Tomodachi Life, Dungeons & Dragons, and the joys of self-discovery
Rhianne Ward
For the past two weeks, there has been one game which has hooked its nefarious claws into me: Nintendo's Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream. It's the sequel to the cult classic favourite from the 3DS era, simply named Tomodachi Life, which I admittedly missed the boat on. At the time, it just wasn't the kind of game I gravitated towards back then. In 2013, I was probably deep in the FIFA trenches, a siren call I sometimes struggle to resist even today. Otherwise, with major releases like The Last Of Us, Grand Theft Auto V, and BioShock Infinite, the game flew under the radar for me. I didn't even get a 3DS until Pokémon Sun came out a few years later, and on a high schooler’s meager budget, I could hardly justify forking over the forever undiscounted sum Tomodachi Life asked.
Somehow, thirteen years have gone by, and all of a sudden, a new Tomodachi Life has washed up on the shore. It was announced a few months prior, and I remember experiencing a sense of… tepid interest. Tomodachi Life has always been billed on the idea that you and your friends and/or family, rendered in stunning Mii form, live together on an island, and get up to whatever they like. However, this didn't really appeal to me right away. For one, if you'll allow me to be vulnerable for a moment, I don't actually have that many friends, and even if I did, I felt a little weird attempting to capture their souls in video game NPC form like this. Did I need to seek consent first? Should I be checking in when I make the Mii, to ensure they're not off in some way?
Second, I was aware that the game had romance as a feature, which would mean that I would essentially be facilitating me and my friends getting into relationships and having children without them knowing. It would be a profoundly weird thing to message too: “hey, just so you know, you and my dad got married lol”. I cringe just thinking about it. I could just make everyone asexual and spare myself the stress, but then the game would lose an entire rich dimension to it, and that felt like a shame as well.
I realise that this is me wildly overthinking a video game for children, but in fairness, you did allow me to be vulnerable earlier, so stop complaining! I couldn't help but feel a little icky about the whole thing. I could always make it an island of fictional characters instead, but I don't get extremely attached to characters in that way. My scrungly roster is disappointingly low, I'm afraid to say. Any attempt to put a group together would feel a bit forced, and ultimately sap some of the fun away.
Then, a couple months out from the release, I was struck with an epiphany…
DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS!
You may have heard of it; it's pretty famous. DnD is a tabletop role-playing game where you get together with other people in real life and play pretend by creating a character in a fictional setting – typically fantasy, but in the land of make-believe, you can be anywhere – and go on adventures. Usually, that ends up with fighting, be it with swords, bows, magic, or whatever else your mind can come up with. The ultimate aim is to tell a story with your friends, and share in unique experiences. It's truly an activity like no other. Video games have tried, sometimes successfully, to replicate the magic of tabletop role-playing, but there's nothing quite like the real thing.
I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons for about five years. It has mostly been with a small group of friends (Amy, Si and James, shout out <3) but I've played in a few different groups across a few different campaigns. I fucking love it. It is consistently one of the most enjoyable hobbies I partake in. I have a million great memories from this dumb game, both as a player and a Dungeon Master. Most notably, I adore the cast of characters we have managed to collectively accumulate in the past half decade. Whether we're fighting against Time Itself as Leorin, Agatha and Rurik, navigating a fantasy Ancient Greece in crisis as Jenna, Zuneras and Hugo, or fighting a revolution as Whisper, Yharnak and Beil, the stakes have always high, the laughs plenty, and the tragedies traumatising. Now, I'm in a larger group, wherein the mighty heroes and/or halfwits known as Fleet, Frii, Malagnar, Tralmn'n, Caermet and Blathers seek to topple the mighty Strahd von Zarovich and end his vampiric rule over the land of Barovia.
I have chosen to name all of the characters because, as you might have already guessed, I found a neat solution to my Tomodachi Life mental block: put all our DnD characters in the game! Tomodachi Life is a game about placing a bunch of strangers in a space and allowing the chips to fall where they may, and what is DnD if not this exact same thing? In my ridiculous mind, this makes perfect sense. And so, when the game finally released, I molded my babies from clay, chucked them in the sand pit, and let them play. I've been addicted ever since, but something I hadn't expected was how weirdly emotional I would get, watching these little digital creatures go about their lives.
Tomodachi Life is, if we're being completely honest, the same as playing with dolls. Your role as basically God is to direct the Miis’ actions, and assist them with their strange little requests. You can dress them up, feed them, bring them gifts, and the overall objective is to make them as happy as possible. In a sense, it's quite similar to The Sims, just with an oddball sense of humour and a disconcerting self-awareness. The Miis can exist in spite of you, but you are the one who brings colour and excitement into their lives. You are the weaver of whatever drama unfolds. You get the final say on what happens and why.
