# Categories

LLMS index: [llms.txt](/dvw/en/llms.txt)

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Another major decision designers have to make is whether to categorize players or not. In many cases, the question they actually ask themselves is what categories to have, which rather jumps the gun. The categorization of players is not a fundamental component of virtual world design.

Chapter 3 described the differences between classbound and classless systems. There, I argued that a classless system can fake up a classbound one while offering more. Because some players (particularly newbies) can benefit from the provision of predefined character types, I suggested a “character kit” approach to allow them to choose a pseudo-class while retaining the overall flexibility of the classless ideal. Ironically, this means that even if a designer decides against a classbound regime, they could still have to produce something that looks like a list of classes (if only to placate newbies who are expecting to see one).

So what are the usual lines of partition?

The first one is, inevitably, gender. Textual worlds are hamstrung by language in this respect, and graphical worlds by images. Although it is quite conceivable to create a virtual world in which all the characters are of the same gender, it’s nigh impossible to create one in which characters’ gender is merely unspecified without convoluting the language [^9]. Gender is probably the only categorization that virtual worlds are stuck with.

Gender is a physical difference, although in virtual worlds it is usually presented as a cosmetic one. The reasons for this are given in Chapter 5, “Life in the Virtual World,” but the basic explanation is that designers don’t want to offend anybody.

Another physical dimension for partitioning players into groups is by race. Given the way that virtual worlds are so politically correct about gender, one would expect that race was also a purely cosmetic issue, but that’s not the case: Races are presented as being fundamentally different, with significant strengths and weaknesses. The reason for this is that what virtual worlds call race, the real world would call sub-species; what the real world calls race, virtual worlds call nothing at all and do treat as a merely cosmetic aspect of a character. Some of the moral implications of this are discussed in Chapter 8, “Coda: Ethical Considerations.”

Races follow stereotypical lines. The short, stocky, bearded axe-wielders who live underground hate the tall, slender, pale archers who live in the forests, and vice versa. Scaled-up humans have more strength than brains, whereas scaled-down humans have more brains than strength. Nobody likes a lizard.

There are common sub-races, too, which also run along stereotypical lines. Fantasy worlds have half-elves and half-orcs, but never quarter-elves or half-dwarfs [^10], and there isn’t even a word that means the progeny of an orc and an elf.

Because races have physical differences, designing kits for them is tricky. It’s easy enough to make height, musculature, skin tone, ear and eye shape, hirsuteness, and so on be parameters that can be adjusted at character creation time, but this would allow players to customize races of their own—giant, puny, hairy lizards, for example—that didn’t make sense. Representing these graphically may introduce unnecessary complexities, too. For this reason, virtual worlds that must have races (because of their fiction) almost always have to hardwire them in. It’s limiting, but it’s a necessary compromise. Although people who start off as farmers may become politicians, nobody who starts off as a troll is going to become an elf [^11].

Related to race is the notion of nationality, or, more accurately, country of origin. This is a less frequently used way to categorize characters, combining them by geographical proximity. The reason it’s not so popular is because players want to move around as their characters progress, to be close to the facilities they need (and things they want to kill). The result is that nations are often only nations of NPCs, as PCs are spread about all over the place.

Although one race may dominate a region, others are not excluded; also, the same race may dominate more than one region. Nationality is best used to engineer social conflicts between large groups of players, and in that sense it doesn’t necessarily play a part in a player’s sense of their character’s identity. However, when nations are typecast it can become a constraining influence. The cultures of the three realms in Dark Age of Camelot are quite distinct.

Beyond the physical and geophysical, categorization becomes harder to justify. The dominant approach is that of character classes, which derives from the old tabletop role-playing paradigm. Skills systems are usually grafted on to this, rather than being independent of it, which is rather a shame.

Both character classes and skills systems are fairly arbitrary: Depending as they do on the nature of the virtual world itself, there isn’t really a systematic way to determine which ones you “need.” I’ll describe the various ways to organize skills in Chapter 5; only in creating the skills will designers get a feel for what character kits might be appropriate. Thinking up the kits (classes) first and then imposing them on the skill set is the wrong way to go about it; I won’t be listing any of them here, but if you want ideas you should look at other virtual worlds [^12].

The final common way to categorize characters is by alignment. This, too, is an old tabletop role-playing game concept, intended as an aid to role-playing. The idea is that players decide in advance how their character is to behave, and stick to it. If they step out of line, the referee penalizes them. The traditional alignment dimensions (from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) are law/chaos and good/evil, with the crossing point of the two axes labeled “neutral.” A lawful good character is benevolent and just; a lawful evil character plays by the rules but is without mercy; a chaotic good character is a rebel with a conscience; a chaotic evil character is a self-serving bully who’ll do anything to further their ambitions. There are another five combinations involving the concept of neutrality.

Alignment is a useful concept for soft role-players because it’s moveable. By saying that your character is lawful neutral you’re making a statement about how you intend to role-play that character. If you consistently act good in situations where you could equally well act neutral or evil, eventually your alignment will shift to lawful good. Some actions may be outlawed altogether—paladins don’t get to douse beggars in burning oil no matter how bad they smell.

In tabletop games, the referee determines when alignment violations occur. In virtual worlds, much of what is good or evil, lawful or chaotic, is intangible; it can’t be tracked by the virtual world, therefore it can’t be enforced. If I attack another player, am I being good or evil? What if they had stolen something from me? What if it was theirs in the first place? What if they had attacked me in the past? What if I’d attacked them beforehand? What if I attacked because they’d killed a friend? What if the friend had started the fight and I only think they were innocent?

There is no point in trying to get the virtual world itself to track alignment.

So is attacking another player good or evil? If they’re evil, it’s good; if they’re good it’s evil. Put this way, good and evil are just badges. Players will say they’re evil without understanding in the remotest sense the depths of cruelty that this implies; players will say they’re good without ever having exhibited the slightest tendency toward compassion. They’re just labels: They may as well be green and yellow.

It may be possible to define an intangible concept like alignment [^13] by asking other players to make judgments in a tangible fashion (for example, by voting). This isn’t without its problems, though: It’s immersion-breaking, it depends on player goodwill, and it’s too easy to subvert.

On the whole, alignment in virtual worlds works only as another shallow, artificial way to partition players into smaller communities. Unless it’s an important part of the virtual world’s fiction, it’s probably not worth having.


[^9]: This is in Indo-European languages; it may be easier in others. For example, the Mandarin Chinese word for “he” and “she” is the same—ta¯—although they’re written using different symbols.
[^10]: Most virtual worlds that have them refer to “dwarves” rather than to “dwarfs.” This is either because their designers are following Tolkien’s lead or they’re illiterate.
[^11]: Yes, I know, in some enlightened virtual worlds race can be changed through magic or whatever. On the whole, though—especially in graphical worlds, where identity is bound tightly to appearance—race is pretty well inviolate.
[^12]: Textual worlds are particularly fruitful in this regard.
[^13]: Reputation systems, which are discussed in Chapter 5, are closely related to this idea.