Tagged with " Reverb Gamers"
Jan 16, 2012 - Game Theory    No Comments

Spoiled Rotten: Reverb Gamers #13

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #13: Who’s the best GM/storyteller/party leader you’ve ever had? What made him/her so great? (Courtesy of Atlas Games.)

I have been so ridiculously, stupidly fortunate in my gaming experiences, it isn’t even fair for anyone to take my idea of a good GM into account. Why do I say that?

I’ve been in the wild and woolly adventures of the Thorne Family in a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign run by bestselling author Jim Butcher; it goes without saying that he’s a master of epic storytelling, but he also makes every player feel important. I’ve been in an Amber throne war run by Fred Hicks, co-founder of Evil Hat; he’s got a keen understanding of character motivations, and he knows just when to twist the knife. I was at the first meeting of the Diogenes Club run by Rob Donoghue, fellow Evil Hat founder and one of the creators of Spirit of the Century; if you like bombast, wild theatrical play, and devlishly clever twists, look no further. I’ve played Roman Empire intrigues run by Jason Roberts and Michael Miller, creators of FVLMINATA; Jason’s historical knowledge is vast, even by my standards, and Mike is very skillful at breathing life into the setting. I’ve played in battles on the Caribbean seas run by Jason Hawkins, creator of Run Out the Guns! (as I’ve described elsewhere). I’ve played in a Black Company escapade run by Lydia Leong of Ars Magica and MU* fame; her technical mastery of systems frees the players to be as twinky as they want to be, yet she loves to orchestrate big fights and wallpaper-chewing RP. I’ve played in a power struggle for control of the Kansas City Camarilla run by Allan Grohe of Greyhawk and Chaosium Press renown; he’s got an unparalleled knack for balancing the egos and motives of both players and characters. I’ve played in Clark Valentine‘s original setting; Clark’s a wonder of creativity, and he thrives on player collaboration to build marvelous worlds. And, of course, I’ve played Dragonlance with Cam Banks, as well as countless one-shots and other campaigns of his design.

I’ll give all you RPG players just a moment to seethe with envy.

Some of this luck has been self-made. Several of my favorite games were run by the creators of that system and/or setting, so here’s my best piece of advice: When you’re searching convention programs for games of interest, look for the events where writers and designers are running their own games. In almost everything else, familiarity breeds contempt; in GMing, familiarity breeds comfort and flexibility.

Our Dragonlance campaign group in PA (L to R): Clark Valentine, Cam Banks, Paul Marcinkevage, Scott Williams, and Amanda Valentine. I'm behind the camera, where I belong.

Of all these extraordinary experiences, though, the best GM I’ve ever played with is, hands down, my Darling Husband, Cam Banks. Sure, I’m biased, but I think I’d get a fair amount of agreement for anyone else who’s been lucky enough to sit across the table when he’s running the show.

But I’ve got lots of good reasons why this is the case. First, he tends to run systems that he knows backward and forward, so he navigates the rules with speed and deftness. I know the look in his eyes when he’s crunching numbers, rules, exceptions, and sources; it’s similar to the look WALL-E gets when he’s making one of those tidy little trash cubes.

Here's that stat block you wanted.

Because he’s so facile with the mechanics, he rolls easily with whatever harebrained schemes his players develop (and by players doing harebrained things, I mean me, doing what I usually do). He also often runs games in settings on which he’s exhaustively informed, whether because they’re of his own design, or they’re from canons of work on which he’s earned his status as an authority, like Dragonlance and the Marvel Universe.

Second, he juggles player dynamics with uncommon sensitivity. This may be his counselling training and skills as an arbitrator showing through, but whatever it is, he’s got a knack for keeping all the characters in the mix, so even cut-away scenes when the party splits up don’t end up with anyone feeling bored, ignored, or slighted. He manages all different kinds of players and lets them play the way that’s fun for them, making the most of their strengths so that something that may seem annoying to different-style players under another GM ends up feeling like an essential contribution to the whole group.

