Jackson Chmielewski ENGL 10600-936 Literacy Analysis Draft March 4, 2014

The Elder Scrolls series of games are renowned for their sense of immersion and storytelling. Over the course of playing them, I have developed a literacy with them specifically in an ability to forge my own path and tell my own story. With most games, the player learns the conventions of the gameplay and actual mechanics of how to play the game, and are just told a story alongside them. The Elder Scrolls series sets itself apart by allowing the player to decide where their story goes and how. Each Elder Scrolls game is played from a 1st person perspective (where you see through your characters eyes) which is integral to the immersive nature of the series. The series belongs to the RPG (Role-Playing Game) genre, which is defined by elements of the player controlling a fictional character and deciding how that character develops as the game progresses, largely through skills and interaction with the environment. Speaking of the environment, the games are free roam (meaning that the player is free to choose when and where they go and do things) as opposed to linear (where the player is guided from A to B in a fixed plot) which does wonders for immersing the player in their freedom. The games are also exclusively single-player, in order to protect that sense of immersion. The developers make the world entirely your own so you can get lost in it and fee l like you are really there, so they dont want to break that by risking the chance for other players to ruin the experience for them. My first experience with the Elder Scrolls series of games wasnt actually me playing it. I was at a friends house in Jr. High watching a friend play The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. He traveling through a cave he had visited earlier and was stopping periodically as he retold the

story of how he explored and handled the dangers within. I expected to hear him recount a straightforward journey through the cave using a typical adventurer as a swordsman and discovering treasure, but was surprised with his unexpected approach to each challenge that appeared. As he described what happened I wondered at how he could play through the cave in his own unique way, but I could also tackle the obstacles in my own different, though equally valid way. It was at this moment I realized that the skill in these games isnt with the gameplay, but with being able to tell interesting, personally-tailored story by your actions.

Initially, the main sponsors for the series literacy were my fellow compatriots, but as I was introduced to the discourse, the games began to speak for themselves through the developers decisions. In the beginning before I owned the games and could play, I learned about the games through the stories of my friends experiences and even stories they had heard from other people. One friend told me about how his character became skilled enough at acrobatics to be able to jump off the surface of water, while another told me how he became an extremely adept necromancer who could command hordes of his undead enemies in battle. Each recounting of one of these tales made me more and more anxious to tell my own. That Christmas, I finally got my own copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and I remember it as one of my favorite gifts I had ever received. At the first chance I got I started playing and creating my own stories. There are multiple factions within the game that you can join and they cater to different styles of play. Each faction has multiple NPCs (Non-Player

Characters) that belong to it and through which the player interacts with the faction. For example, the Mages Guild is based upon the spell system and the Thieves Guild is based around sneaking and stealing. The thing that sets these games apart from most is the fact that each player can approach these various factions however they see fit and they dont neces sarily have to conform to the play styles expected for them, or even join them in the first place . I often found myself creating a new character to try out a part of the game I hadnt experienced in order to preserve the previous characters continuity and style. To make a long story short, the game implicitly taught me these ideas of storytelling and playing the characters as the driving force towards what direction to go in. Later, I acquired the previous game in the series (The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind) and it kept with the same storytelling values as did the following game (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim) despite changes in how the game is played .

Through all of this, I was acquiring a discourse specific to the Elder Scrolls series . As I became more experienced with it, I became better at playing other games to greater immersion because of the things I learned with this series. Additionally, I no longer evaluate games solely upon the entertainment value of the gameplay and evaluate them upon how well they tell stories and allow the player to tell their own. On a wider scale, I think more about what values motivate the people I know, and what decisions they might make that would be congruent with those values.

In order to acquire this literacy and discourse, basic reading and writing literacy was required. A great majority of the information that is conveyed to the player is through text and the language is more complex than the average game considering it is rated Mature (ages 17 and up) and has more mature themes. Writing skill isnt explicitly required to play the game, but by having some knowledge over the naming conventions of the worlds you play in, you can create an even further immersive experience by naming the spells and armor and weapons you create besides just your character.

By the time I considered myself familiar with the games discourse, I could (and had) create a heavily-armored wizard who used the trapped souls of his enemies to fuel his enchantments and knew exactly what that characters motivations and values were and could decide where he would continue his search for power next. The Elder Scrolls fanbase is full of stories like the one above, and they are the testaments to the popularity and quality of storytelling skills that are acquired while playing them. Thanks to all of my experiences with them, I have been able to create better stories and be more creative in general, and I would argue that anyone else who has become learned in the series would say the same. The Elder Scrolls isnt just a series of games, its a series of storytelling tools.