There are no Free Lunches

Wondering what I’m writing about, and why the recent posts are rather random? Check out challenging all comers.

Characters always take on a life of their own.  When playing a character I’ve gotten so deep into them that it’s like they are real. I’ve spent hours, sometimes years, playing another person, to the point that they almost exist in their own right.  In their own way though, aren’t they real?

I roll therefore I am

René Descartes, said famously “cogito ergo sum” or “I think, therefore I am”, and argued that “the self” is something that we can know exists. If spend all of my free time thinking as my character, at what point does the “self” of my character become self-aware? At what point does my character become any less real then I am? When does my fantasy world begin to delude my reality? In other words, when does my character become real?

What is fundamental?

The only thing we require to be good (philosophers) gamers is the faculty of wonder. Gamers have a limitless imagination; it’s one of the few things that we share with small children. Sure, we have rules, our adult minds have to, but a great imagination is fundamental. If our imaginations are so big, and we are such a creative bunch why do we spend so much time living in fantasies instead of inventing, creating, and building?

Fantasy becomes Reality

I think we spend so much time in a fantasy life because it allows us to become people we wish we were. I wish I were more cunning, had a stronger faith, or was a black man with an afro that was enchanted to store stuff. The fantasy allows me to try things I’m not physically capable of doing. Be it stopping crime as a super hero, riding on the back of dragons, or wooing exotic womenfolk (that all strangely sound like my GM). Sometimes though roleplaying helps me work through personal baggage, and become a stronger person. As much as it’s all fantasy sometimes becoming that person even for a little while creates changes in you. So while I’m not always building, creating and inventing I’m working on something bigger. Me.

It was once said, “Wisest is who she knows not what she knows.” If all of your characters are really unrealized people inside yourself, who do you really want to bare your soul too?