find peace in each other
and the things we create.
I want to start by saying that today is heavy, heavy, heavy. I stand with the roughly 90% of Americans who want strict, universal background checks at a minimum. We deserve elected leadership who stand up for our lives and communities. Every person deserves to feel safe in elementary schools. At the grocery store. At the movies. At church.
I also want to take the moments where we can feel safe, and let ourselves connect and feel good in those times. Part of me views these posts as a weekly check-in, something that can be vital for people. I myself know what it can be like to desperately be trying to protect your energy in this rough-ass world, and getting blindsided by emotions and discussions you just can’t handle, so we can talk about something else now.
My whole life, all I’ve ever really wanted to do is be creative, and make friends so I could make cool art with them. I love connecting with creative people, but…I’ve never had that very popular networking marketing mindset about it. What I always wanted was real connection, just the chance to sit around and make shit with people I liked. No expectation of salability, popularity. Really, it would be best if we could create something that didn’t even leave anything behind after…something just for us who were there to enjoy before the evening faded away.
So unsurprisingly, I have been an avid tabletop RPG fan (the actual name for games like Dungeons & Dragons) as long as I can remember. From the time I could explore the library, my dad’s books, the shelves of the hobby stores he took me to, I was drawn to polyhedral dice and roleplaying book tomes. Something I’ve always found fascinating - RPG books and the die we use to play them are sort of comically specific: the books big, like tomes, the dice clacking in your hand like magic gems. They’re physical talismans that attract the sort of person who would appreciate them, and therefore the stories within. Truly, I think even if the contents of the book had been about calculus or French cooking or vacuum repair, I would have wanted the book and dice alone for the fantastic feelings they gave me.
I have been an avid RPG player since high school, where I met with my (overwhelmingly male) friends in basements, IHOPs, and once - rolling the dice for a fatal, master-versus-student magical duel on the sticky coffee counter of a Manassas, VA 7-Eleven. I still play avidly now - currently in a monthly Star Wars RPG run by my husband (and co-writer of our Vampire: The Masquerade work) Blake. In the places I’ve lived, my RPG groups become loci around which I make friends and meet new people. Much like how the tools of roleplaying - clacky rocks and tomes - appeal to the dramatic and fantastic within us, being down with roleplaying as a concept bodes well for getting along with me. If you’re okay with just sitting around telling stories for hours, we’re more likely to be friends.
I’ve participated in a few Live Plays and watched a few that I’ve enjoyed, and I think they’re amazing as a tool to bring newcomers into the world of RPGs. What groups like Critical Role and LA By Night have done for the world of tabletop RPGs is astounding. But because I didn’t get into the hobby via Live Plays…I have a different relationship to the stories told at table time. One that I want to present:
The nature of roleplaying as deliberately ephemeral storytelling. Unlike a play, roleplaying wasn’t initially meant to be performed for an audience. In the case of real-time interactive social play, like tabletop playing or LARPing, the performance is a combination of all of the immediate factors acting upon you at the time, and the reaction is somewhat more genuine. Part of the game is discovering the character you’ve signed up to play as you play them, learning how to control and temper your reactions as different from theirs and vice-versa. Being surprised by what you do when provoked in character, the ability to take massive, scary, what if risks and end up potentially dead (in the game), all of these are very important to bolstering the ephemeral nature of roleplaying. Ephemerality means we can be more open, less protective of ourselves. It means we get to practice recovering from things we aren’t proud of. It means we get to practice forgiving each other when we fuck up. But while it’s amazing to watch people roleplay, these benefits and practices happen more (in my experience) during the moments that are unobserved.
To be clearer: it’s Schrodinger’s Nat(ural 20.) It’s not unlike Guy DeBord’s Society of the Spectacle.
Roleplaying has been such powerful creative work for me because it is so often unobserved, non-commodified, immediate, ephemeral, and indescribable. Truthfully, I have had some of the most moving and powerful experiences in my life in live-action roleplay situations where my entire body and mind where living in the moment, and to me, it felt vitally real, but at the same time…safe, too. Running into battle, screaming like a berserker and feeling your heart pound is invigorating — but usually, way too dangerous and harmful to others to be worth it. But divorced of the ability to cause and suffer real pain?
It’s a kind of euphoria not unlike flying in a dream. When you know it isn’t real, but you can’t stop smiling.
To me, that comes most readily when everyone present is a part of the shared game, when everyone present is an equal buyer into the very tenuous situational causality here. We all know we have work on Monday. We all know our elected officials are a continued disappointment. We all know money is, disgustingly, god on this Earth.
But if we all pretend hard enough for the next few hours…
Once, I was asked by a camera crew if they could observe a brainstorming session with me and some of my favorite people to work with. While I found the idea fascinating - (I would love to watch the footage back later! Would love to see what people think of our process!) I ultimately had to decline.
Brainstorming sessions, when they’re good, often feel like roleplaying. They’re considering every possibility, even the scary ones. They’re going bigger and bigger. Roleplaying is just that, but instead of writing out the protagonists’ journey, you just trust yourself to carry it. But it isn’t like a delicate egg or a sack of flour you protect, it’s a responsive thing, like clay, that you slam against walls as needed. By putting ourselves into challenging headspaces with creative people we trust, we’re able to make choices we might not ordinarily allow ourselves to and watch the consequences play out, all with the safety of being able to put the book away when it’s time to return to reality.
You know what? I’m babbling a lot, but no one said this better than Kieron and Stephanie in their incredible comic narrative about the power of tabletop roleplaying, DIE. And if you’ve been following the DIE Kickstarter as I have, you may have seen today’s announcement - I’m the newest stretch goal.
Click the link in Kieron’s tweet to pledge - we’re not quite there yet, but I’m tackling some of the darkest parts of the bestiary at his personal request, so I’m bringing my all.
I’ve read a bunch of the existing bestiary entries and they’re like nothing I’ve ever seen - true philosophy in storytelling. Definitely make sure you’re getting a copy of the RPG if you’re a fan of the comics. Even if you’ve never read the comics, if you’re just a fan of RPGs, this book is fascinating.
That’s it for me right now, thanks for reading this week. If you can, try and get some time where you feel safe enough to escape into fantasy for a bit. It’s an incredible thing our brains do, one of the most marvelous things about being alive.
Stay weird. Talk soon.
-TH 5.25.2022 16:52