Third, finally, and most important, he is the single most brilliantly creative storyteller I’ve ever known. He has a Red Phone with a direct line to the Primal Well of Story. If most people were put into a room with paper and pen and told to come up with as many completely original story concepts as possible in one hour, we would probably be quite pleased with two or three solid ideas–Cam would have ten, unique, insanely clever, out-of-the-ballpark hits. He sees stories the way Grand Masters see a chess game, infinite possibilities spooling out from every decision point. And despite this mind-boggling talent, he’s never threatened by his players’ input. I commit the most egregious mutilations of his best intentions, and over and over, he’s taken those derailments and woven narratives I could never have imagined. He even makes me, and all his players, feel like they’re brilliant for those contributions.

He runs games at conventions all the time, so it’s always worth trying to get in to one of his sessions. Bribe, beg, connive, steal–whatever it takes. He’ll redefine your image of a great GM, but even more remarkable, he’ll make you feel like you’re a great player.

Jan 15, 2012 - Game Theory, Literature    1 Comment

Straight Into Hell: Reverb Gamers #9 & 10

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #9: Have you ever played a character of the opposite sex? Why or why not? If yes, how did the other players react? (Courtesy of Atlas Games.)

I can only think of two male characters that I created and played–I’m sure I’ve played male pregens at cons over the years, but they don’t stick in my memory so much. The first was the aforementioned Wasabi Delmonico, the San Francisco Kid. He was for a pulp one-shot, a Chinese-American teenager who raced soapbox derby carts down the Bay Area hills and did other sorts of wacky stunts. I think we fought flying gorilla men. His name is clearly the most memorable thing about him; his gender wasn’t really a factor in the game.

Scottish pirates, burying William Kidd's treasure.The second male character I played was in a con game, but he’s lodged in my memory (and possibly those of other players) as firmly as any character in an extended campaign. My friends Lydia and Rob had raved about the fantastic sessions of Run Out the Guns! they’d played at Gen Con the year before, run by the game’s creator and historical-replica sailor Jason Hawkins. There’s a big focus on historicity and realism, for all that it’s a swashbuckling adventure game, so I didn’t want to introduce the anachronism of a female sailor, or deal with all the actual prejudice and liabilities that would come with portraying a woman accurately in the setting.

So I made a bosun’s mate named Hamish Macbeth, a brawny ginger Scot. I was thoroughly immersed in the BBC series based on the M.C. Beaton books at the time, so sue me for unoriginality if you must. I’m a pretty fine vocal mimic, so that same immersion meant that I could affect a mighty strong (and fairly accurate, if I do say so myself) Highland accent. Jason was an amazing GM–his extensive work on the Rolemaster system meant he could handle the technical aspects with a facility not associated with Rolemaster, and his deep knowledge of the setting and ships meant he made very complex things run with a wild, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, theatrical ease. The ship battles were epic, and it’s a bosun’s mate’s job to relay orders from the captain to the crew. I did this in a salty, broguey bellow that was, upon reflection, completely inconsiderate to every other game going on in the labyrinthine basement of Milwaukee’s Mecca Center. But, great good gods, did we have fun.

When the game was over, Jason shook my hand heartily and said, “Hamish, man, I’d follow you straight into hell with that voice!” I’ve shared that compliment often over the years, as one of the highlights of my game convention experience, but only upon thinking of my answer to this prompt did it occur to me that Jason and my fellow players referred to me and called for my attention all that night with male pronouns and epithets. I was so deeply into Hamish’s head that I honestly didn’t notice.

I’m not usually so thoroughly sunk in a character that I forget I’m not him/her, and the dissonance between my feminine self and a masculine character when I’m not completely in either world is the reason I don’t play male characters more often. I can’t possibly know what it’s like to be inside a man’s head, and I wouldn’t dare to suggest that I do, so I don’t trust myself to accurately portray a man’s motivations as I make decisions for that character. I think most game settings and GMs go out of their way to allow for greater gender balance than strictly historical mores would accommodate, so I haven’t felt restricted in my character choices by sticking with the gender I know.

