Full Day Lord of the Rings Mavora Lakes Adventure

Allie and I enjoyed an adventure on South Island of New Zealand (Te Waipounamu) where we retraced the steps taken to film Lord of the Rings trilogy. We toured with Trails of Middle Earth on their Full Day Lord of the Rings Mavora Lakes Adventure.  The tour included multiple filming locations for Lord of the Rings in the general Mavora Lakes region, including the famous Orc Mound, Anduin River and Nen Hithoel.^[1][2] At Mavora Lake, we had a chance to cosplay with Hobbit outfits and authentic replicas of many battle weapons from the Trilogy. Overall experience was positive.

However, while visiting these filming locations was great, the travel between them is a bit rough. This is the nature of travelling around the South Island of New Zealand in this region, especially when you are leaving paved highways behind for a time.  The tour length definitely adds to discomfort as much as the roads themselves since this is a 10 hour tour, with long stretches between locations.  Just be prepared.  One bit of advice is to pack your own lunch, as I found the location where food was available to purchase to be rather lacking.

 

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DUefP6dgWfQ/?img_index=1 and https://www.instagram.com/p/DUego49AVOc/?img_index=1

Besides the thrill of discovering so many filming locations in one tour, we also got to see much of beauty of South Island's mountains and lakes. It feels like New Zealand was always meant to be the location of Middle Earth.

Real-World Games and Player Perspective

Why Physical Games Clarify the Debate

If digital games complicate questions of perspective with cameras, avatars, and simulated worlds, real‑world games strip those ambiguities away. There is no virtual camera, no rendering engine, and no ambiguity about where the player exists in relation to play.

What remains is the core relationship that person actually describes: how the player is positioned relative to action and agency.

When we apply the same player‑centric framework to physical and tabletop games, the mislabeling of digital perspectives becomes immediately obvious. The categories align cleanly without edge cases, caveats or special pleading.

---

First Person: Embodied Physical Play

In first‑person games, the player is the acting body. There is no representational layer.

Examples 

• Tag

• Soccer, basketball, martial arts

• Darts, bowling

• Poker (as bodily participation rather than avatar play)

Perspective Structure

• The player acts directly

• The player’s body is the locus of agency

• There is no token, piece, or proxy

The language of play is unambiguously first person:

I run.

I throw.

I bluff.

No one meaningfully describes these games as issuing commands to a representation. There is no interpretive distance between decision and action.

This is first‑person perspective in its purest form, mapping precisely onto digital first‑person games where avatar and player identity collapse into one.

---

Second Person: Token‑Mediated Play

Second‑person play emerges the moment a personal proxy is introduced.

Examples

• Monopoly

• The Game of Life

• Sorry!

• Most role‑playing board games

Perspective Structure

• The player is personally represented

• Actions are issued to a token

• The token is “you,” but not identical to you

The language shifts naturally:

You move three spaces.

You pass Go.

You go to jail.

No one confuses the plastic token with the player’s physical body. No one treats the token as an unrelated entity either. It is unmistakably you, addressed directly.

This is the exact structural relationship found in traditionally labeled “third‑person” digital games:

• A visible body

• A controllable character

• A personal avatar that can be observed, directed, and positioned

The tabletop world exposes the truth that digital cameras obscure: this is second‑person play.

---

Third Person: Unembodied Command

True third‑person perspective appears when the player has no personal representation at all.

Examples

• Chess

• Checkers

• Go

• Wargames with multiple units per side

Perspective Structure

• No piece represents the player

• All entities are equally external

• The player exists entirely outside the system

The language reflects this detachment:

That piece captured the queen.

These troops were sacrificed units.

That side is losing control of the board.

Even when players identify emotionally with a side or strategy, no single piece is you. The relationship is observational and managerial rather than embodied.

This maps cleanly onto digital strategy games, god games, and simulation titles where the player’s presence is abstract, systemic, or omniscient.

---

Why These Categories Feel Obvious Offline

In physical games, no one argues that Monopoly is “third person” or that chess is “first person.” The distinctions feel intuitive because:

• There is no camera to confuse viewpoint with identity

• Tokens and the actually human self are physically distinct

• Agency is visibly mediated or not

Digital games inherited linguistic categories before these distinctions were fully examined. Real‑world games demonstrate that the confusion is not conceptual, but rather it is terminological.

---

The Consistency Test

A useful diagnostic question emerges:

If this game were played on a table instead of a screen, what would represent the player?

• Your body → First person

• Your personal token → Second person

• Nothing at all → Third person

This test holds across media, genres, and technologies.

---

Implications for Game Analysis

Understanding perspective through real‑world analogs helps clarify:

• Why some games feel intimate despite external cameras

• Why avatar visibility changes player psychology

• Why command‑based games encourage strategic rather than empathetic thinking

• Why VR intensifies embodiment without redefining perspective

Most importantly, it reinforces the fact that perspective is about player–action relationships, not visual framing.

