Roleplaying
As Roleplaying is such a big part of my life, I feel as though I should explain it a little. I'll include my history with roleplaying, the difference that it's made in my life, and why it's so important to me.
I was first introduced to roleplaying at the tender age of 16 while I was a sophmore in high school and I didn't have any friends at the time. I was always introverted and I came from an abusive background that included lots of moving from state to state. I never learned to form attachments to people and and had difficulty interacting with others. I was a varocious reader and I sketched pen or pencil fantasy art whenever I wasn't reading. It was due to my drawings that I got into roleplaying.
You see, in Math class, not my favourite subject by a long shot, I would spend time doodling on the desk top. Over the course of a couple of days I would gradually fill in every available space of the desktop with my picture. When I was done I would sit back and pull out a book. Needless to say, I never got higher than a D in Math in my entire school career. The other students in the class would switch out the desk when I was done so that I always had a fresh piece of... canvas for my art. They did this because they liked my little drawings.
One day this strange nerdy little kid whose name was appropriately enough, Robert Strange, started asking me what game I played. I had no clue what he was talking about and, having something of a mouth on me, quickly drove him off. He came back in a day or so and explained that the artwork that I did looked like the fantasy games that he played. He asked me if I was content reading books that other people wrote and watching movies that other people made. He asked if I wanted to make my own stories instead. Interested, I followed him up on his offer and met with his friends during our lunch period.
There I was introduced to a roleplaying game called Gurps (Generic Universal Roleplaying System). We were all young and inexperienced and that first session was a horrible joke. We had superhuman characters with magical weapons fighting skeletons that came up through the floor. We started in a room without knowing how we got there or why we came. I don't think that our characters even had names! But I was hooked from the beginning. I knew what kind of potential this "roleplaying" thing had and was eager to make the most of it.
Fortunately for me, roleplaying is an interactive form of entertainment that requires at least two people to play. I found that it's best to have 2 to 6 people, not counting the Game Master (GM) who runs each game. Thus I was forced to become MUCH more social that I had ever been before. I got to know and become friends with each member of that original group outside of Robert, who moved shortly after.
Using the communication skills that I developed through roleplaying, I soon made other friends. Roleplaying has helped me to learn and grow socially by forcing me to ineteract both with the other players in the real world and with the other characters in the fantasy world that the stories took place in.
Roleplaying taught me academic skills like math, used for calculating percentages, adding and subtracting long columns of numbers, reading and comprehension, history, cartography, theology, and different laguages and cultures. It taught me other skills like problem solving, leadership, and the ability to make quick decisions. It honed my creativity and taught me the importance of storytelling and gave me the skills to tell a story well.
Roleplaying has been such an intregal part of my life that I could not imagine how I could cope without it. Whenever I need to relieve stress I can play a game and pick a fight. Or I could run a game and attack the other players with hordes of bad guys. If I'm depressed, lonely, angry, bored, sad, or just moody, I can meet up with some friends and play for a while.
When Robert asked me if I wanted to make my own stories he was only partially right. Roleplaying allows you to make up stories, but in a group setting. However, roleplaying is an Interactive form of entertainment. Like every muscle and organ in your body, your brain needs to be worked in order to improve. Movies, television, books, and music are all passive forms of entertainment. You sit there and absorb a story that someone else has made up. Roleplaying forces you to think. How do I get past the guard at the gate? Who is the beautiful maiden at the top of the tower guarded by a dragon and how do I save her? Roleplaying is an active form of entertainment that stimulates thought and creativity by it's very nature.
Roleplaying introduced me to my wife. Actually, she was introduced to me by a friend of mine named Freddy. However, roleplaying is how I met Freddy and the reason that we became friends in the first place. So in essence, I met my wife because of roleplaying.
Roleplaying is suitable for anyone 12 years old and up. I have played with people as young as my 10 year old nephew to a group of men in their fifties. I have played with people who have mental or physical handicaps and I had a great time. Every group that I've been in for the last eight years have had both men and women in it. I have played with people of all races, religions, sexual orientations, morals, and beliefs. It is an integral part of me and helped make me the person that I am. Everything that I do is somehow or is in someway influenced by roleplaying.
Roleplaying games, like every other game, has rules. Each roleplaying game system has different rules. The Game Master (GM) is in charge of the game. The GM makes up the world that the characters are going to be playing in. The GM populates this world with whatever people and creatures are appropriate.
To use an example, the GM is like George Lucas. He made up a universe and filled it with humans and aliens. Like George Lucas, the GM also has to come up with the plot for the story about to take place and has to invent all the characters, good and evil, that the player characters (PCs) will run into during the story. Like Lucas, GM also has partial creative control on the characters that the other players will be playing. This prevents players from making innappropriate charaters like a samurai in a space opera setting.
The players are the heroes of the tale. They are the driving force behind Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewy. They control everything that the characters do in the course of the game.
Hopefully this helped you the reader understand a little bit about roleplaying and what it means to me. Maybe you will try someday. I know that it has made a huge difference in my life. May it have the same effect on yours.
