The Quest for Reality: Gamers Log Off for Thrills

Jonathan Reynolds was doing just fine, until a strange man in a medieval helmet and full body armor came charging across the forest, shrieking madly and wielding a sword.

It’s something he has faced dozens of times in his favorite computer games, such as “Asheron’s Call” and “EverQuest,” where he has fought his way to cyber-victory and the occasional cyber-death. But as he braced himself for battle, this time the pain would be real.

The edge of a broadsword--a 4-foot-long rod of rattan--slammed into Reynolds’ sternum. Tears of pain welled, blurring his vision.

“Good Christ, I felt that,” Reynolds wheezed as he slid to the ground, his chest starting to throb. “Man, that hurt.”

Pain and pleasure and excitement, these are all things the avid gamer imagines when he plays on the Internet. But Reynolds scoffs at such electronic thrills, knowing he can’t actually feel any of it--regardless of the vividness of his imagination, the power of his computer or the speed of his modem connection.

Deep within the subculture of computer gaming is an even tinier subculture, one that is fomenting a backlash against virtual life. While digital technology opened the door for a small but hearty bunch of game players to explore their fantasy life, they ultimately found that the machine got in the way.

Technology was supposed to bring about the greatest revolution in exploring our fantasies since the printing press brought tales of epic adventures to the masses. And in some ways, it has: From chat rooms to computer-generated fantasy games, the Internet has created a safe place for people to play dress-up with their inner selves.

But as the masses explored their secret side, some people began to want more out of the experience. They could see and hear the action on the computer--but they couldn’t feel it, smell it, taste it. Even in the midst of their most heroic moments, people found themselves merely staring at a computer screen and typing furiously.

Reynolds gave birth to his virtual identity on the Net: Aldric of Avignon, a fighter whose escapades existed only within a computer game called “EverQuest.” It is a sword-and-sorcery title, in which the Bay Area programmer regularly joins hundreds of thousands of other people online to create a game character, battle demons and explore fantasies.

In the beginning, Aldric was like Reynolds, weak and soft. Even tiny digital rabbits sent him scampering into the forest. He was a wimp in too-short pants, armed only with an electronic slingshot.

Months passed. Reynolds got better at the game, and Aldric evolved. His fighting skills improved and he became meaner. He smashed the monsters, stepped on the rabbits. And then, something strange happened: Reynolds became Aldric.

“So many people knew me online as Aldric that they’d leave messages for him on my answering machine,” Reynolds said.

Of course, the programmer reasoned, it was only a game and Aldric wasn’t real. It’s hard to lose yourself completely when you’re staring at a computer screen, clicking on small, boxy shapes that bounce around in a cartoon world. You can’t smell the wood burning in a bonfire or taste fear while battling in fantasy.

Bored at work, Reynolds was browsing through Web sites filled with medieval lore when he stumbled across a page promoting a five-day annual event organized by the Society for Creative Anachronism.

The historical re-creation group was hosting a mock war, in which 3,000 people would gather to mimic a culture that died centuries ago. All this in the midst of El Dorado Park in Chino.

Blood. Bruises. Bashing his way to glory. And that’s how Reynolds found himself gasping for air and tasting dirt.

“Well done!” Reynolds’ foe said cheerfully, as he pulled the young man to his feet. “Next time, keep your shield up.”

But technology was supposed to have eliminated the need for such entertainment altogether. Online games were designed to allow people to play over vast distances and to allow self-exploration in a secret and safe environment.

Why spend as much as $1,500 on a suit of armor when it costs only $9.89 a month to play “EverQuest”?

“It’s the dream,” said Carolyn Zitny, an Orange County resident and longtime member of the SCA. “It’s the moment when everything fades away and you’re in the game. You believe you are the person you play, at the time you are playing. It’s what drives us, that search for the dream.”

The search ends on a Friday night in Chino. Fog creeps into the campground, cloaking the rows of canvas tents. Gone are the telephone poles, the nearby housing complexes, the airplanes growling overhead.

Without such visual cues tying the crowd to the modern world, the fantasy becomes real and intoxicating. Belly dancers gyrate around a roaring fire. Glass flasks filled with homemade apple-honey brandy are passed between fighters. Discussions about the merits of chivalry take on a more urgent tone.

Reynolds knows he can’t get this from playing on the Net.

While no one knows exactly how many gamers have moved their fantasy offline, one thing is clear: Both SCA members and the online game players have simple--and similar--explanations for their fascination with reliving the past.

“I used to play a lot of ‘Dungeons and Dragons,’ ” said Chuck Dodd, 39, of Tustin, an SCA member and an avid “EverQuest” player. “I’ve always liked playing games, all sorts of games.”

Indeed, modern role-playing found its roots in the “Dungeons and Dragons” craze of the 1970s and ‘80s, when players relied on storytellers to weave tales of mystery and lore.

Then came the Internet, and millions of people threw open a window, letting others peek at the private world inside. Chat rooms emerged as virtual bars, where you could be a warrior, sexpot or, as the now well-known joke points out, even a dog. Home pages became an extension of the psyche, a digital representation of their creators’ souls and passion.

