Why do I role-play? I’ve been thinking about this lately and I think it may warrant a short essay on my part. I wonder if I revisit this every 6 months or so if the reason(s) will change? I mean, aside from the obvious, “it’s fun!” and “gives me an outlet for my creative voice” kinds of answers. I mean the philosophical reasons.
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1) It helps me make better choices
I am not perfect. I sometimes don’t make the right choice when faced with a decision. I sometimes don’t say the right thing in a social situation. I sometimes make mistakes that I “should have seen coming” but didn’t. In fact, I am so far from perfect that I often think of things I should have said, should have done, would have done… Often I wonder what would have happened if I had made the other of a neutral choice. What I mean is, what if you had a choice to make and both options were capable of equally good outcomes? Don’t you ever wonder how it would have turned out if you chose the other option?
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Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dwell on every single moment of every single day and lament my choices. This is more about the subtle introspection that one so inclined tends to do, especially regarding decisions.
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So how does role-playing help that? Well, I get to put myself in different situations and “live out” possible outcomes. Role-playing allows me to see the natural consequences of a particular choice, played out, with other people’s input, in the context of a grander story.
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Now, don’t get me wrong here either. I’m not saying that I get lost in my PC or lose track of where I, DM Samuel, end and my PC (or NPC, as the case may be) begins. I know and recognize the boundary between imagination of game-world/universe and real life.
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There is something to be said for being allowed to realize the outcome of certain ways of being without having to actually live through them. I have played PCs that are kind of, shall we say, dicky. These PCs are nothing like what I perceive myself to be in real life – some characteristics overlap, of course, but their world view is inherently different than mine and the way they treat people is vastly different to how I treat people in reality. But sometimes it is really fun to be this way, to play out the actions of this PC and see the consequences of those actions.
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I find 2 major things as regards this:
a) Sometimes the dicky PC gets things done more efficiently than anyone else. Sometimes everyone else defers to his judgment and follows his lead. These are good things, as long as he is in the right. Sometimes he isn’t in the right and people regret following his lead. This usually makes for a very entertaining and enjoyable role-playing session, because most people can relate to at least one side of the issue.
b) Sometimes the dicky PC is treated very poorly. Sometimes he gets marginalized due to his rigid beliefs and extreme views. This a good thing, too, because it mimics a true consequence of having rigidly extreme views. Sometimes this happens and it turns out he was right, and then the people lament ever having doubted him and congratulate him for being so faithful to his own feelings/beliefs. This, too, mimics real life.
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All of which leads me to my next reason to role-play:
2) It helps me know who I am and who I want to be
How many times have you ever seen someone do something and thought, “Geez, I’m glad I’m not like that guy” because you think he was acting inappropriately? But if you really could step into “that guy’s” shoes, you may feel differently. You may know all the things about his life that he knows and, even if you don’t agree with him, you would at least better understand why he acted that way. This is the “walk a mile in another person’s shoes” phenomenon. As human beings, we often don’t fully comprehend the reasons behind someone else’s decisions.
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Guess what? Role-playing helps me with that. It helps me refine my definitions of what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior, which in turn helps me behave in a way that more closely resembles who I want to be in life.
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And this leads me to my third and final reason:
3) It helps me be less judgmental
All that time I spend playing role-playing games and thinking about my actions and the actions of others. All the time evaluating how an NPC might react if I do this or if a different PC does that. All that time walking in someone else’s shoes, making decisions for them, seeing them fail, seeing them succeed. Seeing them act like jerks. Seeing them be compassionate. All of that stuff. It all adds up to making me a person that tries his hardest not to judge, because I KNOW that I don’t know everything about a situation or person. So who am I to judge them? Role-playing reinforces this on a weekly basis and I am a better person for it.
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Do you agree? Disagree? Leave me a comment with your thoughts.
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Until next time, I wish you good gaming!
~DM Samuel
