Like any good little RPG gamer, I have a notion that mana is some sort of magic power, perhaps derived from the land and channeled by mental or emotional focus. It’s typically a consumable resource, sometimes regenerating and infinite, sometimes finite. It’s neither creative nor destructive by nature, it is merely power, bent to the will of humans and monsters to varied ends.
Until last week, I had no idea that Mana is actually an Oceanic concept, and that the notions of mana that I’ve grown up with are somewhat mutated.
Of course, I knew that people have taken the concept of mana in different directions, whether it’s Larry Niven or SquareEnix. I just had the mistaken idea that the concept of mana was some gaming offshoot of Shinto beliefs. I guess that the concept of mana in the Final Fantasy games and the Mana series (of which Secret of Mana was one chapter, and is known as the Seiken Densetsu series in Japan) is somewhat influenced by Shinto beliefs, and the Oceanic concepts aren’t all that far removed conceptually, but seeing that there are Polynesian roots for the concept intrigued me.
It does make me wonder why we don’t have some games digging into the Oceanic roots of the concept. Then again, I wonder why we don’t have a lot of other cultural storytelling in games. Yes, Valkyrie Profile was good, but even that was filtered through Japanese notions. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I would like to see some more games built a bit closer to the source material, from many different cultures.
And yes, I’m probably missing some that are already made because they aren’t made in English. Russia is apparently hitting the world game stage harder a bit lately, with higher profile releases like King’s Bounty. Perhaps I’m just asking that American and Japanese devs look a little deeper into their sources, and treat them with more respect. To a degree, there will always be filtering, and to borrow a Trek concept, “it’s impossible for a non-Klingon to understand the Klingon soul”… but I do wish devs would try a lot harder.
I do like a well-crafted fictional world, just as much as any other child who geeked out on Tolkien and Asimov, but even those two giants put in a LOT of study and a lot of thinking about ramifications and consequences. Far too many game devs are content to employ generic fantasy tropes, using a few buxom characters and some addictive mechanics to make FantasyDIKU#157 or GenericJRPG/WRPG #08976-B. New games need not be historic real-world riffs, but we would do well to see why real-world legends have persisted through cultures (oft times only through oral history mechanics), and how they offer stability to their populace. Games need not be realistic, but plausibility goes a long way to suspending disbelief. Great game storytellers understand sociology, psychology, history, theology, art, politics and all sorts of other aspects of the human condition. There aren’t many great game storytellers, at least, if the evidence of their work is any indication.
Being a history buff myself, I really enjoyed this post. I never knew that Mana was actually based in history so thanks for teaching me something new
I would like to see more games developed that contain actual RL events and I’m kind of surprised that more of the World War 2 games don’t incorporate anything outside of the cookie cutter “battle of the bulge” scenarios. WW2 had soooo many weird/interesting things going on that could be incorporated into the game yet none of the devs-outside of Wolfenstein 3D- seem to want to touch on any of the more bizarre stories.
Aye, I’ve learned to appreciate history a lot more now that I’m not being tested on memorizing a list of names and dates. Learning that Mana has deeper roots than I thought makes me wonder what else there is out there that could prove just as interesting, if not more so.
(And definitely, the WWII games are just so much of the same old static, despite many things to dig around in. I’m not sure whether to attribute that to laziness or oversensitivity to PC concerns.)
A venture I was with for a bit mucked about with designing games set in the myths and legends of various cultures. Our market research suggested that people weren’t overall very interested in learning much about cultures they didn’t feel a strong connection to. I was disappointed to say the least, but then I love learning about anything and everything.
And yeah, I have some great books on Oceanic culture and their mysticism. A lot of concepts therefrom have leaked into popular culture (e.g. taboos), just as a lot of Hindu concepts have, and most people have no idea where these ideas originated.
Interesting market research, Foolsage. I’ve got to wonder, if that’s the case, are these people also unwilling to learn the lore of a fantasy world? What is the threshold for interest?
Disappointing indeed. There’s so much to learn out there, but so many are content to just stay in their rut. Bleh.
I think most people aren’t very interested in learning the lore of fantasy worlds, no. People just don’t care e.g. what was inscribed on the One Ring (Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluk, agh burzum ishi krimpatul – and yes, that’s from memory). OK, I’m atypical, I accept this.
Beckwith’s “Hawaiian Mythology” is a great place to start Polynesian studies in general, by the way.
Forget about real-world history – when did mana first appear in games?
It’s obviously not from dungeons and dragons, or from Tolkien (which is rare!) – I wonder who was the first to *popularize* the use of mana as a concept in a game?
