If you’ve been a long-time follower of Grass Pants – or even just talked to me for more than five minutes – you know that I’m full of ideas that never come to life. Writer’s block has always been a particular problem for me, because on some issues, I just don’t know where to start or I ramble too much and don’t know what to cut out. In honor of the year ending and me cleaning out my drafts, I’m gonna visit a post that never had a chance to actually get read and give it a brief moment in the spotlight.
Grass Pants Muses On Roleplaying. Roleplaying, particularly in MMORPGs, has been one of those things I’ve always wanted to write about. It’s how I met some of my best friends and some of the coolest people I’ve spent time with. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot to say outside of ‘It’s like impromptu acting!,’ which was going to be the title of a roleplaying-centric Grass Pants Muses.
I’ve always been a fan of character- and world-building, and roleplaying gives me at least the opportunity for the former without needing to build up a complete narrative, which I’m actually kind of terrible at. It allows me to experience different mental states, philosophies, and quirks, even if it’s not the ‘real’ thing. As an aside, one of my favorite character types to write has always been the old man looking for redemption. There’s something… let’s say heroic about someone, despite the horrible choices they made in the past, striving for whatever the setting’s idea of ‘good’ is.
Again, it’s not something I can write about that a lot of people will get without having done it themselves or who have tried creative (not-what-I-do-here) writing and who are really into character-building. The fact that everyone has the potential to play a part in your story also fascinates me. The community is what makes roleplaying more than impromptu writing, because you get to meet a bunch of really enjoyable folks doing it and it’s something you can get a friend into and watch as they experience it for the first time. I’d dare say that, with roleplaying, the possibilities are pretty well endless, especially if you don’t have an established setting.
And yeah, I know there are those people who think of roleplaying as glorified cybersex. Hell, I used to be one before Ultima Online, but meeting the guys in charge of… I think it was the Blue Dragon Alliance? Anyway, meeting those guys really helped my creativity flow, which lead to me getting a huge interest in world-building and character creation.
Anyway, if anyone wants to hear more on the subject, feel free to comment or email me or somethin’. I could go on all day, but it wouldn’t make great Grass Pants material. Tomorrow you guys can check back in for Day Four of Grass Pants’ 2012 Retrospective to see what surprised me the most this year. Until then, thanks for reading and have a good’un.
The Grass Feels Like Pants 
I might just send you that e-mail sometime. Sounds like a side of roleplaying I haven’t really explored much.
I can understand the feeling as far as trying to get it in post form goes, though. I’m going through a similar thing with a post I want to make on narrative – there’s so much I could say, but the core concept is a simple, self-explanatory sentence, like with your topic.
Fun fact: Narrative is another one of those topics I’ve never had the chance to really work with, because it would be long and ramble-y.