Analysis: What is RPGing all about?

For my first substantive post, I’m going to be looking at what we all want to achieve with RPGing as a hobby. Before we get there though, a word about how I plan to do this.

Musings, Thoughts, Pontifications, Not Publishable Prose

So as most in the GURPS community know, I’m a lawyer in real life. This means I write for a living. I have no plans to ensure perfection in my blog posts. Typos, less-than-perfect grammar, and (I’m sure) confusing sentences and impenetrable paragraphs are a near-certainty. I beg your forgiveness–I plan to have fun with this blog and…oh shit, I started with a disclaimer didn’t I?

Why Do We Do This?

So, why do we play games? Why do we spend so many hours on the make-believe? What are we getting out of this hobby? Curiously, I’ve had cause to ask these questions over the past two years. The answers sometimes surprised me. Here are a few:

• It’s a habit.
• It’s a way to spend time with friend.
• It’s our “creative outlet.”
• It’s “fun.”

The Habitual Gamer

I think some gamers are habitual. This is often more evident with video games where the habit becomes an addiction. But I think RPGing can be just as habit-forming. This is bad. I’m also sure I’ve fallen into this camp at various points over the last two decades. Though we haven’t gotten there yet, habitual gaming has deleterious effects on Fun. It’s worth asking yourself if you become irate when you can’t get a gaming fix in. Do you find yourself questioning the point of it all? Losing interest in the game or in preparing for it? If so, you may have become a habitual Gamer. I suggest taking a break. Be mindful. Ultimately you will be able to come back more interested than before.

Friendship Factor

Maybe you don’t care about the game rules, the campaign, or your character. You go every week or month because you want to hang out with the guys. The friendship factor is a perfectly valid reason to engage in a roleplaying game. But beware–some people get annoyed by this if it means you would rather drink and shoot the breeze than get down to business and actually play. I would bet most games have done this from time to time. Again, just be mindful. There are other ways to spend time with friend than using up game time!

The Creative Outlet

Ah ha! Here we go. This is starting to sound more like it. I strongly believe that many GMs are in it because they love to create. They want to write, act, illustrate, and think tactically, sometimes all at once! World building–particularly without an active group is, I think, quite common in the online world. And what a great outlet it is, writing material for a game as rich as GURPS. We get to exercise writing skills, math skills, lawyering skills (yes, trust me on this one), AND enjoy the occasions power trip at the same time. Why do you build worlds without an active group? Why do it with an active group when so many professional settings exist in the market? My, what a convenient segue…

For the Fun

But honestly, except for a lucky few who get paid, we all do this for fun. Fun, an ephemeral concept to start with, is sometimes very hard to nail down in the gaming context. Why? For starters, why people game at all can and does vary. And let’s not neglect the obvious: people define fun differently, even within the same group. Hell, the same person can have different definitions of fun at various points in one night!

Fun is defined by my Terminology app as:

1. activities that are enjoyable or amusing; “I do it for the fun of it”; “he is fun to have around”.

That seems to fit as well as any other reasonable definition. The problem, if you want to call it that, is that this definition is still incredibly subjective. But that is unavoidable and not a serious problem at all. We’ve all dealt with it before. How do you make everyone have fun? Well that’s probably a whole ’nother blog post, but the short version is that you better know your players. Know the players you have and their preferences. Don’t pretend you have players you don’t or that you don’t have players you do.

Ask for feedback often and make sure you get it. Listen to concerns. But most of all, make sure you, the GM, are fully engaged with the game system and the campaign. An enthusiastic GM will maximize the chance that the whole group will have fun.

The Final Analysis

Here is where I copy Doug Cole’s Parting Shot concept with my own concluding remarks in The Final Analysis.

The basic point of today’s post isn’t to discuss player types or examine GM styles. The point is that you should always be mindful with what ever you are doing with your gaming hobby. Examine your motivations. Question yourself. Listen to your players. You will all have more fun if you do!