Role-playing carried over into the high-tech culture of games. As graphics on the Net became more sophisticated, so did the look of action-adventure and role-playing computer games. By late 1996, novice players began flocking to the Internet and playing games such as “EverQuest.”

Essentially, players roam online worlds as virtual characters, able to explore the landscape and hunt monsters alone or with others. Like reality, these worlds never sleep but continue changing whether a player is there or not.

Heroic actions no longer swirled in the mind of the storyteller but became a picture on a screen. Conquests were known to friends, as well as to anyone who traveled through these illusionary worlds.

“We call it ‘EverCrack,’ because it sucks people in and doesn’t let them go,” said Zitny, sarcastically referring to crack cocaine.

But even the best technology can’t match the thrill of horses thundering across the plain and the romance of real damsels in feigned distress, avid players concluded.

The jump to the real world is a relatively easy one, said Amy Jo Kim, author of “Community Building on the Web” and an adjunct professor at Stanford University who studies virtual communities.

“One big difference between playing a role online and playing one in the real world is the cost of the costume,” Kim said. “When you join an America Online chat room as ‘Verysexychick,’ that’s a costume. It just happens to be cheaper than buying an actual suit of armor.”

Slipping into an alternative identity is particularly popular among avid computer game players. Like the extreme nature of the software they play, these young people often adopt aggressive, mysterious or hyper-masculine personas online. Men aren’t guys, they’re “Hell’s Caretakers,” and women tout themselves as “Crackwhores” and “Lady Quake Marines.” Of course, the women aren’t glassy-eyed and the men aren’t tromping around in devil costumes. It’s all part of the game.

Role-Players Create Reality of Fantasy World

These games, particularly those that straddle the line between reality and cyberspace, aren’t limited to knights and fighters. Known loosely as live role-playing games, or RPGs, they cover a diverse cross-section of entertainment, ranging from “Vampire: The Masquerade” and “Werewolf,” in which players roam around as undead creatures, to more-established historical groups that recreate the Civil War or the Wild West.

Such fantasy-oriented fun requires a person to make up a character and live it out for the night, or longer. Thus, a female software executive becomes a medieval serving wench. A high-school senior morphs into a blood-sucking succubus. A retired police officer slips into the boots of a quick-drawing, slow-talking cowboy.

That gamers would seek out groups like the SCA is the next logical step in the evolution of role-playing, said Laura Hunt Yungblut, an associate professor of history at the University of Dayton in Ohio. Meeting in the flesh is a natural extension of any online community, whether the tie that binds its members is friendship, romance or war.

“As more people are getting online, there is a very human need to connect in a tangible world,” Yungblut said. “Role-playing games are a great way to explore the different facets of your identity. But it’s hard to suspend your disbelief for months on end when you’re by yourself.”

Mixing these disparate groups, though, can cause some strange situations.

“We’ve had people find us through the Internet and not quite understand what we’re all about,” Zitny said. “People have shown up in Klingon costumes, with the red eye contacts and everything. We usually politely take them aside and tell them that there weren’t any Klingons living during Elizabethan times.”

Not Just Fun and Games in Developing Personas

For a moment or two, as rows of muscular young men and women jog toward a sunlit forest, reality leaves Chino. Fantasy, instead, now reigns at this park amid the SCA’s game of war.

The SCA, founded in the 1960s, boasts 50,000 to 75,000 followers worldwide who revel in re-creating pre-17th century Western culture, when a lady’s honor was worth fighting for and the home-brewed mead was deadly.

While acknowledging that this is all a game, members are serious about the roles they play, often spending hours in libraries and on the Net researching the authenticity of their garb. But often, their most prized creations are the personas they craft.

“Here, you can be the person you want to be, instead of the one you have to be,” said a warrior who identified himself as Duvan the Red. He is surrounded by hundreds of burly men, each encased in 40 to 60 pounds of steel, with leather collars thick enough to protect even Peyton Manning from a crushing blow.

Poised for action, the fighters shuffle their feet. Dust stings their eyes as the tension grows. Sweat streaks their faces.

Some of these people are members of the SCA. Some are computer game players. Some are both.

It doesn’t matter now, as an air horn shrieks and a guttural roar builds. Swords slash through the air, slamming into trees and bodies and anything else standing. The violence, though real, is blunted. Swords are made of wood, not steel, though the bruises they leave can be painful.

Honor makes the fighters, such as Reynolds, fall to the ground. While cheating is rampant among players in online games, it is not tolerated here.

Fighters are held to their word, and only they can say whether they have been hit hard enough to suffer a serious wound. If the hit to an arm is strong enough, for example, the fighter has to continue the battle one-handed. If the sword connects dead-on with a leg, the fighter must forge ahead on his knees.

Pain, of course, can drive a man to his knees. At an earlier SCA event, Jim Karnes of Yucaipa squinted to keep the very-real blood out of his eyes after he was injured in a mock battle. “Yeah, it hurts,” said Karnes, 34. “But I can take it. I’m hard-core.”

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Times staff writer P.J. Huffstutter covers technology.