From tackling them as part of a game’s narrative to gamers raising money for charities supporting mental well-being, there are a lot of ways games approachissues of mental health. In online games likeFinal Fantasy 14, one way to creatively process emotions is through interactive roleplaying.
Roleplaying occupies an interesting space as an interactive hobby. Part improvisational acting, part creative writing, and part game design, roleplaying pulls on a lot of different artistic expressions. Setting rules, following norms, employing classic principles like “yes-and,” and engaging in collaborative storytelling can be an intense emotional investment and a rewarding experience. It’s also a deeply social activity, but one largely pursued in physical isolation. This makes it a particularly strange beast when it comes to navigating issues like social anxiety, something manyFinal Fantasy 14players may be familiar with.
A new roleplayer resource for players ofFinal Fantasy 14,The Kweh, set out on a six-month interview project to catalog the various experiences of roleplayers as they relate to social anxiety. This attempt aimed to help both identify common threads and share experiences to help those experiencing panic in roleplay. The Kweh’s creator, Legaia, recently spoke with Game Rant about the project, which published its results in mid-October.
“It is woven in my fabric that I create things that can be helpful to others. Even if it’s just one person, that is enough for me. I remember someone looking at The Kweh’s base RP guide and going, ‘This is awesome, but I have too much anxiety to even give it a shot.’ … I interviewed 80 people from all regions so they knew they were heard, and I could try to build a resource with the words of people from all over the world … It’s a combination of me dealing with my own anxiety, folks asking me for help and tips, and my love for creating things where others get to contribute.”
The social anxiety project compiled tips on dealing with ghosting, how to set expectations with roleplaying partners, maintaining a separation between the self and the character, general online safety, tips specifically for the staff running roleplaying venues and events, and otherpervasive anxiety issues in online games. Legaia shared some of the top-level data visualizations that formed the backbone of the published findings and the enormous effort it took to explore those findings across hundreds of hours, all to distill the community’s insights into a user-friendly website.
One finding that stuck out to him was the way heavy themes in roleplay could affect their writers. While resonating with an emotionally intense roleplay is fairly common, many of Legaia’s interview subjects expressed worry that the subject matter of a particular RP might adversely affect their RP partners, and they were nervous or worried about the way their writing impacted others. Not engaging in those themes in his own roleplay, he hadn’t anticipated how common that worry was, but said he wasn’t all that surprised to learn about it. He characterized it as part of the “genuine concern”Final Fantasy 14roleplayershave for one another’s wellbeing.
A project like this may seem an unusual way to spend hundreds of hours and half a year of time, but Legaia said he was motivated by his own experiences. In particular, it was because of a supportive friend who passed away some years ago. He said the section of The Kweh is dedicated to her.
“She would drop everything to help me deal with panic attacks and listen to the words I had to say. She was like another mom to me, and I am so grateful for having someone in my life that could do that for me … She was an amazing person, and I was so lucky to have someone like her in my life. I know people like her are hard to find in life. We don’t always have a hero like that to support us and help us. Since she passed I took everything she did for me, and today I try to pass that on to others and help others if I can do it.”
Like much of The Kweh, the social anxiety project was focused on finding ways to help new roleplayers navigate the world ofFinal Fantasy 14’s roleplaying scene. Legaia described it as colorful and energetic with massive community-run events likethe annual summer music festival Mogstock.
The Kweh also breaks down for new roleplayers the social norms of variousroleplaying communities inFinal Fantasy 14from differences between the servers and datacenters to differences between what English-speaking communities mean by roleplaying and what Japanese-speaking communities mean. The site, which started in September 2022 as a humorous profile of different roleplaying venues, dramatically expanded into a full-on guide and resource site in March 2023. To support this huge community, Legaia intends to continue pouring energy into the project in the longer term.
“The Kweh is just me screaming my frustrations and burning all of my creative energy and skills into one thing while also keeping who she was alive. When I realized this, I continued working on the recent release. There was no way I could stop now and I pushed myself to finish the project … I look at RP as another form of content to enjoy that is community driven. I’m just trying to increase accessibility to something that can be enjoyable and at least give the players everything they need to just try it. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Applying the principles of The Kweh across linguistic lines is where Legaia has set his sights next, and a collaboration with another content creator, Yabi Yabi, about the differences between the datacenters is in the works. Legaia admits the next major interview project, like October’s social anxiety survey, will likely be a while off though. Over 100 interviews in the past year has taken a lot of time and energy, he explained, and more than a few missed meetings at his work.
Still, the experience isn’t one he’d trade for the world, and he does plan to see where his interests and curiosity take him next. Shortly before his conversation with Game Rant, his drive to share stories with other players led to a conversation about regional differences in the game at a bar in Japan.
“I sat at a whiskey bar in Shinjuku, Tokyo with anotherFinal Fantasy 14player who plays on Gaia datacenter. We talked about savage raiding, RP, the marketboard economy, housing, and more. He said he looks forward to the day we all get to fight side by side together in Eorzea.“
Those looking to fight, and write, side-by-side with Legaia can do so with thefree trial forFinal Fantasy 14ahead of the Dawntrail expansion in Summer 2024.
Final Fantasy 14 (2010)
WHERE TO PLAY
Begin your adventure in FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm RebornCreate your very own Warrior of Light and embark upon a quest to deliver the land from an eternity of Darkness.Take to the skies in FINAL FANTASY XIV: HeavenswardTake your first steps in the reclusive nation of Ishgard, locked in a seemingly never-ending struggle with dragons.Rekindle the fires of hope in FINAL FANTASY XIV: StormbloodJourney to the East and rise up against the might of the Garlean Empire.Become the darkness in FINAL FANTASY XIV: ShadowbringersTravel to a world where light ushers all unto oblivion. But hope is not yet lost, for where there is light there is shadow.Journey to the very stars above in FINAL FANTASY XIV: EndwalkerA great calamity has been building - a second advent of the Final Days. The Warrior of Light must journey ever higher and stand firm as hope’s last bastion.Set forth for new horizons in FINAL FANTASY XIV: DawntrailBlue seas, clear skies, and boundless possibilities await! Explore uncharted territories with familiar faces as hope’s light dawns once more.
