Gaming Inspired Real Life Adventures

[Jack7]

This thread made me start thinking (or rethinking) about real life adventures I'd like to take that were inspired by gaming. Or rather, to be more accurate, I have done these things in games (as well as researched them in real life), and therefore I'd now like to do them in real life as well.

Some of these things I imagine I may never get the chance to do (though you never know), but others I suspect I will get to do. Also I've already done many things in real life that I have also done in games, and vice versa, but I always thought of imaginary expeditions and adventures and real life adventures as cross-fertilizing one another. So for instance I have been a near life-long Vadder, and to me D&D (for example) was simply a form of complimentary vadding of the imagination.

So these are things I've done in games that I'd like to do in real life in the future:

1. I'd like to walk or travel by horse and camel the Silk Road, starting from Istanbul (Constantinople) and then all the way into China.

2. I'd like to sail the entire world, starting from the East Coast of America (Charleston) to land on the West Coast of America, when finished, in a true sailing vessel. Though I'd probably take along an engine enabled craft just as an emergency back-up. I'd christen her the Endeavour, after my old ship.

3. I'd like to thoroughly explore the cistern system of Constantinople, along with any other underground and abandoned areas of that ancient city that I could possible make my way into.

4. I'd like to buy a small keep or castle in England or Scotland (maybe Bohemia) and then use the surrounding lands to raise really good horses. On that estate I'd also like to build a small private amphitheatre, and an observatory, and a good solid library complex, all of my own design. After I got a good herd up and the estate was flourishing I'd rent it out and then let the caretakers continue raising the stock. I'd probably thereafter vacation there.

5. I'd like to put together an archaeological expedition into Central (preferably) or South America and make a new discovery.

6. I'd like to track down and discover an animal thought extinct or very rare and then photograph and record it.

7. I'd like to explore a previously unexplored or only very rarely explored underground complex. Natural or man-made (long abandoned).

8. I'd like to visit some ancient libraries (especially old monastic collections) and read and study some very rare texts. And I'd like to visit some relical shrines in the Middle East.

9. I'd like to retrace the Lewis and Clarke expedition route by foot and horse. And then motorcycle back across the country on the way home.

10. I'd like to build a real and working ballista (based on an ancient Greek or Roman design) from scratch (no kit), and have forged for me a really fine katana made by a skilled Japanese swordsmith with an inlain pattern design I invented and sporting my family and personal crests.


So, what are some things you've done or built or accomplished in games that you'd also like to do in real life?

 

[The Hound]

I think my early experiences with dungeon crawl campaigns back in the early days inspired me to get into spelunking (cave exploring) - or maybe it was vice versa. I got into both at around the same time. I have heard that some people have been inspired to take up the hobby of exploring old abandoned buildings like insane asylums, factories, and so forth.

 

[Jack7]

I think my early experiences with dungeon crawl campaigns back in the early days inspired me to get into spelunking (cave exploring) - or maybe it was vice versa. I got into both at around the same time. I have heard that some people have been inspired to take up the hobby of exploring old abandoned buildings like insane asylums, factories, and so forth.

Yeah Hound, I vad myself and have for most of my life. Nowadays everybody calls it urban exploration but in my day everybody called it vadding.

I actually started vadding before playing D&D, but after I started playing D&D I really took off, and saw the two activities as related. Especially when it came to things like mapping, equipping yourself prior to an expedition, preparation and planning, danger avoidance, first aid, etc.

I used to spelunk too. Dry caves though. But that was 15 or 20 years ago now. I'd like to do it again though. Wish I had the time.

One thing I forgot to mention above. About a real world adventure.

I'd also like to visit the new, modern Library of Alexandria. I know it wouldn't be like the original library at Alexandria (man, I would have liked to have vested that before it was destroyed) but I understand it is awfully close to what was thought of as the original site, and it is supposed to be sort of a modern reproduction. I'd like to visit it and investigate it at least.

 

[kitsune9]

This thread made me start thinking (or rethinking) about real life adventures I'd like to take that were inspired by gaming. Or rather, to be more accurate, I have done these things in games (as well as researched them in real life), and therefore I'd now like to do them in real life as well.

Some of these things I imagine I may never get the chance to do (though you never know), but others I suspect I will get to do. Also I've already done many things in real life that I have also done in games, and vice versa, but I always thought of imaginary expeditions and adventures and real life adventures as cross-fertilizing one another. So for instance I have been a near life-long Vadder, and to me D&D (for example) was simply a form of complimentary vadding of the imagination.

So these are things I've done in games that I'd like to do in real life in the future:

1. I'd like to walk or travel by horse and camel the Silk Road, starting from Istanbul (Constantinople) and then all the way into China.