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #10: Have you ever played a character originally from a book/TV/movie? How did the character change from the original as you played? If not, who would you most like to play? (Courtesy of Atlas Games.)

I’ve played a lot of great characters from book, TV, and movie settings I love, but for this prompt, all I can think about are the ones I despise. I’m going to bring some flak from earnest fans, but here’s the honest truth:

I HATE Sand from The Chronicles of Amber and Goldmoon from Dragonlance.

For those not familiar with these characters, here’s a bit of background. The Wikipedia entry for Sand and her brother Delwin, introduced in Blood of Amber, says this: “Delwin (brown & black) and Sand (pale tan & dark brown), twin brother and sister. They only lived a short time in Amber, preferring to live in the Shadow worlds and keep themselves removed from the affairs of their siblings.” I think it was the Diceless RPG by Erick Wujcik that introduced the idea that Sand has power over the dreams of others, but I’m not entirely certain of this. In any case, she’s a minor character, and she’s as flat and colorless as the substance for which she’s named.

And I’ve never played Goldmoon in a run-through of the Dragonlance adventures that didn’t make me wonder why Goldmoon and Riverwind didn’t take their toy and go home. In one particularly memorable campaign, Goldmoon met the rest of the companions as they punched Flint repeatedly, in an effort to render him senseless so they could cross the river. I’ve got lots of problems with the character, but frankly, I’ve never been able to get past that first, most essential obstacle.

The cruelest thing my Darling Husband has ever done to me was to make me play Goldmoon in a Dragonlance one-shot while we were hanging out with friends in New Zealand. Halfway through the game, all the characters “woke up” to discover that they were actually Amberites, being manipulated through their dreams. And Goldmoon was actually Sand.

At which point, the words “divorce” and “green card” and “one-way ticket home” were casually thrown into the conversation.

Ironically, though Cam writes RPGs for licensed properties, I’ve only played Smallville once; I’ve never had the chance to play Serenity, Supernatural, Demon Hunters, Leverage, or Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. This isn’t because I wouldn’t love to. Rather, it’s a function of not being able to afford babysitters for game nights, and game conventions being work rather than play for us, on the rare occasions in the last decade when we can arrange someone to stay with the boys so I can attend. Hopefully, that’ll change, and I can finally find out what all the buzz is about.

Necessary Things: Reverb Gamers #7 & 8

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #7: How do you pick names for your characters? (Courtesy of Atlas Games.)

I’m influenced quite a bit by the setting–if there’s a clear analog to a time period or ethnic culture, I like to find a name that fits in the landscape. Just Google “baby names” and you’ll find all sorts of fantastic lists, often with meanings attached; www.babyhold.com has one of my favorites, with lots of ethnic names to choose from. I also read a lot, and books are fantastic sources of names. You might even keep a list of your own, with your gaming supplies, so you can remember the nifty names you come across in odd places. I’ve been inspired by names I found in alumni mailings, historical documents, garden centers, news reports, even on menus (I once had a pulp character named Wasabi Delmonico, after a steak description at a trendy bar and grill!).

And in case you’re the kind who does keep lists, here’s an incomplete list of character names I’ve used over the years (in no particular order): Selwyn, Rebekah, Julia, Rosemary, Margaret (aka Maggie the Book), Caledonia (Callie, for short), Bethan, Mercia, Anthea, Amara, Constance, Helga (the Wonder Nurse), Astrid, Marilla, Serafina, Lysimachia (Lysa for short; it’s the Latin name for Loosestrife, which is awesome for a fairy name), Stella Cordaric, Twink (the halfling barbarian with a soup pot for a helmet), and Freya. I know I’ll kick myself for the ones I’m forgetting, but if any of you dear readers can remember other characters I’ve played over the years, feel free to post names in comments!

