorable chain of quests I triggered demonstrates how New Vegas does all of these. My dream of a melee and energy weapon-focused build had me eyeing up the Brotherhood of Steel, a chapter of isolationist militants. I wanted to impress them in order to learn how to wear Fallout’s iconic power armour. That extra defence would complement my close-quarters combat build nicely. Since my Science stat was high enough, I ended up fighting a virus in the Brotherhood’s database and then uncovering a secret that helped me oust their current leader. The new elder then led me to assassinate some prolific energy weapons traders. Since those same traders wanted to kill one of my companions, Cass, I had no qualms in wiping them out (and looting their plasma weapons to sweeten the deal). Following that, Cass wanted to settle the score with her previous employer. In the process of killing that employer, not only did I lose favour with the NCR, the dominant military force in the region, I had to also silence a witness, whose death locked me out of a quest that would have helped me get back on good terms with the NCR. This snowball effect, present because so many quests link to multiple factions with their own, often contradictory interests, contributes to the dynamism of New Vegas’ world. These groups won’t blindly trust you if you murdered their buddy on the other side of the map. I’ll now have to do some more quests to improve the NCR’s opinion of me if I want to ally with them for the imminent final battle.
I’m sure that this kind of design is the bane of completionists and perfectionists like myself, who want to see it all and do it all before moving on to the next game. Like many of the self-critical thoughts that come with impostorism, we can turn this sentiment on its head. Not being able to do everything lends greater meaning to the things you did do, reinforcing the identity you created for yourself. When credits roll and I see the impact I had on the wasteland, I’ll know to which factions I (sometimes begrudgingly) belong.
The new game build is no longer the boogeyman it once was for me. In general, I’m trying to be less beholden to completionist or perfectionist standards of play and simply enjoy what happens from bashing polygons and systems together. By no means am I suggesting that playing Fallout: New Vegas for 300 hoursis a substitute for therapy or socialising with people who inspire joy. I simply found it enlightening to explore the similarities between what a lot of players experience playing single-player RPGs and impostorism and how the gameplay loop guides you to overcome it. Putting systems in place that recognise the player’s impact on the world gives a game that narrative secret sauce that makes it feel alive, and New Vegas has it in vats. Video games present us with fantasies and allow us to embody them for a time. The fantasy of overcoming adversity to ‘find yourself’ in a richly-detailed world is among the most timeless.
References
- Clance, P. R. (1985). The Impostor Phenomenon: Overcoming the fear that haunts your success. Georgia: Peachtree Publishers
- Kent, Emma, (2022) https://www.eurogamer.net/theres-no-such-thing-as-an-elden-ring-cheese (accessed 20/11/2022)
- Palmer, Chris, (2021) https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/06/cover-impostor-phenomenon (accessed 20/11/2022)
- Sargent, M. S. (2014). Exploring mental dungeons and slaying psychic dragons: An exploratory study. [Master’s Thesis, Smith College]. Smiths Scholar Works https://scholarworks.smith.edu/theses/837/
Further reading
Gaming the Mind Podcast, Elden Ring and Impostor Syndrome: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6IIZToCDHocIdSeyN3uS3C?si=31bd13dc544f413f
Writing on Games, Hitman, Improvisation and Gleeful Absurdity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX_L6ImXSEE