I’ve been roleplaying in one form or another since I was a kid. Like most kids, I played pretend. I’d pretend I was an alien, or a monster, or a robot, and run around fighting evil with a friend (and later with my little brother). Once my bro was old enough, I moved on to RPing with our toys. Our Power Rangers/Transformers (both at once) Star Wars/Might Max playsets, Teenage Mutant ninja Turtle figures, and Legos got in a lot of play time, and some had ongoing storylines that we kept up for more than ten years. We still have most of those toys safely tucked away, and several of our favorites have found homes displayed on shelves.
It wasn’t until my brother introduced me to Gaia.com that I discovered a new type of roleplaying: online written RPs. For those of you who don’t know how this works, basically it involves creating a character (or using a canon one in some RPs based off of existing franchises), and writing short (or sometimes long) posts from that character’s perspective. Then one or several other online players make posts of their own, from their character’s perspective, and have them react to yours. You have your character respond, then it goes back to them, and…well, you get the idea. I’ve always been a halfway decent writer (I was way ahead of my time when I was younger, though now I’m only slightly above average), and I quickly found that this cooperative storytelling came naturally to me. Before long, I had created half a slew of characters, and was writing in weeks more than I had before in years. As my experience grew, so did the length and quality of my posts. I was having fun, making friends, and was giving my brain (and fingers) some much needed exercise.
Roleplays came and went (usually went, as the other players lost interest…grrrrr), but a few managed to survive more than a few weeks. The first was called Destinies Intertwined, one of the first RPs I joined. I managed to catch it when it was still on page one, and was quite quickly able to adapt my signature character (his name is Jackal, and I may be talking more about him in future journal entries) to fit within the story. I whipped up an appropriate bio, posted it, and dove in. I quickly bonded with several of the other players (love you Ed and Amy! Missing you Jordon!), and I’m happy to say that I made lasting friendships with them. I helped build up on the story of Destinies, working with the other players to help shape and move it along (often in unexpected ways!). I soon created a few additional accounts on Gaia, which I used to play additional characters I came up with (most notably the mysterious Haru, who was doubly mysterious as I never posted a bio on him, and triply so because for a long time I didn’t even reveal that I was the one playing him!). Destinies didn’t always run smoothly (disappearances from other players sometimes put the entire RP on hold, once for over a year!), but I am happy (okay, ecstatic) to say that two of the original players are back after long absences, and we’ve got Destinies up and running again! I’ve had plenty of time over the years to build upon my characters, and I’ve come up with several plot twists that ought to give us plenty of material to keep RPing for some time to come! I’ve also semi-reactivated an old RP I co-started with a good friend (hey D-con!), though currently we’re keeping it between just the two of us. Right now, those are the only two roleplays I’m in. I don’t spend too much time writing for them (at the most an hour a day total, and usually much less), but I’m happy with just those two. It’s a relief to be roleplaying again at all, after a dry period of over half a year. I might join another RP at some point in the near future, but probably not anytime soon. These two have a lot of good memories, and for now I’m very much content.
Anyways, I think this entry has gone on long enough. I’ll defiantly be writing more about my experience RPing here. I might even post up a bit of my material, just to give you all an idea of my writing style. Till then folks!
P.S. Where the hell is that Spyro game I bought from Amazon.com weeks ago? I needs me some kickass dragon action!
