Cerise Magazine

Let me tell you, I’m a geek. I love comics (I love superhero comics), I was reading fantasy and sci-fi before I lost my first tooth, I’ve been a drama nerd for years and last year I gave in and bought a Macbook.

I’m establishing my credentials to soften this confession: I don’t game a lot. I played Final Fantasy VII and VIII, but the others didn’t appeal. A quick game of Solitaire or Puzzle Bobble can provide procrastination, but only after I’ve exhausted my blogroll. And though I’m fond of creating characters in WoW, I’ve never bothered to get any of them past level 20.

Some of it’s because I get sick of sexism and racism in even my casual entertainment, but much of it is because my attention span is minute and without mental stimulation I tend to get very bored, very fast. I love intriguing, interactive stories, but I hate manouvreing a character down endless roads, or beating my head against some intractable puzzle, or fighting the umpteenth Silver Goblin Dude in hope he’ll drop the Whizzbang Gobby Gidget I need for the next quest. So in most respects, I’m an extremely casual gamer.

Yet for much of the last two years, I’ve gotten up at 8 or 9 a.m. every Saturday and played an X-men RPG with a group of people in the States, half of whom I’ve never met.

It turns out that I love tabletop RPGs! They’re perfect for me: they appeal to my drama nerdery and my love for stories, and because a good GM keeps the story flowing, I never suddenly decide that, actually, I’d rather scratch my leg than turn up.

Like many women, I was unlikely to discover this love for RPGs on my own – I knew boys who roleplayed, but it was clearly For Boys. Then my best friend’s older sister ran the two of us through a quick Vampire: The Masquerade story to practice her Storyteller skills, and I was hooked – with no outlet for this new love.

A couple of years later, a friend I knew from an online writing group suggested I join a Buffy RPG she was planning to run over internet chat programme IRC. It was immediately and immensely entertaining. We followed it up with an Angel scenario, run by another member of the group, and then by the X-men game in which we’re currently engrossed. In there somewhere I started playing with a D&D group – in the real lifes! – which I would never have done without the confidence in my gaming abilities the online group provided. And whereas I left New Zealand, and that group, I could still game online, with only the minor caveat of having to get up horrifically early.

Even more appealing than the game itself is the social aspect of playing with quick-witted people who are as delighted by character development and ridiculous-but-awesome story ideas as I am. Each session takes three to five hours, as a single story, or as part of a larger plot arc, gleefully pulling in real world elements or crossing-over with past campaigns or other created worlds at will. We constantly comment out of character, and it’s a toss-up as to whether I lose it and crack up more at the cracktastic storylines, or at the snarky commentary.

Together, we’ve faced numerous Apocalypses, mutant-trophy hunters, evil alteregos, witches, extradimensional foes, demons, supervillians, vampire cows, alien parakeets and a relentlessly perky Mormon NPC that turns up in each campaign.

In-game right now, Mr. Sinister is the secret mastermind behind American Idol, cloning all of the finalists in his endless quest to create the perfect mutant. It’s hard to see how a group of teenage mutants could successfully oppose that, but someone’s got to save the world – and we’re just the gamer geeks to do it.

Current Issue:

Browse by Issue:

Categories

Search

8 a.m. on Saturdays

August 2007 Issue

Features

Interviews

Articles

Gamer Stories

Reviews

Odds 'n Ends