In a sense, this is the perfect game for control freaks with a tyrannical streak. However, I am not that person. I decided from the get-go that I was going to have as little say over what my cast of clowns wanted to do as possible. I would simply nudge them in the directions they were already choosing to go. Want something to eat? I'll find something I think you'll like. Want to change outfits? I will endeavour to craft you the perfect fit. My aim, for all eternity, is to make my tiny friends happy, no matter what.
I held to this for the most part. Occasionally, a Mii will ask to put a vending machine right to the ocean, a decision I chose to veto after about the tenth £120 purchase. Otherwise, they're telling me they want to be friends with each other, or it's a Mii thinking two of their friends would like each other, and asking for help in setting that meeting up. All I do is give them something to talk about – something I think they would have in common, and given that these are DnD characters I'm already very familiar with, it's usually a cinch. I don't tell any of them what to do; I simply give them the tools to help their desires happen. As I did this, over and over again, across dozens of pairings, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by a sense of pride in my precocious wee fellas. They'd level up, and I would give them a quirk – a new way to stand, or walk, or greet people – and each time, they thank me for helping them “feel closer to the real me”. I was struck with a strange realisation: is this what parenting feels like?
Of course, fucking Tomodachi Life most likely does not even come close to the reality of parenthood. Real parenting, from my understanding talking to parents at work as well as knowing my own parents, is an occasionally rewarding but mostly chaotic whirlwind of emotions and anxieties. Tomodachi Life, by comparison, is very controlled, and the Miis very rarely act out in unsavoury ways. Still, I can't help but feel proud of my little guys, and where they are compared to how they started.
This is how I feel about DnD as well. My characters – Agatha and Jenna – are basically amalgamations of me. Agatha is loud and chaotic, while Jenna is reserved and self-critical, and yet both of them consist of parts of my personalities I retrofitted into approximations of people. Exploring real-life feelings through them is never the aim, but it's an inevitability when, for the purposes of the game, I am them. Agatha is a rogue who is terrible at being a rogue. Her Dexterity stat is dreadful, and while she takes an interest in magic, her only avenue to practice it is the Arcane Trickster subclass which uses her Intelligence stat, which is also awful. This came down to bad planning on my part, since I'd never played DnD and didn't know how character building worked, but what came of it was a subplot involving Agatha awakening to her innate sorcery powers (which uses the Charisma stat, something Agatha was actually good at). She was raised to be a rogue, but through experience and time, came to realise that she had always meant to be a sorcerer, and all of a sudden, she could do the things she has always wanted to. I am a trans woman, so feel free to put the pieces together on that one.
Like I said, this storyline for Agatha wasn't something I planned ahead of time. It came about organically, partly as a matter of necessity since I was barely able to play the game with the kind of shit stats I was cursed with, but it forced a level of creativity that made the story far more interesting. And what better way to implement a narrative beat than by pulling from my own lived experience to guide the character along? Agatha was in a difficult spot, and I was able to light the way out of it. Moments like that are why my characters often feel like children to me; individuals with limitless potential, who just need a nudge in the right direction to become the people they were always meant to be. All I can do, as their mother, is supply them with my lived experience, and hope it works for them too. If it doesn’t pan out, we try again, and again, until something sticks.
I get that same feeling from Tomodachi Life. These Miis start the game as basically blank slates, and it's up to me to shape them. If they take the initiative and introduce themselves to strangers, or make the choice to confess their feelings for another, a ring of pride plays in my heart. I experience relief when they like the food I give them, and anguish when they don't. When they thank me for helping them, I can't help but smile. I know it's not real, but it's the kind of low-stakes investment that instills the time spent with meaning. Am I being manipulated? A little, but this kind of shit is so much better for my soul than FIFA.
I keep coming back to the moments when Miis thank me for getting them closer to their “true selves”. Obviously, this is in reference to the game's expectation that you are putting real people into the game and not fake DnD divas instead, but a fictional character yearning to find the real version of themselves gives the line a whole new dimension. All of a sudden, the aim is not to make a Mii feel authentically comparable to reality, but simply to make them the fullest version of themselves they can be. I can't help but project my own experiences onto them. As a person who struggled for my entire life to develop a coherent sense of self, who is still going on that particular journey to this day, I experience such genuine joy in helping these pixel people undergo the same process. Not only is it possible to discover your “true self”, but there's a similar beauty in being surprised by what you find. As a small example, never in a million years did I expect myself to enjoy going out drinking with friends. When I was younger, I would have hated the idea, but now, with a little newfound confidence and a stronger self esteem, I look forward to nights like these.
Paella is Agatha's favourite food? Sure! Why not? Beil decides one day that they want to dress in the most sickeningly cute outfit I can find? If you say so, bestie. Life is about new experiences, figuring shit out slowly, and always, always trying. Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream captures that truth beautifully. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to encouraging Yharnak to make friends because gods know that boy won't do it himself.
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