Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr Midnight" data-source="post: 237206" data-attributes="member: 69">There's a somewhat similar thread <a href="http://test.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15533" target="_blank">here,</a> but I believe this is on a different enough bent. This is about that flavor you get from epic fantasy, and how it sometimes gets lost in how you play the game.Two nights ago, I was up in a nice wooded area with a friend of mine. We were outside under the bright moon, enjoying some altered consciousness (Eric's grandmother: that means we'd just drunk some nice wholesome root beer floats). We started talking about RP'ing, and I pointed to a dark shape in the garden."What is that?"My friend says "Uh... a goblin?"Right then, we started imagining. Sounds pretty stupid now, but you know how root beer floats make everything seem profound? Bear with me here. Well, we began imagining that everything around us was mystic and fantastical. The house was a keep, the forest was enchanted, and there were quests to be undertaken. The world took on a different slant. We were adventurers in a world we were exploring. After a while, one of us would take the role of DM: We were standing at a fork in a path in the woods. I'd say "To the left, the road slants downhill, towards the cliffs of Lorrift. You can hear the breaking of waves on the distant rocks. To your right, the road winds into the gray mists of the haunted forest of Mistmere..." and so on. It was all perfect, it was all exciting, everything was mystical and new.The point is that I found the FEEL that I've been missing from roleplaying for a long time. I had it when I started playing years ago, I get it when dressed up at a ren faire, I got it when I used to LARP (lynch me, please). It's the giddy excitement you get when your imagination is completely immersed in the trappings of the genre. It's suspension of disbelief. We sometimes forget what that suspension feels like, when we go without it for a while. Do you FEEL the character and the world around him/her when you play, or are you in my sad situation- just showing up to roll the dice and see if you can make level 7 from tonight's xp bounty? Do you care, either way? Where do you find the feel you're looking for? I'm consumed with the need to find that feel again in tabletop roleplaying. I want to know how.</blockquote>

Verification