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #8: What’s the one gaming accessory (lucky dice, soundtrack, etc.) you just can’t do without? Why? (Courtesy of Atlas Games.)

I’m terrible at sitting still; I have Busy Hands ™. So my essential gaming accessory is a craft to work on while the game’s in progress. Over the years, I’ve crocheted, knitted, cross-stitched, and made jewelry at the gaming table; I do this while visiting, watching movies, even during church services (thank the gods for circular bamboo knitting needles; no danger of a mortifying clatter when you accidentally drop your knitting). This is what I’m working on at the moment; you can see examples of my jewelry here.

Some people–even other women–this takes aback. From the reactions I’ve gotten from some men at convention games as I took out my tools and fibers, you’d think I’d just whipped out a breast instead. Somehow, it seems, my crafting was an unwanted feminine intrusion into their macho adventure space. In other groups, it was the norm. The battlemat was littered with scraps of embroidery floss, yarn ends, wire snippings, and stray seed beads. All the women around the table were industriously working away on their blankets, quilts, or wall hangings, stopping only to roll a handful of dice and briskly announce, “I kill it.” It was like the awesomest kind of quilting bee-slash-special forces raid.

I know that not everyone can deal with someone efficiently multi-tasking in their presence; it looks to them like I’m not paying attention as they play their part of the scene. What I try to make them understand is that I’m actually far less likely to stay focused on the action if my hands are busy. That physical occupation calms the restless, seeking portion of my mind, allowing the creative part to fully concentrate in the mental task at hand. I’d be curious to know how many other gamers on the ASD spectrum function better while stimming. I’m fortunate that my stim of choice masks what it’s doing for me in a sensory capacity. And when I’m done stimming, I have pretty things to show for it.

Jan 10, 2012 - Game Theory    4 Comments

Now With Extra Pulp: Reverb Gamers #6

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #6: Describe your all-time favorite character to play. What was it about him/her/it that you enjoyed so much? (Courtesy of Atlas Games)

I am terrible at picking favorites. That may make me a better mom, but it makes me a terrible blogger, and at the moment, it makes me an especially behind-in-posts blogger. I’ve been positively paralyzed with indecision for days now over this question, and there’s no way I’m ever going to be able to settle on a single favorite, so I’ll just write about two characters I enjoyed immensely.

The USO dance from "Memphis Belle."

Little known fact about me: if I could go back in time for one night to any period of history, I would go back to 1942 for a USO dance. (No, not the Middle Ages; I know so much about them that I’m quite sure I would be miserable back then.) I love the ’30s and ’40s–the fashion, the movies, the music, the architecture, and the general sensibility. Sure, I’d ditch the sexism and racism, and I know from direct testimony that the Great Depression sucked immeasurable ass; I’m not wishing things could be exactly like that again now, like some weirdly myopic nostalgic folks do. But I’d give a lot to check my hairpins and Max Factor red lipstick, straighten my stocking seams, and go swing dancing in an airplane hangar for one night (preferably with Capt. Jack Harkness, but I’m not picky).

As I’ve mentioned before, I also really love theatrical, over-the-top, seat-of-the-pants adventure roleplaying, and when pulp action games are at their best, that’s exactly what you get. So when the Darling Husband announced his plans to run some pulpy goodness using his own house system, I was all in.

My character was mild-mannered housewife Rosemary Rogers. But at night (you knew it was coming), she became a masked vigilante, determined to rid the streets of crime. She was…

The Cleaner!

No, this isn't The Cleaner, but it's in the ballpark.

Yes, with her matched shotguns Spic & Span, she patrolled the streets on her trusty Rinse Cycle, red raincoat snapping smartly behind her as she scoured New York City!

And she did kick unholy amounts of ass.

I don’t remember a lot of specific events, to be perfectly honest. She did fly a plane (or was it a pterodactyl?) through the window of a museum to escape some thugs, long before Ben Stiller did. And we had many fine confrontations with Mexican badguy El Suerte (later revealed to be criminal mastermind El Muerte) and his stubbly henchmen, led by the mountainous luchador El Toro.