Thank you Robert Strange. You change my life.
I was first introduced to roleplaying at the tender age of 16 while I was a sophmore in high school and I didn't have any friends at the time. I was always introverted and I came from an abusive background that included lots of moving from state to state. I never learned to form attachments to people and and had difficulty interacting with others. I was a varocious reader and I sketched pen or pencil fantasy art whenever I wasn't reading. It was due to my drawings that I got into roleplaying.
You see, in Math class, not my favourite subject by a long shot, I would spend time doodling on the desk top. Over the course of a couple of days I would gradually fill in every available space of the desktop with my picture. When I was done I would sit back and pull out a book. Needless to say, I never got higher than a D in Math in my entire school career. The other students in the class would switch out the desk when I was done so that I always had a fresh piece of... canvas for my art. They did this because they liked my little drawings.
One day this strange nerdy little kid whose name was appropriately enough, Robert Strange, started asking me what game I played. I had no clue what he was talking about and, having something of a mouth on me, quickly drove him off. He came back in a day or so and explained that the artwork that I did looked like the fantasy games that he played. He asked me if I was content reading books that other people wrote and watching movies that other people made. He asked if I wanted to make my own stories instead. Interested, I followed him up on his offer and met with his friends during our lunch period.
There I was introduced to a roleplaying game called Gurps (Generic Universal Roleplaying System). We were all young and inexperienced and that first session was a horrible joke. We had superhuman characters with magical weapons fighting skeletons that came up through the floor. We started in a room without knowing how we got there or why we came. I don't think that our characters even had names! But I was hooked from the beginning. I knew what kind of potential this "roleplaying" thing had and was eager to make the most of it.
Fortunately for me, roleplaying is an interactive form of entertainment that requires at least two people to play. I found that it's best to have 2 to 6 people, not counting the Game Master (GM) who runs each game. Thus I was forced to become MUCH more social that I had ever been before. I got to know and become friends with each member of that original group outside of Robert, who moved shortly after.
Using the communication skills that I developed through roleplaying, I soon made other friends. Roleplaying has helped me to learn and grow socially by forcing me to ineteract both with the other players in the real world and with the other characters in the fantasy world that the stories took place in.
Roleplaying taught me academic skills like math, used for calculating percentages, adding and subtracting long columns of numbers, reading and comprehension, history, cartography, theology, and different laguages and cultures. It taught me other skills like problem solving, leadership, and the ability to make quick decisions. It honed my creativity and taught me the importance of storytelling and gave me the skills to tell a story well.
Roleplaying has been such an intregal part of my life that I could not imagine how I could cope without it. Whenever I need to relieve stress I can play a game and pick a fight. Or I could run a game and attack the other players with hordes of bad guys. If I'm depressed, lonely, angry, bored, sad, or just moody, I can meet up with some friends and play for a while.
When Robert asked me if I wanted to make my own stories he was only partially right. Roleplaying allows you to make up stories, but in a group setting. However, roleplaying is an Interactive form of entertainment. Like every muscle and organ in your body, your brain needs to be worked in order to improve. Movies, television, books, and music are all passive forms of entertainment. You sit there and absorb a story that someone else has made up. Roleplaying forces you to think. How do I get past the guard at the gate? Who is the beautiful maiden at the top of the tower guarded by a dragon and how do I save her? Roleplaying is an active form of entertainment that stimulates thought and creativity by it's very nature.
Roleplaying introduced me to my wife. Actually, she was introduced to me by a friend of mine named Freddy. However, roleplaying is how I met Freddy and the reason that we became friends in the first place. So in essence, I met my wife because of roleplaying.
Roleplaying is suitable for anyone 12 years old and up. I have played with people as young as my 10 year old nephew to a group of men in their fifties. I have played with people who have mental or physical handicaps and I had a great time. Every group that I've been in for the last eight years have had both men and women in it. I have played with people of all races, religions, sexual orientations, morals, and beliefs. It is an integral part of me and helped make me the person that I am. Everything that I do is somehow or is in someway influenced by roleplaying.
Roleplaying games, like every other game, has rules. Each roleplaying game system has different rules. The Game Master (GM) is in charge of the game. The GM makes up the world that the characters are going to be playing in. The GM populates this world with whatever people and creatures are appropriate.
To use an example, the GM is like George Lucas. He made up a universe and filled it with humans and aliens. Like George Lucas, the GM also has to come up with the plot for the story about to take place and has to invent all the characters, good and evil, that the player characters (PCs) will run into during the story. Like Lucas, GM also has partial creative control on the characters that the other players will be playing. This prevents players from making innappropriate charaters like a samurai in a space opera setting.
The players are the heroes of the tale. They are the driving force behind Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewy. They control everything that the characters do in the course of the game.
Hopefully this helped you the reader understand a little bit about roleplaying and what it means to me. Maybe you will try someday. I know that it has made a huge difference in my life. May it have the same effect on yours.
Thank you Robert Strange. You change my life.
posted by Keko at 10:30
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