---

Looking beyond

Real‑world games quietly and intuitively preserve the original linguistic meaning of person in the terms of first-, second- and third-person. When we let them inform our understanding of digital play, the long‑standing mislabeling of game perspectives becomes impossible to ignore. The camera never determined perspective; the player's relationship within the game makes that determination.

---

Also see:

• We’ve Been Using “Third-Person” Wrong for 30 Years in Gaming
• A Player-Centric Model of Game Perspective 

Places I've Visited So Far Winter 2025-2026

It's 2026 and I have expanded the places visited, both within the US and Internationally. I've not expanded travel within Canada and Mexico, so I won't include specific maps for those.

A Player-Centric Model of Game Perspective

From Definitions to Application

The previous article in this series established a narrow but important claim: camera angle does not determine narrative person. "Person" in "first-person" describes who acts, not where the camera viewpoint is placed.

Taking this into consideration, let's apply the concept directly to video games. Doing so requires shifting perspective from what the player sees to how the player is represented within the game system.

This article proposes a player-centric model of perspective and uses it to reëxamine the three categories commonly described as first-person, second-person and third-person.

---

A Player-Centric Definition of Perspective

Rather than anchoring perspective to the camera, this model defines person by the relationship between the player and the acting entity in the game world.

Person	Defining Question	Player Relationship
First	Am I the body acting?	Player and avatar are the same entity
Second	Am I directing a represented “you”?	Player controls a personal avatar
Third	Am I commanding others?	Player is unrepresented in the world

This framework does not replace existing camera terminology. It runs alongside it. A game can still be described as having a first-person perspective with a third-person camera. What changes is how we describe player perspective.

---

First-Person Games: “I Move Here”

In first-person games, the player and the avatar collapse into a single acting subject. There is no meaningful distinction between the decision-maker and the body that carries out those decisions.

Common examples include:

• Doom

• Counter-Strike

• Mirror’s Edge

• Most virtual reality titles

Player intent is expressed directly as action:

I reload.

I lean around the corner.

I jump.

The defining feature is not the absence of a visible character model. It is the absence of narrative distance. The player does not instruct a character. The player acts.

---

The Misnamed Middle: Games Labeled “Third-Person”

Most action and role-playing games are grouped under the label of third-person:

• Tomb Raider

• The Witcher

• God of War

• PUBG

This category is where the traditional terminology begins to fail.

In these games, the player does not fully inhabit the avatar in the way first-person play requires. The character on screen is visible, persistent, and separate. The player does not experience the world as the body. The player directs the body.

The internal language of play reflects this relationship clearly:

You roll.

You climb.

You draw your weapon.

This is not metaphorical. It is structurally second person. The avatar represents the player, but the representation is mediated. The player and the character are not the same acting subject.

What distinguishes this middle category is not camera distance, character visibility, or animation style. It is addressability. The player addresses a personal avatar that exists as an object in the game world.

That distinction matters. A player can empathize with, customize, and narratively identify with an avatar while still relating to it as "you" rather than "I." The presence of dialogue choices, equipment management, and movement commands reinforces this relationship. The player tells the character what to do. The character then does it.

The camera makes this separation obvious, but it does not create it. Even if the camera were forced to overlap the character’s head, the underlying relationship would remain unchanged as long as the player continues to issue instructions to a represented self.

The moment a player can observe their own body as something acted upon, perspective has already shifted away from first person.

This is the core of the mislabeling. These games are neither first-person nor third-person in the narrative sense. They occupy a distinct middle ground that aligns cleanly with second-person structure.

---

True Third-Person Games: “They Move There”

Third-person perspective, in the narrative sense, emerges when the player is not embodied at all.

Strategy and command-based games provide clear examples:

• Civilization

• X-COM

• Command & Conquer

• StarCraft

Here, the player does not control a personal avatar. Instead, they direct multiple agents, units, or factions.

The language of play naturally changes:

They advance the unit.

They lose morale.

They capture the city.

Even when the game provides a narrative role such as ruler, commander, or overseer, that role is abstract. No single entity in the game world stands in for the player.

This aligns cleanly with third-person narration in literature. The player observes and directs, but does not inhabit.

---

A Shift in Perspective

Reframing game perspective around player representation reveals a gap in the familiar terminology. What has long been labeled third-person gameplay occupies a distinct middle ground that matches second-person structure far more closely than third.

This does not mean existing labels must be discarded. It does mean they should be understood as describing cameras rather than perspective.

The next article in this series steps away from digital games entirely. By examining board games and other real-world play, it becomes easier to see why camera-based definitions were always an awkward fit.

Continue to Part III: Real-World Games and Player Perspective.