Roleplaytime

To be clear: what follows are my thoughts, not the pronouncement of some authority on high. I am convinced mistaking words for truths is the root of many mistakes. I hope we all avoid as many of those as possible.

There is a reason the cover page of the UVG carries the line “psychedelic metal roleplaying” rather than “psychedelic metal roleplaying games.”

It is because calling the accoutrements of our delightful hobby ”games” sows the seeds of profound error. It conflates the time we spend together with friends, playing, with the games we play and the toys we play with.

It mixes (role)playtime with roleplaying games. Further, it mixes up roleplaying games with games that have no roleplay – games of tactics and strategy and chance.

Roleplay as playtime is a link in an ancient chain of human social play. It is of a part with spinning yarns round a campfire, gathered around the glow, voices against the dark, a chain of humanity stretching back to the first pre-humans harnessing fire, telling and embellishing stories of terror and courage, of heroism and villainy.

When we roleplay with friends, we partake of that tradition of humanity, we are brought together by our tales and our games, knitted together by our imaginations.

And it absolutely requires friends,* or at least behaving as friends, with respect and kindness. Without that, there is no social play.

During roleplaytime we use toys to play games. And there is an abundance of toys and an abundance of games.

We have toys like character sheets and pencils and erasers and dice and cards and miniatures and maps.

And we have games, so many games to play with our toys. We have games with words, when we crack jokes, and games with roles, when we put on funny voices and pretend to be other creatures. We have drawing games, when we make pictures of our heroes and detail the maps of imaginary places. We have games of chance, when we roll dice to see what happens, when we pull cards from decks of many things. We have games of tactics, when we throw our protagonists into battle against morcs and drolls. We have games of strategy, when we plot how our caravan traverses a wilderness. We have games of storytelling, when we weave chance and dice and whimsy into narratives. We have games of writing, when we invent the backstories of our characters. We have games of dress-up with our protagonists, when we carefully choose their arms and armor, spikes and poles. We have games of games, where we invent new rules and change the way we use our games.

And more. We meet and say hello, we forge memories, we drink together and we eat together, we listen to music and to each other, we say goodbye and we part.

It is this way that during roleplaytime we become friends, we reaffirm our friendships, we make our lives human lives, we make our gaming tables symbolic campfires in that chain of human campfires, linking our tales with the uncounted tales of days long past and days long to come.

So what of all the roleplaying games? All the rulebooks? The gamebooks?

Most miss the mark, because they jumble together toys and games as though they were one single game. They are not. Most of them can be unbundled and remixed to taste.

Many miss another mark, because they are written for players, not for friends playing together. If you play a game like basketball professionally, you may play with people you dislike. After all, it’s your job. But if you play basketball to unwind after a day at the office, would you choose someone you dislike as your team mate? Likewise, leisure roleplay** is a time for friends to play together, or at the very least for people to play together like friends and someday perhaps become friends.

And the thing with friends playing together is that they will inevitably begin playing their own way. Fitting games and toys and activities to preference and circumstance.

So here’s my clarion.

Let’s be open and clear about what we’re doing and who we’re doing it for.

Let’s embrace that roleplaytime is playtime and that one roleplay group will never have the same roleplaytime as another. That it is wonderful that different groups of friends will love different games***, and love to play them in different ways.

And yes, I acknowledge, there is also a space for games and rules made for groups of people who just want to play games, without being friends first and foremost. And yes, there are people who like, or even prefer to play that way. I think it’s great that these are their preferences.

But these are not games and rules and groups that I am interested in, so I will proceed with making toys and games for roleplaytimes for friends and families.

As for how they will be used, well, it is the nature of toys that the toymaker cannot tell if it will star in a daring adventure or a slice-of-life sit com re-enactment.

One of my favorite roleplaytimes I had planned a fine adventure for my friends, where they would all be dwarves off to kill a dragon. I had an overland trek. I had a dangerous mountain climb. I had an echoing cave. I had a dragon fight planned with jets of flashing fire and cascades if glittering gold. My friends came together, each with a 3rd Edition, 6th level dwarf detailed to the nines. I started them off in a tavern, preparing to set off, and asked them to introduce their characters first.

The first friend began, and recounted how they were Murin son of Matchkin. How their forebear Matchkin once cut down twenty trees in a single hour and with those built the shrine that still stands to the woodland spirits of his homeland.

And all the friends nodded and toasted the spirit and name of Murin’s ancestor.

And the second friend dove into the story of one of their hero’s imaginary ancestors.

And everyone nodded and toasted and drank.

And instead of setting off on their quest, the dwarves settled into the tavern, boasting of the deeds of their forebears, and the friends toasting the fanciful stories.

After an hour, I shelved the adventure and the varied games I had prepared, rolled up my own dwarf, and sat down to play with them.

It was one of the most fantastic roleplaytimes I ever had as a master of games, and it was a game invented on the spot, collaboratively, nearly without my help, by my friends as they played.

And this is what I love.

And it is fine.

I invite every roleplayer to mix and remix their own games and toys, creating with their friends their own unique roleplaytimes, adding unexpectable stories to the blossoming tree of human imagination.

—Luka,
November, 2019

*I ignore for the purpose of this post solo roleplay games, and acknowledge this oversight. However, I think it doesn’t change the basic point.

**I acknowledge there is a possibility of various games that form part of most roleplaytimes being played competitively or professionally. Some people enjoy that, and  I leave this space of competition-level games to them, since I do not. Again, the existence of a different level of competition, doesn’t change the basic point.

***To clarify. I do not mean that one group will play Shadowrun, while another plays D&D. I mean that one group will prefer to play a series of set battles using miniatures and grids, while another will prefere to play a series of barely-linked picaresque scenes where the dice barely matter, and so on and on, for every group, through every possible permutation. I do not think any objective categorization of all these permutations is possible or even necessarily useful — though of course, other people will continue to try.

Hey, welcome to the bottom of the post. Time to do a bit of promotion. I write setting-adventures like the Ultraviolet Grasslands. I also create roleplay toys and games … as this post explains at length … and you can follow along on those at the Stratometaship patreon. All people of good cheer welcome.

But let me also step beyond mere self-promotion. I want to call attention to the work of David Schirduan, who’s a fine writer and a coder of lovely digital generators for some of my favorite roleplay toys. Give him your attention and your love.