Unless noted otherwise, all quotes taken from a translation of Georg Simmel's "Das Abenteuer". In my defense I will say only: it made sense when I thought it up.
I return to Georg Simmel like an old friend, after a few years. Like re-reading a good book over again, you pick up on things you missed the first time around.
And a thing I missed the first time around was:
When the outcome of our activity is made doubtful by the intermingling of unrecognizable elements of fate, we usually limit our commitment of force, hold open lines of retreat, and take each step only as if testing the ground. In the adventure, we proceed in the directly opposite fashion: it is just on the hovering chance, on fate, on the more-or-less that we risk all, burn our bridges, and step into the mist, as if the road will lead us on no matter what. This is the typical fatalism of the adventurer. The obscurities of fate are certainly no more transparent to him than to others; but he proceeds as if they were.
So: effort + luck = adventure. But luck in the MMORPG is at the whims of the random number generator, something completely separate from any worldly influence that still does influence the world. Trusting in the RNG to do anything on one's behalf is at worst madness and at best something more akin to a gambler's luck:
In so far, however, as he counts on its favor and believes possible and realizes a life dependent on it, chance for him has become part of a context of meaning. (...) he wants to draw chance into his teleological system by omens and magical aids, thus removing it from its inaccessible isolation and searching in it for a lawful order, no matter how fantastic the laws of such an order may be.
Casino luck, right? The roulette ball and the slot machines do their own thing, and despite the earnest pleas of a thousand Yu-Gi-Oh! fanboys, so does the deck of cards.
But what we know now is: casino luck and "real" luck are not the same thing.
There was an interesting psychological study done, about the lucky and the unlucky. People met a psychologist at a cafe and answered some questions, among them whether they considered themselves lucky or unlucky. But this of course was not the point. (Psychology is the best science because all the experiments are about tricking people.) The point was: to reach the psychologist, the lucky and unlucky people had to pass within easy view of a wallet, discarded on the ground. And many more lucky than unlucky people noticed the wallet and picked it up.
This is not that study, but it works on the same principles.So: luck is the 'x' factor. Luck is something you do, often without being conscious of it. Luck is noticing the opportunity poking Waldo-like out of an undifferentiated mass. Luck, to put a point on it, is something you do not control, but which helps you anyway.
This 'x' factor is the adventurer's luck.
And in the MMORPG, the thing that most closely approximates this 'x' factor is not a tedious game of hunt-the-pixel. Adventurer's luck comes in finding the right companions. In grouping with other people, who you do not control, but who help you anyway.
This is why I like City of Heroes, and why I like the completely impromptu pickup sewer trials I've carried off the past few nights. I _know_ that I cannot stand alone against the huge odds amassed in the trial room. But I do _not_ know, until we try, that the eight people I have brought together will or will not be able to stand. Even then, even at the release level cap, it is touch and go, as strategies shift, as veterans call tactics and newbies panic and ignore them and, much more than once, someone falls down hundreds of feet into the murky deeps and is slingshotted back up with Recall Friend. This is what is important for an adventure: not knowing from moment to moment how things will pan out, but full of confidence that they can be handled. (Less important but vital to the game: starting at about level 6 or so, if someone goes down reliable ways are available to bring them right back where they were. Simmel, poor man, wrote in the era of adventurers without an ample supply of 1-ups.)
Or more generally: grouping is essential to MMORPG senses of adventure. Encounters are available that are challenging to groups. The balance of combat does not seesaw so violently that a mistake in some 'ideal strategy' cannot be corrected.
There are other characteristics of adventure - it is "a specific organization of significant meaning with a beginning and an end" and distinguishable because "other relations are connected with the general run of our worldly life by more bridges, and thus defend us better against shocks and dangers through previously prepared avoidances and adjustments."
The sewer trial had a definite beginning - meet up in the aboveground entrance and head in - and a definite end - the Hydra underwent the process of Giant MuckBeast Explody and we cleared out the remainder of the pipe. And, no doubt, each of us went back to our normal routines - if not that evening, then the day after, talking to the usual people, going out solo or in a common group, doing things we'd all done before with honed tactics and a definite sense of both our capabilities and the capabilities of people with us.
So: for a sense of adventure, it is important that these tasks undertaken by groups can start and stop in satisfying manners.
And perhaps even: grind begets adventure, when you set it aside. Now, that's a something up for debate. For many people, grind is the period from when you log off a MMORPG to when you log back on. But Raph has pointed out that grind occurs when people make comfortable spaces for themselves in the chaos - whether real or virtual.
What is certain is this: In a MMORPG, you cannot adventure alone. Alone there is only the RNG. The x factor comes from other people and their unknown-to-you abilities and tactics - that you nonetheless trust will carry you through the mist and out the other side.
--GF
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