2. I'd like to sail the entire world, starting from the East Coast of America (Charleston) to land on the West Coast of America, when finished, in a true sailing vessel. Though I'd probably take along an engine enabled craft just as an emergency back-up. I'd christen her the Endeavour, after my old ship.

3. I'd like to thoroughly explore the cistern system of Constantinople, along with any other underground and abandoned areas of that ancient city that I could possible make my way into.

4. I'd like to buy a small keep or castle in England or Scotland (maybe Bohemia) and then use the surrounding lands to raise really good horses. On that estate I'd also like to build a small private amphitheatre, and an observatory, and a good solid library complex, all of my own design. After I got a good herd up and the estate was flourishing I'd rent it out and then let the caretakers continue raising the stock. I'd probably thereafter vacation there.

5. I'd like to put together an archaeological expedition into Central (preferably) or South America and make a new discovery.

6. I'd like to track down and discover an animal thought extinct or very rare and then photograph and record it.

7. I'd like to explore a previously unexplored or only very rarely explored underground complex. Natural or man-made (long abandoned).

8. I'd like to visit some ancient libraries (especially old monastic collections) and read and study some very rare texts. And I'd like to visit some relical shrines in the Middle East.

9. I'd like to retrace the Lewis and Clarke expedition route by foot and horse. And then motorcycle back across the country on the way home.

10. I'd like to build a real and working ballista (based on an ancient Greek or Roman design) from scratch (no kit), and have forged for me a really fine katana made by a skilled Japanese swordsmith with an inlain pattern design I invented and sporting my family and personal crests.


So, what are some things you've done or built or accomplished in games that you'd also like to do in real life?

Wish you the best of luck! Go for it and blog your experience.

 

[Jack7]

Wish you the best of luck! Go for it and blog your experience.

What about you Kit? What would you like to do, or adventure at?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

I think my early experiences with dungeon crawl campaigns back in the early days inspired me to get into spelunking (cave exploring) - or maybe it was vice versa.

Hehehe, "or vice-versa"... Yes, I'm not sure if my love of travelling sprang directly from my interest in gaming, but I'm sure the two are somehow connected. The feeling that comes from being someplace new and mysterious in the real world must be tied to somehow to the similar feeling that comes of exploring an imaginary place.

I'm a travel nut, so most of my aspirations are related to that....

* Africa. All of it, north to south. I've already seen a fair bit of it and the Middle East, but there's lots left to do: Marakesh. A proper wander across the Sahara. Timbuktu and its old libraries. The Horn of Africa, Nubia, old Axum, Ethiopian Christendom, and all that. The Rift Valley. The Congo, a la "Heart of Darkness". Walk among the hulls of wrecks on the Skeleton Coast. Then run a little vineyard on the Cape and make some lovely wine.

* @Jack7: I totally agree with you on the Silk Road!

* I have a strange fascination with The Door to Hell, as well as Tunguska Lake. And other big holes in the ground. Probably where my interest in spelunking came from.

* Antarctica. Preferably without the shoggoths.

* Live in a small village in Japan.

* Own a villa on a small island in the Mediterranean/Agean. Monte Cristo's treasure is optional, though would be greatly appreciated.

* Make my way around the world telling fortunes.

* Watch a total solar eclipse from on high, across flat ground, to see that massive shadow come bearing down fast, fast, fast from beyond the horizon. Also would like to see a sunrise eclipse (which, alas, I missed this week over India )

* and countless others, I'm sure. The world's big enough to keep me occupied for a while.

* Oh, and hot elven babes.

 

[Jack7]

* @Jack7: I totally agree with you on the Silk Road!

Ain't it the truth. Back in college, when I was preparing for the Seminary I did a long undergraduate paper on the Silk Road and possible Buddhist influence on the development of early Christianity and on monasticism in Orthodox Christianity.

I got good marks on the paper, but I have since learned with new evidence that some of my conclusions were faulty, though some seem to have been true. Anywho the main route of this influence from the East seemed to come along the Silk Road. (That is to say prior to the early Christian missionary movement heading East and South, the original Buddhist missionaries moved West, before the second wave of Buddhist missionaries went towards China, and the way the Buddhist missionaries headed West was basically along the Silk Road. The second wave of Christian missionaries moved West and North.) So for the paper I did extensive research on the Silk Road and what occurred along it, in both directions. I sort of fell in love with the thing. As a route of exploration and exchange and ideas moving back and forth. To me it was one of the original "information highways." Since then I've always wanted to walk and ride the whole thing, from beginning to end, and to see what I could discover along that route.