If this all sounds terribly cheesy, you’re absolutely correct. That was the point. The puns, the one-liners, the ridiculous stunts–the only thing we didn’t have were giant primary-color speech balloons reading “POW!” and “BAM!” There was no deep angst, there were no wrenching decisions, there wasn’t even any meaningful character development. I’m not saying that those things don’t happen in good pulp/noir fiction or games; I’m just saying that we weren’t in the game for that. Personally, I was in it for the moments when I described the most outrageous, over-the-top stunt I could think of, earning a squint from Cam and, in a highly dubious tone of voice, these words: “Roll it.”

And somehow, far more often than probability math supports, I did.

I played in other fantastically fun pulp games over the years, most notably a one-shot of Silver Age Sentinels on one of our trips to California, in which I played a Judy Holliday-style ditzy blonde bombshell, exposed to an atomic test while visiting the troops in the Pacific, leaving her with flight and light powers. I called her The Hollywood Starlet, and I chewed gum and talked like Marisa Tomei does in “My Cousin Vinny.” While I did a number of heroic things in the game, I best remember tormenting Fred Hicks’ inscrutable Atlantean character Deep Blue by asking repeatedly, in that squeaky Brooklyn accent, “Deep blue what?!”

None of these characters are worth more than a few panels in a yellowed comic book, but for sheer untroubled fun, it doesn’t get much better.

Game On: Reverb Gamers 2012 #3, 4, & 5

Ironically, catching up with work at Atlas Games has put me behind on Atlas Games’ blog project, Reverb Gamers. But it’s a quiet afternoon at work, with no big restocking orders today and my bosses home with sick twins, I’m taking a moment to get up to date.

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #3: What kind of gamer are you? Rules Lawyer, Munchkin/Power Gamer, Lurker, Storyteller/Method Actor, or something else? (Search “types of gamer” for more ideas!) How does this affect the kinds of games you play? For example, maybe you prefer crunchy rules-heavy systems to more theatrical rules-light ones.

This question refers to basic archetypes offered by game designer extraordinaire Robin Laws. If you’re not familiar these terms, he says most players fall into one of five categories, as summarized in an excellent blog post:

  • The Power Gamer: Get more powers and use them often and efficiently.
  • The Butt-Kicker: Enjoys combat and pwning NPCs!
  • The Tactician: Like to beat complex situations through thought and planning.
  • The Specialist: The one who plays a <insert character type here>. Ninjas and Drizzt clones are popular.
  • The Method Actor: Likes total immersion in a character’s assumed persona, whatever the costs!
  • The Storyteller: Enjoys exploring a story unfold around a character’s actions and choices.
  • The Casual Gamer: Shows up to be with friends and share the social energies of the group.

(These are also the character types in the fantastically entertaining movie The Gamers: Dorkness Rising.)  Of those, I’m clearly The Storyteller: I love telling stories with my friends around characters. I explained this more fully a little earlier.

But I’m quite taken at the moment with a different set of classifications, offered by my dear friend Rob Donoghue:

  • The Connector: Plays for story; rules are of negligible importance.
  • The Evil Muppet: Creative, whimsical, engaged, and in it for a specific kind of interaction: he wants the GM to bring the pain.
  • The Swooshy Giant Brain: Super-smart, but mostly just wants to stab things for fun.
  • The Rookie: Enthusiastic, rules savvy, in it for fun, but with not as much experience to draw on.
  • The Wildcard: Somehow both the most inspiring and most maddening player at the table, with a creative, twisted mind and enough rules know-how to take the whole game offroad.

These categories don’t make some of the assumptions that Robin’s do, the most problematic of which being the incompatibility of technical and creative emphases. Rob’s archetypes are patterned after mutual friends, which makes it personally fun, but they’re also more easily combined to reach a personal description.

