image by freeimages.com / Seven Bates

The calendar has shed its leaves, and has inexorably led to Campaign Mastery’s turn at hosting the Blog Carnival for 2018. The subject that I have chosen this time around is “Why do you love RPGs? Why do you love GMing?”

I’ve been holding onto this topic for quite a while; it was always my intention to focus on it as part of the buildup to the tenth birthday of the site, coming in December. Picking a June time-frame for hosting, when (traditionally) Campaign Mastery has taken its’ turn later in the year, is also intentional; I always expected that all my time at the tail end of the year would be consumed by the imminent anniversary, trying to fulfill all the plans that I have laid.

I have many different answers to the questions I have posed. Some are indelibly time-stamped by personal experiences, others persist in their relevance to this day. Some will find resonances with other readers, while others will be singular experiences unique to myself.

This brings up an important point: while there is always one reason why we initially fall in love with the hobby, this frequently has a limited lifespan. It’s the right thing at the right time to scratch an itch, sometimes one that we don’t even know that we have. Unless other reasons to enjoy the hobby are discovered, though, the affair will eventually flounder on the rocks of time.

It is even possible that for some people, the answer to the first will be “because I love to GM”, conflating the two questions.

The answers below are not intended, nor expected, to be universal. My experiences are not those of anyone else, and may or may not resonate with others as a motivation for gaming. That’s fine with me; I’m not trying to tell anyone else why they might, should, or do enjoy RPGs, not in this article, at least.

There are seven broad reasons that I love this hobby, and why it dominates my social life..

Escape

This is the reason I fell in love with RPGs in the first place. In 1981, I was in my first year of university studies, at an institution that had fumbled the ball very badly, having completely failed to develop a curriculum for the degree that they were offering for the first time, and cobbling together a mixture of maths, science, and engineering foundations that they thought might be relevant. As if that weren’t demotivating enough, I was in a bad place, emotionally, and more than willing to engage in arguably self-destructive behavior (though I didn’t recognize it as such at the time) in an attempt to assuage the pain from a failed romance, even while putting on a brave public face.

My first RPG session was not a huge success from any point of view except one: for a few fleeting hours, I was walking in someone else’s shoes. I had left that pain behind, escaped from it, and – in the process – started to heal myself.

By the time that this was no longer a motivating factor, other reasons for a love of the hobby had manifested, and been absorbed – to such an extent that I’m still an active participant, almost 37 years after that initial exposure.

There have been occasions when this has re-manifested – when I was exhausted through long months of extreme overwork, when I was in severe financial distress, and the like, RPGs brought relief from those real-world pressures and problems.

As a therapy, it might not work for everyone. But it certainly did for me.

Creativity

RPGs have always provided an outlet for my creativity, whether its as an artist or as a writer. But more than that, they have prodded and prompted that creativity to go further than I ever thought possible. If RPGs hadn’t come along, I’d probably become a frustrated science-fiction / fantasy writer or comic-book writer/artist.

Which might provide some insight into why my oldest ongoing campaign is representative of the superhero genre with heavy lashings of science fiction and high fantasy.

Even today, this continues, through the “pages” of Campaign Mastery.

Stimulation

RPGs have prompted me to look at the world around me in ways that would never have occurred to me. Long-time readers will have seen several examples manifesting in articles here. More to the point, they have provided a framework through which other experiences can be dissected and analyzed.

I’ve been forced to contemplate issues that would never have occurred to me without this stimulation. Philosophical debates such as “If a computer system perfectly simulates sentience, should the system actually be considered sentient – and is that sentience software or hardware in nature?” – which naturally leads to, “What is Sentience, anyway?”

I’m still proud of the “physics” I created to explain Aysle, the flat disk Fantasy world within the original TORG, in which gravity was a measure of thermal differential. A molten layer (with pockets of solidity) sandwiched between the surfaces of the worlds ensured that “down” was uniform across the surface planes because the resulting gravitation followed an inverse-to-the-fourth-power relationship with distance. In places where the gravitation was stronger (including underground) you got short races evolving, in places where it was weaker (including the tops of tall trees and mountains) you got taller races evolving, and a higher internal temperature (closer to that of the magma layer) made flight possible for large creatures like Dragons.

