Why do you play RPGs??

[Janx]

I think the key is to game with people who's styles, goals and idea of fun are compatible with your own. As long as you enable everyone else to have fun, and you're having fun, then it's all OK.

Personally, I like gaming with friends, rather than aquaintances. With good time management, you can get the game in, and still have non-gaming socialization. In some ways, gaming is just one activity we do together. Playing darts, video games, board games, watching movies are other things.

As to why I play RPGs? To build something. Sometimes it's a character, sometimes it's to build an empire. Sometimes it's to build the story of how good triumphed over evil. But in all cases, its to build something, to solve a challenge put forth by myself or by the DM's world.

Janx

 

[Odhanan]

I think the key is to game with people who's styles, goals and idea of fun are compatible with your own. As long as you enable everyone else to have fun, and you're having fun, then it's all OK.

Quoted for truth.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Because I CAN'T STOP!

 

[sydbar]

I play to have fun, and to exercise my mind. I love challanges and puzzel solving, and i also have a very overactive imagination, i also love reading because my imagination turns the book into a movie in my mind, the same happens when i role play, and my imagination is thousands times better than any thing hollywood can even think of.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I game for social reasons. I like getting together with friends and playing a game, joking around, and just plain having fun. But as has been said, that could be any of a number of activities.

I game for escapism. I run away from the shades of grey and uncertain morailty of the real world, and play games where the good guys stomp the forces of evil, whether it be is tights as a superhero, or in plate as a palaidn. It is a way to have the certainty of right action and success that may not be present in the real world.

I game to understand myself. I play different kinds of characters, with differing personalities, to explore aspects of character or skill in myself. To try and see parts of myself through a fictional focus.

I game to create nifty stories with others. I love when a 3 month storyline hits it's end, and everything was perfect.

I game to spend time with family. I met my wife because she was a GM of a group I joined. We've been playing together ever since. For us solo gaming is a "date night" kind of thing, and helps us be together and helps bring us together. We have been happily married for over a decade and a half, so I think it is working.

 

[Wombat]

Why game?

Why breathe?

Okay, maybe not that bad, but...

When I was a little kid I loved tales of King Arthur and the Greek & Norse myths. I grew up on that stuff; it worked its way into the bones. As such I wanted to be able to be part of those stories.

I played miniatures wargames for several years. This was kinda fun, but there ended up being a lot of arguments about the rules, and sometimes there were hard feelings after a game -- winners vs. losers. Even buddies would get on each other's nerves.

I love storytelling and acting. A tale well-told is a beautiful thing and taking on a voice and characterization is fascinating to me. I like pretending to be someone else and having them, at least for that brief moment, believe it to be true.

Now take all three elements, shake vigorously, and what do you get?

I game with friends, or rather all the people who I game with become buddies or I stop gaming with them. I wouldn't want to game with just random folks, folks who I wouldn't invite to dinner, allow to play with my nieces & nephews, or trade stories with. Why? Well, because I am a very social person and gaming is a very social situation. I am far less worried about the rules than about the social interactions. My games are often based on moral conundrums, personality conflicts, and other social interactions -- the combat is there, but it is the spice of the situation, not the primary reason for gaming. And if I am going to deal with these sorts of situations, I want to make sure the people I game with are compatible, not only to the game and game system, but also with each other. Cook a meal with someone and you learn a lot about them. I would cook with any of my game buddies.

There are no "winners" or "losers" in our games, except on a personal goals level. I have seen players stand proud when their characters have died, knowing that they died for a purpose and/or covered with glory. I have heard players tell real tales of their characters years after the fact and in such a way that non-gamers are intrigued, impressed, and excited. Some of the worlds we have created cooperatively have become real in our minds; two of them have become the basis of on-line small group fiction. I feel excessively proud of that notion.

Games are about grand stories, about realistic characters, about the sweep of epics and the small victories of life, about friendship, about shared experience, and about friendship yet again.

I've been gaming for 30 years now.

I only regret a handful of games.

Ludo, ergo sum.

 

[sniffles]

I play for the enjoyment of imagining what it's like to be someone else, who lives in a world quite unlike the one in which I live. I play for the enjoyment of spending time with my friends in a shared imaginary world, to see how they envision that world and respond to it. I'd still hang out with these people doing other things if we all gave up gaming, but I'd be disappointed if we dropped gaming from our social schedule because I like it. It makes me think about a lot of things that I otherwise might not give much thought to.

 

[Li Shenron]

I just think that playing in general is an important part of life. I think it's cynical and sometimes self-hypocritical to believe that only children play. We play at every age, we just play different games: old people may play cards or petanque, but they still play, and even the self-obsessed middle age career man/woman might actually live their professional life as a sort of game (or sometimes worse, their sentimental lives!).

So, it all boils down to choosing which games you prefer. I think I like D&D because it's complex enough to keep me discovering and trying new things for years before exhausting my interests. I play cards as well with friends, but no card game I know has such an endurance to keep us enthralled for years.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Each evening of playing an RPG without going bizzarro in the real world is a poke in Jack Chick's eyes.

Oh yeah...and its loads of fun to pretend I'm killing the evil foes of goodness, righting wrongs, etc.!

 

[diaglo]

for the beer & pretzels