In this system, I’m about 70% Connector, but at least 30% Wildcard; these proportions vary depending on my mood. It’s still all about the story for me, but some of my choices have been known to derail entire chunks of planned adventure. What can I say? It’s a gift.

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #4: Are you a “closet gamer?” Have you ever hidden the fact that you’re a gamer from your co-workers, friends, family, or significant other? Why or why not? How did they react if they found out?

I was surprised at how negatively some respondents took this question, so let me clarify. It’s pointing to the fact that some people feel that they have to hide their gaming, not suggesting that anyone should feel that they have to. And sure, if you’re writing a public response to this prompt, you’re probably not closeted anymore, but many kids had to dissemble with parents and teachers about what, precisely, they were doing with friends, so it’s not as alien a notion as it seems.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate in a number of ways that have prevented it from ever being necessary to hide my love of gaming. While very devout Christians, my family is the liberal, Methodist, God-is-love kind of Christian, not the kind that’s threatened by imagining worlds where other powers are possible. To their minds, we were kids who were reading, doing math, telling stories, and not committing crimes–what’s not to love? My work never made an issue of it, either. College is all about exploration, and I was only a lowly TA or adjunct, so nobody cared enough to be upset about my hobbies. And now my hobby is my work, at least for the time being.

All this being said, I know at least two good friends who do not want a word of their participation in gaming breathed outside the confines of the houses where the games take place. Both of them feel strongly that being “outed” as a gamer would be a liability to their careers, and I’m inclined to agree with them. Yes, it’s unfair, yes it’s silly, and yes, attitudes are changing. But they haven’t changed all the way, and some fields are more conservative in their expectations and acceptances.

So it’s still very possible to know these people. You may even game with them. Just something to be aware of when you go naming names in the posts about your weekly game. They’re not just being silly, and it’s nobody’s decision but theirs to let those around them know what they do for fun.

Me playing Gloom with some kids at the Student Council Game Day last May

REVERB GAMERS 2012, #5: Have you ever introduced a child to gaming, or played a game with a young person? How is gaming with kids different than gaming with adults?

The short answer is yes. I used to pack my copy of Kill Doctor Lucky when I went to substitute teaching assignments, and at some schools, kids would come up to me in the hall and ask whether they could sign into my study halls to play whatever I’d brought that day (yes, they asked a sub. Take a moment to absorb that.)

Now I have my own kids, and they’re finally at the ages (9.5 and 5.75, as of this moment) where I can enjoy playing organized games with them. I’ve also been doing this more for other people’s kids over the last year: I helped the Student Council at my boys’ school organize a Game Day, and I taught games at last fall’s Youth Pride Festival in Anoka, MN.

I’m not a particularly patient teacher of game rules, though, and I’m married to Cam Banks, a vastly more experienced GM with the skills and creativity to roll with whatever wacky plans the kids come up with, so I’m usually only in charge of teaching board and card games. That being said, it’s been unexpectedly fun, just over the last few months, to try out new finds and old favorites on my sons. They’ve really arrived at what I consider the earliest optimal age for games. Yes, I know they can play at much earlier ages; you don’t need to convince me. I just have this aversion to one particular feature of gaming with kids (or anyone): the complete devolution into silliness.

I love joking and kidding and having fun at the game table as much as the next person, but both the mom and the Aspergian in me absolutely lose it when kids start making the pawn figures knock each other around the table, and going up chutes and down ladders, and stealing money from the bank, and drawing cards until you get the one you want. Yes, I need to relax, and yes, more play teaches them play etiquette faster. I’ll be the first to say that my reaction is more a matter of me being annoyed than them being annoying. But it’s a barrier to enjoying games, and it leads to the urge to knee-jerk refuse requests to play something.

These things aren’t as much of a problem with RPGs, but sitting down to roleplay with kids requires a level of attention,energy, and uninterrupted time that isn’t always available in the day-to-day chaos. I really enjoy roleplaying with kids sometimes; we had friends’ pre-teen son at our games for several years, and it was just fine.