I’ve spent a lot of time examining the fundamental concepts that could underlie time travel and their implications, evolving a vision of a complex multiverse with “traditional” physics embedded as a subset of the bigger picture. I’ve contemplated big bangs and heat death, and the lengths that a society might go to in order to survive – and what they could actually do about it. I’ve examined the differences between ethics, professionalism, morality, and justice.

While it’s possible that these contemplations might have taken place without the stimulation of RPGs, the odds of doing all of them without that stimulus is remote to the point of virtual impossibility.

Self-improvement

I mentioned in the previous section the differences and relationships between morality, justice, ethics, and professionalism. A great game gives you the opportunity to examine conundrums in these spheres that would otherwise never occur to you. Those examinations can’t help rubbing off on you, shaping your personal views on the subjects.

RPGs have nurtured and stimulated my growth as a human being, and continue to do so.

Universality

I have an extremely diverse skill-set and an even broader self-education. RPGs are the only hobby that I’ve ever encountered that not only utilizes everything of which I’m capable, but which encourages further growth.

I’ve employed the analytic and logic skills deriving from my Computer Programming training to analyze game systems and solve problems far outside the programming sphere. I’ve employed my bookkeeping expertise to understand the underlying mechanisms of game mechanics and their flaws.

If you’re an athlete, your expertise in the limits of human capacity can be relevant to your participation in an RPG. If you’re a historian, your knowledge of the past can be relevant. If an engineer… well, you get the point. RPGs are the most inclusive hobby in existence because of the breadth of knowledge and expertise than can be brought to bear within them.

Education

In “The expert in everything?” I provided a very long list of things that RPGs have required me to develop some expertise in – from public speaking to astrophysics.

While some of the subjects involved might have been matters of interest regardless, many, many, more of them have come about purely because of their applicability to RPGs.

And, interestingly, very little of that education holds no relevance to real-world situations, has no practical value. I’ve found that I can speak to just about anyone about just about anything – from a layman’s perspective. Almost everyone I interact with on social media can lay valid claim to being more expert in their chosen sphere, can drown me in technicalities – but I can grasp enough of what most are talking about to at least speak intelligently with them.

This social permeability has made it possible for me to interact in workplaces with everyone from the person who empties the trash bins to CEOs. RPGs may be demanding, but they repay those demands in ample, sometimes subtle, ways.

Friendships

But arguably the best reason of all is the one I’ve chosen to place at the end of the list – the people.

Is it possible for RPG players and GMs to be jerks? To be obnoxious, or possessed of odious practices or personal flaws? Of course. But, as a general rule, the social aspects of gaming teach participants how to get along with others. As a general rule of thumb, an RPG player or GM will be more socially open, friendly, willing to talk, and willing to listen, than people in everyday life.

I’ve seen science fiction fans become frothing evangelists when someone disses their favorite author, or expresses support for an author they dislike, and the bubbling undercurrents of hostility between literary and media sci-fi fans are the stuff of legend. I’ve encountered politicians and artists possessed of so much pretentiousness they should sell it. And, while every profession and group has those who are friendly and approachable, who make friends easily, science-fiction fans are – in general – warmer and more open than those who do not share that appreciation. And gamers are warmer and more open than even science fiction fans, simply because their hobby is a social activity instead of something that can be pursued in a solitary bubble.

The people. That’s the ultimate reason to fall in love with RPGs, and to sustain that love of the hobby..

Over to you

So that’s my two cent’s worth on the subject. That won’t buy very much, these days, but I’m happy to give my readers mate’s rates! This article will serve as the anchor post for other participants to provide links to their posts on the subject.

But I’d like this to go further. RPG Podcasters, if you take up this question, I’d be happy to stretch the definition of “bloggers” to include links to the episode in which you do so.

This month’s Blog Carnival is about the things that unite us. In that spirit, how could I do anything less?