Was it Secret of Mana (not sure how popular that was in terms of ‘mainsteam’ gaming, as I only learned abuot it recently), or somebody else?
Hard to say. I know an “MP” mechanic existed in Hero’s Quest (AKA Quest for Glory) (1989), which predates the first game in the Mana series (1991?), but I can’t recall whether it stood for “mana points” or “magic points”.
“Mana is the concept of an impersonal force or quality that resides in people, animals, and inanimate objects.”
Duh, it’s the Force. Did they steal this quote from Yoda or something? =)
@Foolsage: Great research on the lack of interest. Did your group look at current pop culture without strong connections? This is sort of a chicken or the egg argument, but heck, Blizzard has huge lore nerds (even before WoW). Guess my point is if you present it in an interestingly enough fashion, won’t people gravitate to it?
If you gave me a book on Polynesian studies today, I probably won’t read it. I don’t have that much interest in it (not to be shallow, but until I read this article and such it just wasn’t there). Now, if I *experienced* that history and mythology through an interactive gaming title, such as an MMO, it instantly becomes much more interesting. It’s visual, it can be presented in an exciting, livable way. It would be connected through me, through my avatar, and immediately holds bearing, weight, and consequence.
@ Melf: Might & Magic (1986) had spell points which were basically like mana. I’m not sure about anything earlier than that. As for popularizing the word “mana”, I suspect that might be tied to Diablo (1996). Ultima Online (1997) and EverQuest (1999) also used the term, which by that point seemed pretty standard as I recall.
@ Chris: No, we didn’t look at pop culture at all; that wasn’t our focus. We were at the time just researching the possibility of making games that were grounded in the mythology of various ancient cultures… wherein you’d play a member of the culture and interact with the various denizens of that culture’s folklore, in addition to dealing with more mundane stuff. A few cultures had some pretty good response (e.g. Celtic) but many didn’t (e.g. Polynesian). The feeling was that it’d be an uphill battle to create interest in cultures people didn’t already have interest in. I still regret that; I thought it would have been a fun series of games to make.
The word “avatar” is of course of Hindu origin, incidentally. An avatar is a manifestation of one of the Hindu gods in a lower realm of existence, such as Earth – e.g. Krishna was an avatar of Vishnu. It’s quite appropriate as a term for humans manifesting in lower realms of existence such as games.
Indie developer Jeff Vogel from Spiderweb Games wrote an interesting article related to the demand (or lack thereof) for games where a culture new to people is used as the setting for a game.
He used one of the games he made as an example, Nethergate – Romans vs Celts, basically.
http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/701/701513p1.html
…and yet despite my love for how he makes his games, and my love for Celtic mythology, I didn’t buy the game either lol. *shame* (I have bought quite a few of his Exile series though.. why is it that made up fantasy seems more digestible? Is it just the ‘dryness’ that can settle into non-madeup stuff because of the tendency to want to include every detail you know?)
@ Nugget: Some of the problem is the fear that games featuring other cultures will be too (gasp!) educational, sure. Even if the designers make every effort not to share their enthusiasm for the minutiae, players expect such games will be bogged down in details and require too much effort to appreciate. It’s a terrible shame on several counts really.
I enjoyed the Exile and Avernum games myself but never even knew about Nethergate. There was no word of mouth and no marketing to make me aware of it.
I’m extraordinarily sad that devs might lobotomize their own games because they think people are afraid to learn. What’s worse is that they may just be right.
Still, it’s not going to stop me. When I do my game designing, I embrace learning. If that means I’ll never be a multimillionaire, I can at least live with my conscience. It also might mean I just keep doing indie stuff and have a “real” career elsewhere. I can live with that.
Oh, and thanks for the link, Nugget!
From what I have seen, every game that has tried to show other culture’s perspectives is quickly labelled as racist by that culture, and then changed or discarded. It happened with a game about Maori, and there’s a recent debacle about Hanuman: Boy Warrior, with Hindus being offended. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10569696 (a link to the news article that I saw about it).
So of course anyone trying to make a game about another culture is bound to be afraid of this happening.
True, Katherine, there’s bound to be someone offended. I guess I’m just hoping that diving into history and mythology could put some of that at arm’s length, giving some perspective to dodge whining. I cite as an example games that use Roman or Greek mythology (Titan Quest, Age of Mythology), religious notions (Diablo, Sacred, Xenogears) or even the glut of WWII games out there. (And isn’t it interesting that it’s OK to mock or warp religion, but not cultural identity or real history?)
I’m saddened that devs would bend to Political Correctness such that excellent, interesting stories go by the wayside, tossed in favor of generic fantasy or sci-fi tropes. I think you’re right… but I’m saddened by that state of affairs.
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