How Role-Playing Games Helped You

[Brayon]

Just curious as to how many writers have played Role-Playing Games before. From Dungeons and Dragons, to Pathfinder, to GURPS, to White Wolf's World of Darkness, among others, have you played tabletop, pen and paper, RPGs? If so, how has it influenced you as a writer?

 

I'll talk more in another post on my influence.

Edited October 5, 2017 by BHopper2

[Brayon]

How it influence me, is like this. As both a Player and DM, it allowed me to flex my imagination. To think outside of the box, and on the fly. Reacting to other players at the table, and what they do. It built teamwork, working as a team to meet challenges based on what our characters could do, with each of us doing a role. As a player, I almost always had a spellcaster of some kind. Either a Mage, Sorcerer, or Cleric. If I wasn't blasting you with spells, I was fixing you with Duct-tape, and prayers.

 

It helped in Worldbuilding, as almost ever DM has their own world. Some take pregenerated ones, like Forgotten Realms, and made them their own. You don't like the Harpers, well you took them out. Looks of changes and revisions like that. Others would build from the ground up. Take a piece of paper, slap a dot to represent a town, and then expand from there. It allowed you to flex creativity in order to create your own world.

 

Almost every system for RPGs focused on two main rules. Do what is fun. And tell a good story.

[Graeme]

I've been a roleplayer for over 35 years, playing most weeks. I don't think I could list all the game systems we've played...

 

Interestingly, even though I love reading fantasy, and I prefer fantasy roleplaying systems, I generally don't write fantasy. What roleplaying does do, though, is exercise the imagination, and that exercise is great for creative writing, regardless of the genre. I don't know how many times I've had to find my way out of a corner that I've written myself into, and the experience for roleplaying has given me the skills to find my way through issues and come up with a resolution.

 

I remember saying, back in the 80s when there were reports coming out of the USA about the 'dangers' of playing D&D, that roleplaying is a mental exercise. Just like someone who is unfit can injury themselves doing physical exercise, someone who is mentally unfit can injury themselves with mental exercise. That doesn't mean the mental exercise is bad -- it was just bad for that person. Overall, I've found it to be a positive experience.

[mogwhy]

12 minutes ago, Graeme said:

 

I remember saying, back in the 80s when there were reports coming out of the USA about the 'dangers' of playing D&D, that roleplaying is a mental exercise. Just like someone who is unfit can injury themselves doing physical exercise, someone who is mentally unfit can injury themselves with mental exercise. That doesn't mean the mental exercise is bad -- it was just bad for that person. Overall, I've found it to be a positive experience.

 

i start RP in 1978, in high school. i lived in the town just down the road from MSU.  any one say "Dallas Egbert the 3rd". the school  made the people in our little club see a psychiatrist because we played. i knew people who knew him. don't believe everything you read about him. best line i ever heard "blaming D&D for murder is like blaming monopoly for insider trading."

 

mostly, RP games, and like you, Graeme, i've played them all. it expands my mental ingenuity and let me have friends of ALL kinds. (it even me do MATH!)

[Myr]

Within reach of where I'm sitting... the dice I've had and used for nearly 30 years.  And though in the process of moving, I still have a handful of D&D books here.

I'm also a sucker for almost all types of RPG games. lol

Some things from in my mancave...

[Dolores Esteban]

I played LOTR Online Role-Playing Games many years ago. I latwr wrote fanfiction and finally original stories. Role-Playing Games are a great source for creativity. I learned spontaneity and ad-hoc problem solving in writing and under time constraints. That's probably why I'm mostly a pantser, making up my stories as I write them. I can't plan a story and write with an outline. I tried but I get immediately bored.