Gaming with my own pre-teen son is an astonishing experience. He thinks in storyboards, and he’s had an amazing grasp of narrative since he was two (no lie), so his capacity for character-driven drama and decisionmaking is far beyond his years. He’s also got that kid-gift for lateral thinking, which makes him a real Wildcard (see earlier) sometimes.

His Asperger’s brings its own blessings and challenges to the gaming table. His volume control goes away when he’s excited, which is most of the time when he’s having fun. He’s happiest when he’s the center of attention, so he’s not good with extended cut-away scenes that don’t involve his character (Cam does an awesome job of managing game flow to minimize this). And he gets really frustrated when the rules or chance won’t let him do what he’s picturing in his head; he takes it very personally when he can’t bring those visions to fruition. But his attention to detail, steel-trap memory, and typical Aspie fixations mean that, once he’s decided to master a system or if we’re playing in a world he knows and loves, he brings a level of sophistication that is frankly astonishing.

There’s nothing like gaming with kids to blast apart all the stodgy, preconceived notions experienced gamers bring to the table. As with everything else, they’re seeing it for the first time, and their perspective shatters the jaded accretions we’ve picked up over time. It’s good to be reminded of the wonderment we all experienced the first time we discovered the power to build worlds.

Jan 2, 2012 - Game Theory    1 Comment

Why I Roleplay: Reverb Gamers 2012 #2

***Reverb Gamers is a month-long blogging project for RPG, MMORPG, and LARP players. Each day in January, there’s a prompt that explores our experiences in gaming. You can find more information, and links to the participants’ daily posts, on the Facebook page for Reverb Gamers. This project is the genius plan of Michelle Nephew and me, on behalf of Atlas Games. Join in the fun! ***

Reverb Gamers 2012, January 2: What is it about gaming that you enjoy the most? Why do you game? Is it the adrenaline rush, the social aspect, or something else?

I game as performance art. Not freaky David Blaine performance art, but when I’m roleplaying, I’m creating something new so that others can (hopefully) enjoy it.

It scratches three itches for me, each distinct, but all intertwined.

The first is social. I’m loud and extroverted and chatty and gregarious. Roleplaying is the perfect activity with both good friends and new acquaintances. With good friends, there’s history, and all the joys that brings: in-jokes, running gags, the accretion of collective memory. You’re loose and comfortable, so risks don’t feel as risky. But even with folks you’ve just sat down with at a con table, RPGs break down so many barriers. You know you share a hobby, and common tastes, and probably a lot of cultural references. And the act of picking up a character sheet gives you license to put yourself out there a little more than you usually would with strangers, knowing you can always take cover in the shadow of your character.

The second is performance. I’m a performer at heart. I’ve sung in choirs since I was five, acted in countless plays and musicals. I stood in the middle of a football field playing a solo in marching band. I read aloud to my kids’ classes. I give sermons in church. I taught university classes for 15 years, and my teaching style is as much showmanship as it is preparation. Roleplaying is improv, and I’m very good at “Yes And…” I love putting on voices and accents, the postures and gestures of strangers. It’s wonderful, intimate theater, with infinite possibilities.

The third is fiction. It’s taken me a long time to come to the conclusion that I’m probably not destined to write a novel; I can’t do plot very well. So many writers I know say they’re just scribes to the scenes playing in their heads. That’s not me. I feel more like a medium, when I’m roleplaying. My characters regularly shock and surprise me, and I’ve found myself saying or typing something for them that I didn’t see coming. If I have a gift for roleplaying, it’s a gift of reacting well. It’s not as admirable as being able to create story whole-cloth, but it’s given me a lot of good moments over the years.

Gamerography, vol. 1: Early Adopter

This is the first installment in an ongoing series about my history with games: what I’ve played, when I’ve played, who and with whom I’ve played. As such, if all this prompts a question, please ask — it’ll help me figure out what to say in later episodes!

