The word "role-play" can have more than one meaning. Nerds such as myself associate it with tabletop games like D&D, video games, and writing. Others think of it in a sexual matter, but that is not what I will be discussing in this blog. I will be talking about the "nerd" role-play, specifically writing and oral storytelling.
I am a huge Forgotten Realms fan, a setting in the Dungeons and Dragons franchise, and I have read numerous FR novels, but I have only actually played D&D a few times. The stats were confusing to me, as I am not good at math, but I enjoyed getting to create a character and have them go on adventures and interact with the characters of my fellow players.
For years, my dear friend and I have been storytelling. It is an oral form of role-play, because we describe what is going on and do dialogue for the characters (she will play one, and I will play the other, even when there are more than two characters interacting in the scenes). We have quite a number of characters, and it is hard to keep them straight sometimes, but part of the fun is introducing new characters. We have been doing this for years, and sometimes the same story will go on for months, even a year or two, before we conclude it. Then, we'll start a new one, often featuring some of the same characters from our previous story, but the plot won't always be the same. Some of our characters have been in our story for years, others have faded or become minor, and of course, there are always new ones.
Lately, we have been doing follow-up stories. We had an epic story going a couple years ago, and due to certain life circumstances, we thought this was going to be our last story. I'll admit, that realization was hard on me. This had been something we had been doing for so long, and was such a part of my life, it was difficult to imagine the change.
Fortunately, things worked out a little differently, and we were able to continue. The follow-up story focused on certain characters from the previous one we wanted to continue to play with, and it has gotten more epic than I think we had originally intended, but it's hard not to make it that way. Most of our characters are male, of various races (we took some races from D&D such as drow and tieflings, though we have made them our own, and yes there are a lot of same-sex couplings). My friend has made up the majority of the cultures in the world, and she is better at coming up with things on the spot than I am. I try and keep track of what has happened in the story. I have notebooks and notebooks full of story material. They are just a summary, and not in an organized format, but I started to keeping track when I was going to be in Japan for a month and wanted to remember where we left off for when I returned. The habit stuck, but now when I look back, it's amazing to see how our stories have evolved, and to recall old characters.
I am not going to go into detail about the characters or the world, as that is just for us, and it is private. I am also not going to mention my friend's name, out of respect for her. But I wanted to share this hobby because it is unique (though I am sure there are others out there who do it, or something similar), and it is a great way to spend hours together and it inspires me and fuels my imagination. I consider this a form of role-play, but it is one that probably most aren't familiar with.
Another form of role-play is writing, but not in manuscript format. There are forums for this, or you can do it via PMs, instant messaging like AIM, or email, which I have been doing lately. How it works: your friend (or friends if there are more than two people involved) posts something their character does, and then you respond. You describe the setting, what your characters does, appears, feels, etc. I was introduced to this format several years ago. I was used to the oral storytelling, and while I was writing stories at that point, I wasn't used to this form of role-playing, and it took some getting used to, but now I am kind of addicted to it. I have one main one going now with another dear friend of mine, and we have been doing the same one for a number of years. We started off in a forum (or maybe it was PM, I don't remember) then gravitated more towards AIM, and now we have been doing it through email. We often have more than one scene going at the same time, because it keeps the plot going. Again, most of our characters our male, and there are several pairings. As a female, I like a good, strong female character, but for some reason, when it comes to role-playing, I prefer to create male characters. I started copying/pasting the scenes into a document to keep track of them, and now I have two documents devoted to this one rp. I have two because the first one got so large it would take a while to load, and I didn't even start doing it until later, so I don't have the earliest postings, just to give you an idea of how big this is. Again, I am not going to share the details of the story or my friend's name.
I share this because, as a writer, any form of storytelling is inspiration and a way for a creator to develop their skills. The writing I do for the role-play is very informal, written somewhat like a script, but it is still writing, and it gets the creative juices flowing. The same goes for the oral storytelling. Even though it isn't writing, it is still a creative stimulant, and writing down the summary of what happened is a form of writing, and forces me to recall what happened (I often get behind), which again stimulates my mind. The bane of all writer's, I believe, isn't writer's block (though that is certainly an issue for me) but an idle mind. For those who role-play but feel they could never write a novel, that's okay. You're still creating, and doing something you enjoy, and that is the most important thing. So far all those who are in the role-playing closet, come out and embrace it. Yeah, sometimes I feel a little weird when I try to explain it to people who have never done it or don't know what it is, but I'm not ashamed of it.
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