* Africa. All of it, north to south. I've already seen a fair bit of it and the Middle East, but there's lots left to do: Marakesh. A proper wander across the Sahara. Timbuktu and its old libraries. The Horn of Africa, Nubia, old Axum, Ethiopian Christendom, and all that. The Rift Valley. The Congo, a la "Heart of Darkness". Walk among the hulls of wrecks on the Skeleton Coast. Then run a little vineyard on the Cape and make some lovely wine.

I'm with you on that one. Africa is definitely under-rated as a place of modern exploration, Unfortunately so much of it is still dangerous and at war. I wish that would change. I have lost several friends, buddies, and even business associates to things like tribal warfare and attempts at genocide (one was macheteed to death). And I've got missionary buddies in parts of Africa right now that every now and then I think I'm gonna have to help rescue and evacuate (like last summer). Still, there's a lot about the place I'd like to see and wander about in. One place I'd really like to visit would be ancient Cush.

My wife is black and we've both thought about trying to do a genealogical study, where possible, and see if we can't track down her family's point of origin in Africa. I'm afraid though that because her family was brought here (the US) as slaves it will take more of a DNA than a standard genealogical study.

* I have a strange fascination with The Door to Hell, ...

That place looks pretty amazing. I've never heard of it. If it is as presented though then it seems like it would be possible to build harnessing and capturing facilities and systems to tap at least some of that energy.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Africa is definitely under-rated as a place of modern exploration, Unfortunately so much of it is still dangerous and at war.

Indeed. I'm sorry to hear about your friends over there. So much of the world is so dangerous. I was in Zimbabwe right before it collapsed, and I often wonder what happened to the people I met there. I've heard such horrible things in the news and from missionary friends. Likewise, I think the Silk Road could be similarly difficult in parts, going through Afghanistan and western China. If nothing else, modern exploration can be a real eye-opener into the hardships of people outside the comfort and relative stability of the western world.

I do like to hold out hope, though, that things will get better.

To me [the Silk Road] was one of the original "information highways."

Very cool analogy. One of the things that most intrigues me about looking into the history of a place is understanding that much of the ancient world was really more connected than we often realize at first. Chinese in Mozambique and Tanzania. Polynesians all over the Pacific. Vikings in Minnesota. People really got around! Maybe we'll find an beach bar and wrecked pirate ship on the shores of the Sea of Tranquility if we ever get around to going back to the moon .

On a slightly different note, it occurs to me now that I'm thinking about such things, that my game-to-realWorld inspirations are reversed. I've played so rarely in steady groups, but I've travelled fairly widely - and I often think about how to incorporate things experienced into in-game places & adventures.

As well, I sometimes rue how easy modern life, travel and communication, has made these kinds of things. It's one thing, for example, to see the catacombs of Paris with its gift shop, brochures and electric lighting; it's quite another to break into the catacombs of Paris and wander through by torchlight in ankle-deep sludge and foul fumes threatening to knock you out....

 

[Jack7]

Indeed. I'm sorry to hear about your friends over there. So much of the world is so dangerous. I was in Zimbabwe right before it collapsed, and I often wonder what happened to the people I met there. I've heard such horrible things in the news and from missionary friends. Likewise, I think the Silk Road could be similarly difficult in parts, going through Afghanistan and western China. If nothing else, modern exploration can be a real eye-opener into the hardships of people outside the comfort and relative stability of the western world.

I do like to hold out hope, though, that things will get better.

One of the things that most intrigues me about looking into the history of a place is understanding that much of the ancient world was really more connected than we often realize at first. Chinese in Mozambique and Tanzania. Polynesians all over the Pacific. Vikings in Minnesota. People really got around! Maybe we'll find an beach bar and wrecked pirate ship on the shores of the Sea of Tranquility if we ever get around to going back to the moon .

On a slightly different note, it occurs to me now that I'm thinking about such things, that my game-to-realWorld inspirations are reversed. I've played so rarely in steady groups, but I've travelled fairly widely - and I often think about how to incorporate things experienced into in-game places & adventures.

As well, I sometimes rue how easy modern life, travel and communication, has made these kinds of things. It's one thing, for example, to see the catacombs of Paris with its gift shop, brochures and electric lighting; it's quite another to break into the catacombs of Paris and wander through by torchlight in ankle-deep sludge and foul fumes threatening to knock you out....

I'm with you on all of that. Well put.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I've always wanted to visit, and posibly stay in "Haunted" locations.

When the castle of Vlad the Impaler went up for sale, I cried and whined and bugged everyone I knew to lend me a few million dollars to buy it... no one wanted to help me out though.