I’m a gamer girl. I have been for my whole life, in one way or another. And even on the nights when I’m home with the kids while my Darling Husband is gaming with his group, or working at a convention like Origins or Gen Con, I am decidedly NOT a gamer widow.

But things get complicated almost immediately after that statement of basic identity.

For one thing, I don’t play video games. I really don’t like them. Sure, they’re clever and shiny and all sorts of other great things, but similarly to my problem with Boo, video games give me all sorts of nervous system problems. I can’t play any game for more than about two minutes before my anxiety levels start rapidly ramping up, and before long, every muscle from my scalp to my waist is wound tight as a bowstring, and my stomach is churning out acid like the mother in Alien. No matter how good your game is, it just ain’t worth it for me.

But my gamer credentials run deep, starting with my mom and grandparents, whose favorite way to pass an evening was over a game board or a deck of cards. Aggravation, Yahtzee, and Uno were staples of my upbringing, but our real speciality were speed card games. To this day, we’ve got a strict “no rings and watches” policy around the card table, because we play so fast and furiously that people get cut. Trust me — it’s hardcore.

Part of why I’m such a fanatic for using games in the classroom is because I really started my adult gaming journey with my fifth and sixth grade teachers. Mr. Boisvert was a brilliant teacher, truly dedicated to the craft and vocation of teaching. His walls were covered with colorful, detailed maps for the games he employed as teaching tools. Wizard was a fantasy land through which you moved by doing spelling homework and tests, and each day brought a new Fate Card (beware the dreaded Booga Booga!). The Social Studies year was divided by three different roleplaying games: Discovery, in which you were a colonist trying to survive those first difficult months on the American continent; Pioneer, in which you were a homesteader headed for Oregon with your wagon train; and a cross-country car race game whose name escapes me entirely at the moment.

Sure, these games drove us to complete more work, more creatively, and work more cooperatively than you can imagine 10 year olds doing on their own, and that has had a huge influence on me as a teacher and a parent. But, for all that, what’s most remarkable is that I still know my pioneer character’s name and everything that happened to her. She was Sarah Hoskins, and her 11 year old daughter died of scarlet fever in Colorado. She tripped and fell into a campfire, burning her hand (I had to wear a sling for three class days). And when her wagon train got snowed into a mountain pass when winter came early, it was one miraculous shot with a whiffle ball — into a trash can at the front of the room, with my back against the chalkboard at the back of the room — that saved her life and let her cross into the Oregonian valley where she and her husband settled.

That, my friends, is what every game designer is trying to achieve — game immortality.

Mr. Held, my sixth grade teacher, deepened both my experience and love of gaming. He set up his copy of 221B Baker Street, a mystery-solving board game based on the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, when the high reading group finished its first unit, and we took to it with such passion that the space between those flimsy paperback readers grew longer and longer as we played more rounds of the game, then watched the Jeremy Brett episodes with a rapt attention 11 year olds don’t usually lavish on Victorian literature.

World History was punctuated with games, too. For Ancient Rome, we watched the chariot race in Ben-Hur, then played Circus Maximus — first for speed, followed by the mandatory heavy chariot round dubbed the “Hamburger Rally” for our gleeful overuse of the wheel spikes. For World War I, it was dogfighting airplanes over France with Fight In The Skies (later, Dawn Patrol). How many sixth graders do you know who can identify the silhouette of a Sopwith Camel, and know why pilots were more likely to have a brick in the cockpit than a parachute? Yeah, me neither.

By the time the guys in my church youth group invited me to join them on Sunday afternoons for AD&D, I was already a dedicated gamer. Sure, the only roleplaying I did for most of my teenage years was defending my female characters from unwanted sexual advances. But I was well-equipped for the future with the clear and certain knowledge of what games could do and be — a source for characters and stories to rival anything literature had to offer. The real revelation was finding those things in my own mind.