The Gaming Den

darkmaster wrote: @Cyberzombie It's funny how you kept the part of my post where I said CoC is in deed a power fantasy but not the part where I said that even if you lose persevering in the face of adversity is empowering even if you end up failing and have a high chance of failing from the go ahead, in fact the higher the chance of failure the more empowering it is to keep heading forward.

That makes no sense. Having a high chance of failure is the opposite of being empowered.

So, you've never played Dark Souls or you just suck at it right? Because Dark Souls ,while oppressive and dark, once you learn the ropes you can more than handle the bosses that come at you and if feels good, you feel like you've accomplished something and become stronger and that is absolutely a power fantasy.

That's not a power fantasy, that's a sense of accomplishment. It's not about pretending that you're some guy who can beat Dark Souls. You actually can do beat it because you learned the game and mastered it. We're not talking about a fantasy here, we're talking about something you put the time in, learned, and have now mastered in actual real life.

I noticed something peculiar when I Google the term "power fantasy".

The first two results are from TV Tropes. The third is from Reddit.

Adding "wikipedia" at the end doesn't help.

There's no real authority behind this term, as far as I can tell. So Settlers of Catan could be a power fantasy, for all the actual shared cultural context behind the term.

Even in games like Call of Cthulhu that are supposed to oppressive and dark chronicling the journey of a group of normal people as they slowly slip into insanity is a power fantasy because you're trying to win.

It's only a power fantasy if you expect to win, and then if that is the case your GM is fucking doing it wrong. Trying to win does not make something a power fantasy; that is a retarded assertion. It is like saying that the last Superbowl was a power fantasy for the Broncos.

even if you fail and die or get put in an institution the fact that you fought when some, arguably most, wouldn't is still empowering

On WHAT FUCKING GODAMN PLANET? Have you ever READ H.P. Lovecraft?

If you want to say it's romantic, sure, I agree it's a romantic and appealing idea on some level (although with Lovecraftian aesthetics and values, less-so). But it's not a fucking power fantasy and that doesn't make it one.

Most every game has elements of empowerment. But that's not the only reason people play those games. It's not limited to a power-fantasy, but most people who claim that it isn't at all a part of it are mostly deluding themselves.

I think I actually mostly concur.

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:Why is "power fantasy" have to be a pejorative that means immature, repressed, deficient, and/or grossly masculine?

because for the most part you jsut need to replace "fantasy" with "trip" to get the root of the "evolved" politically correct term from its origin "power trip".

like the school yard/playground/neighborhood/town bully/delinquent becoming a police officer just to be able to continue his power trip.

so either people are using the game as a giant penis waving contest, or are trying to act out in a manner like the bullies mentioned above that tormented them to continue the cycle.

for a Marvel game there is little but power-tripping since that is th whole point of such games, but in other RPGs the concept of being the most powerful in the game, or the group is just braggart rights from attention whores that need someone to recognize them.

for the most part all of these, except attention whoring, is mostly done by the male of the human species.

all in all it is the act of trying to find the "alpha male" within the gaming whatever. so for primitive animals, it is not all that immature, but humans are supposed to be able to mature beyond crude and neanderthal animalistic instincts, ergo it is immature for humans to do it, thus why it is negative.