Is that a d20 in your pocket?

It’s hard for me to believe that I haven’t blogged about this yet. Oh, I’ve mentioned it in passing. Heck, my screen name is a reference. (“Six sider” is a term for a six-sided die. A “twenty sider” would be a 20-sided die. Not hard to figure out. If I were being a big big nerd, I would have called myself 4d6 or some such. That means a four six-side dice. But I digress. I imagine there will be a lot of that in this post.) But I’ve never actually written about it. Perhaps because I haven’t done it since I moved to New York in 2001, at least until recently.

I am a gamer. I roleplay. Paper and pencils, sitting around a table, drinking soda or beer, pizza, dice of many shapes, character sheets, assorted overpriced books of rules and systems, hit points, attribute stats, leveling up roleplaying. I do it, I love it and I’m not ashamed.

As much as I enjoy it, it is something that is hard to bring up in conversation. My friend Allan once equated it to masturbation: it is something you do in the privacy of your home, enjoy and have not quilt over, but you don’t talk about. That’s not quite right. Everyone masturbates (give or take) but you do it alone (give or take) and no one really feels the need to talk about (give or take). Roleplaying is something that very few people do, you need to do with others, and, once you do it, you want to talk about it.

In some ways telling people you roleplay is similar to telling people you do improv. If they know improv, they get it right away. Otherwise you find yourself trying to explain what it is and, inevitably, they just stare at you with glassy eyes. Sometimes they have a bit of reference (most likely the show Who’s Line Is It Anyway?) and you have to explain the difference of what you do. Often when you say “I roleplay,” their first response is “Oh, Dungeons & Dragons? Like wearing capes and stuff?” You sigh and try to change the subject but they insist that they’re interested it, they just don’t understand it. Nine times out of ten they are interested in the way people are interested in someone who was born with lobster claws for hands.

(At this point, I feel like I should make some disclaimers… which shows I’m not as unashamed of my hobby as I claim.

1. I am very choosey whom I game with. Many gamers are socially maladjusted. They take the game too seriously or are into just the stats and numbers. I’m into story and characters.
2. I think I have played actual Dungeons & Dragons once. It is the game very one thinks of and I imagine it can be quite fun. But I find the rules convoluted and the “world” cliché. So I always feel I have to qualify my “I roleplay” statements with “but not D&D.”
3. I have never LARPed. LARP stands for “Live Action Role Playing.” This is where the capes come in. People dress up as their characters, move around physically embodying the part. Like a How To Host A Murder party deal, but weirder. The most common type of LARPing is probably Vampire, because being goth is fun. I have nothing particularly against it. I like live theater. It’s just that a lot of LARPers I’ve met have a harder time distinguishing game from reality. And there often seems to be a weird sexual undercurrent to those things. Just not my cup of tea and/or blood.)

There is an interesting moment when the subject does come up between two secret gamers. Usually an over heard comment will start it off.

“I overheard you back there. You mentioned the game Shadowrun.”
“Um… yeah. I… um… well, back in high school you know.”
“No no. Me too. Not for years though. No time, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah. Not that I don’t sometimes wish…”
“Wish you could play now?”
“Um… yeah…”
“Me too! Yes!”
“Oh god! I want to play again!”

A question that is usually lurking behind those classy eyes of the people who don’t understand it, is “Why would you do that?” or “How is that fun?” The answer isn’t simple.
• It is actually social. Roleplaying has been tied to the term “anti-social” forever, but that’s only because the people who tend to do it in junior high and high school are the types that get slapped with the label “anti-social.” The misfits, the ones dressed in black, the ones that enjoy science fiction and comic books, the ones that enjoy math class a bit too much, the theater geeks. But roleplaying is actually a social thing that draws those you have a hard time fitting in elsewhere. My friend Kirk explained roleplaying's draw as being an after school spots activity for people who aren’t good at sports or just don’t like them. It has aspects of teamwork, bonding, competition, etc..

But all of that isn’t why I did it. I actually came to roleplaying late, my first semester of college. It wasn’t about finding some place to fit in at that point. But it was a way to hangout with friends for hours that didn’t involve getting wasted or whatever else. It’s like playing bridge. It’s an activity that you can share with others that doesn’t involve paying money or actually going anywhere. Certainly it is more social than watching a movie or going to a club.

• It is both a “game” and “not a game.” The “game” part of “roleplaying game” often confuses people. “How do you decide who wins?” The thing is, you don’t. You aren’t competing against each other (normally). It is not about “winning” or “getting points.” The “players” are characters in a story. The “game” is the story. But there are game aspects to it. There are rules to help decide what and how well your character does things. You want you character to pick a lock? Roll dice, compare it to some number, see what happens. It makes things unpredictable. If you are writing a story, you just decide. “The main character needs to search the office so I, as the author, decides he can pick the lock.” In a roleplaying game you can fail at an activity and then have to come up with a new plan. My favorite action movies are not where the hero is good at everything and succeeds at everything she does but the hero has set backs and must overcome them. Die Hard is a great movie in part because John McClane gets beaten around so much and yet manages to pull some insane, balls out plan. In roleplaying, it can be very exciting to have you character do something incredibly daring and difficult (say jump from the wings of one biplane to another while shooting your trust revolver at the attacking demonic bat creatures) and succeeding against all odds. It can also be great fun when you fail (say missing the jump, grapping at the planes wheel but dropping your gun, and suddenly being swarmed by the DBCs).

• It’s playing pretend. I have a very active fantasy life. I want to be a badass adventure at the turn of the century. I want to be the hotshot starship pilot. I want to be able to shoot fire from my fingertips and fly. I want to save the princess. I don’t get much opportunity to in my day-to-day life. So, yes, I like to pretend. But it isn’t just about imagining that you can do those things. It’s about putting it into the context of a character and a story. Han Solo was not cool because he was a great pilot. His personality was cool and flawed. His progression from only acting in his self-interest scoundrel to hero for the rebellion was what made it cool.

• It’s all about story. Related to the above, it is about telling a story with other people. You have a group of characters that might not all get a long, moving through a story, creating a story. Characters change, they learn, they fail, they succeed. People they care about my die. People might fall in love. They might betray each other. There is humor and thrills and horror and moments of quite. It is problem solving and problem causing. In the end, it is weaving a tale that can be as exciting and moving and rewarding as any book. Often more so because you helped create it.


So, yes. I roleplay.