Day#3 of Holiday...Change in Plan

With about a half-hour until I expected to go to the game, we totally re-worked our plans. Turns out one person has a cookout tonight, so we're all going to get together tomorrow for The Matrix: Reloaded, followed by the game. It works out better for all of us. One person I called (the one who was supposed to be picking me up in a half an hour :) was asleep, but her husband thought that would work for her. Another was halfway asleep as it was. And it's begun to rain, after having two wonderful days to dry out. Not that the rain matters in terms of the game, I think it makes us all sleepier.

I blog about this a lot, I know, and you're probably wondering what the hell I'm talking about. Our game started, pretty much on a weekly basis, in July of 1991. Yup. Nearly twelve years ago. I'd just gotten married, which was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. The gamemaster and I are the only ones of the original crew left, but the storyline and characters have been developing ever since that time. A total of thirteen people have played at some point, although never more than about five or six at a time. Oddly enough, we've generally found women do better at the game. I don't know if it's because it takes a certain amount of altruism (it's deeper than just blowing things up, you're trying to save humanity). Male gamers have a tendency to play out like it's some video or war game. Women gamers tend to emote a lot and focus on their appearance. I don't know if we're just a more balanced bunch or what, but we can easily go from a stunning dinner party to kicking monster butt.

For those of you not familiar with role-playing games, you create a character using guidelines from a book and rolling various-sided dice to randomly determine certain physical and mental traits, depending on the system used. Our basic system is that of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, which is based on the fiction of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Over time, though, several other systems have been incorporated. Our gamemaster is very creative and manages to streamline all sorts of things. The ones incorporated that I know of are Ars Magica, G.U.R.P.s, RIFTS, Harn, all the various White Wolf World of Darkness titles, In Nomine, Ninjas and Superspies, Trinity, Conspiracy, and Witchcraft--and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head! In addition, we have a couple of "alternative" games, one drawing heavily on Aeon Trinity, and another from Brave New World. In the latter, all the characters from the orginal game were assigned superpowers randomly according to when they entered original play and matching that with the power packages from BNW. In the former, there are eight characters representing the eight classes on psions; we each have a gift needed to help save the world. :)

Game mechanics aside, the idea of the game is that we are specially trained in the martial arts, weaponry, and mystical arts to fight against transdimensional, extraterrestrial incursions as envisioned by Lovecraft. We basically belong to a secret order and have take oaths to protect humanity. We are not allowed to kill humans (except in self-defence), and never with our blessed swords. (The results are hazardous to the character's health). We live in modern society, based in Arkham, Massachusetts (the creation of Lovecraft, near real-life Salem). Our "cover" so to speak is an investigating agency, Arkham Paranormal Investigations, Inc. Think a mixture of detectives, ghostbusters, etc. Our jobs are to track down cultists, try to save the world from yet another apocalypse (which, I think, is one reason we can all relate to Buffy). Usually there's a lot of investigation, but when the action starts, its usually spectacular. It's much more riveting than a book or movie--for one thing, it's interactive--your actions and decisions, along with those of your fellow gamers, make the story happen. There's nothing quite like it--and I've never found a game that was as satisfying as this one. Most don't last for so long, for one. People lose interest or move away. People get tired of playing. That really hasn't happened with this. There have been times when we felt like we'd never finish a campaign, but we keep coming back for more. I guess we're just gluttons for punishment. But it's a nice, healthy way to let off steam while still interacting with others (how many wives do you know who curse the Playstation?), and it's been very good for me in terms of learning how to deal with people and situations. This game has been better therapy for me than any other, and whenever I go to a seminar and have to role-play, they always go--"you're a natural at this". Not really. It's just that I've been playing several parts for several years in an impromtu play, if you like. Pretty decent for someone who used to be so shy she wouldn't even take her nose out of a book. And it's been one of the biggest creative outlets of my life; I have nearly a dozen of my own characters that I've developed over time; many of the other players' are as near and dear to me as my own. It's been great to see them take a life of their own--and each one tells something about the person playing it. They're not alter egos; they're not real in the material sense, but they are both masques and aspects of ourselves we usually don't let people see. One of these days I'd like to get together with some of the others and write up some of this; part of the problem is the scenarios are often copyrighted, of course. It's always been agreed that characters stay in the game mythos, so to speak, regardless of whether the player continues, so that's not so much a problem--the past player characters become non-player characters and are run by the gamemaster, etc. But I'm not sure if we could ever do a website for Arkham Paranormal, even so, although I'd love to.

So, the next time you hear someone saying that roleplaying is dead in this computer age, or someone talking about the evils of roleplaying games, think of this. Sure, there are some people who probably are too obsessive or never quite get the balance between reality and fantasy. They're usually mentally ill to begin with, and usually no one wants to game with them because they can't follow simple rules. They're the minority. Gee, I think I've ranted enough--you might think I was a gaming geek, hmmm? Sorry, I guess I was geared up for the game and now I'll have to channel all that enthusiasm into housework. :) Or maybe take a nap.