I'm in it for the bitches.
I've tried teaching my Great Dane to play but she just looks at me funny, licks my face, and then eats my taco. What's your secret for really getting em into it?
A lot of folks have given some really good answers I think.
I'm gonna reiterate some of those from my own point of view.
Add a couple more.
1. I enjoy it, though what I get out of it depends on how much time I can afford to put in to it.
2. Research and study. The research I've done for games and game milieus and word design has helped me to learn a lot of things about the real world that I can usually apply to other things. I'm the kinda fella who wouldn't waste time with any activity that did not have the ability to be applied widely to other things in a useful way. to me RP gaming can be usefully applied to everything form work, to studies and reading, to scientific experiments, to invention, to analysis, to case work, to simulations, to learning tactics and strategy, to vadding.
3. It's useful for vadding. In particular. Very useful. And learning how to explore systematically. I consider game adventuring to be the parallel imaginary correlate of real world vadding. Vadding of the mind you might say.
4. It's helpful when I invent. This might sound kinda strange but when you set up environments which break or at least severely alter the physical rules of reality, and then you can invent something to operate in that environment in a clever and original way, then it is easy for me to begin to see possible real world applications for such a thing by stripping away the fictional operating parameters of the unreal device, and replacing those parameters with the necessary laws and rules of physics. You might call it a form of "imaginary reverse-engineering." I've had several useful real world invention ideas come out of inventions I had initially invented for a fictional environment. The same is true in reverse of course, but the process operates in a different way. the same is true of chemistry and lately I've begun to experiment with ideas I originally developed for the fields of biology and genetics in a fictional way, wondering if they might be applied to human biological systems in a pragmatic, real world form. For instance I invented this, as a unique variation on the original D&D monster:
the Homonculous
Which led me to consider developing this: extract form a letter to my friends - Which reminds me of something else, analogously speaking.
F
or modern medicine and genetics I've also been at work on the idea of a homonculous (the term I adopted), a biological form of microscopic life, having human genetic material, which can be used for medical purposes. For molecular and genetic surgery, that kinda thing. It would be programmed to cut away or modify material on the molecular and genetic level, maybe undertaking other forms of manipulations as well. I also envision it as being a sort of immune system spy, or scout. Invading possibly diseased environments within a body, gathering molecular information, putting down
markers (or implanting T-cells, etc.), and retrieving data. I've also considered the idea of it implanting disguised immune system cells, and of it implanting dummy cells
and materials to trick disease causing organisms into acts of self-destruction.
(Plus you could create hybrid chimera homonculi, using animal or bacteriological or even viral genetic material when that kind of material would be more useful than human genetic material.)
I had this idea some time ago but the recent events with Beethoven (his brain tumor) made me realize how important such a concept, assuming it could be made to work properly, could be for medical and genetic therapy applications. It might could even be used molecularly to transmit communications from the brain and body of an animal to a technological interpretive device worked by humans. I also see it as sort of a molecular version of an exploratory robot that could be sent into cancerous tumors in order to study how such tumors operate within the body, so that ways can be devised to shut down cancerous tumor development, cause tumors to reverse process, or prevent future tumor development. It might could even be used as a localized medicine or genetic matter delivery system.
It would be like a multi-functional genetic robot (Though maybe, depending on programmability, you would have to specialize each one), though one could also create a sort of cyborg homonculous, an inanimate and programmable molecular machine which houses or hosts within or upon it a genetic or molecular homonculous.
5. I can and often do use it as a form or format to develop simulations for developing training programs or scenarios for military, law-enforcement, undercover operations, etc.
6. It's useful for developing tactical and strategic skills.
7. If played right it's useful training and practice for developing and maintaining survival skills.
8. I often use it to recreate real world historical events (because my setting is semi-historical), for study or reenactment of real world battles and wargames, etc.
9. My kids are homeschooled so I often use it as an enjoyable way to teach history, religion, myth, basic science, mathematical skills, invention, chemistry, literature, military affairs, etc. If done right it's a good educational tool.
10. It's good to get together with your buddies and enjoy their companionship. It's also usually simultaneously relaxing and stimulating.
11. It encourages other things in me. Helps me do things like develop experimental architectural designs, forms of poetry, etc.
12. You can do things with it you can't really do in any other medium because it is so flexible, fluid, and easy to adapt ad hoc.
13. I got my wife by gaming. (No just kidding, I got her working undercover. So to speak. She can't stand gaming. She likes romance and vampire novels. But it does give me something to do in my spare time when she's reading that stuff or watching one of her chick-flicks.)
