The Virtues of Escapism

The liminal space is a powerful thing. The idea of being able to step out of yourself for a couple of hours, inhabit a character in a shared world with friends, where there is a ritual8se space with instruments sacred to the moment like dice and possibly maps, figurines, tokens, cards, or anything else that might help create a stronger link between the real and the imagined. Texts that describe the interactions within the world, or how the sacred instruments can be utilised to affect the imagined world. Some of that text is written by Prophets (game designers), published in hardback and purchased...other parts of the text are defined by the the local arbiter/priest (DM/GM/MC/etc.), perhaps in hastily written notepads and journals, maybe printed in a folder... then there's the elements of the text written by the congregation (the players), who might be writing accounts of their own experiences in the liminal world, and those accounts may be fed back into the space when the GM says "so what happened last session" (or something similar).

Some people talk about getting a spiritual sense of a one-ness with God in a religious mass (where this is the origin of the term "atonement" and being made holy in the eyes of the Lord). Others get that exact same sensation from attending a live music venue and feeling at one with the crowd in the rhythm and music. It's the ritual of the sacred space, the sense of community, the ability to focus on something beyond the mundane.

Despite comments like this...

 

...there have been numerous attempts to describe what roleplaying is, how it works, and what people get out of the experience. I've even offered my descriptions a few times here on the blog. (I'm actually hoping that this post is satire or parody, because if it's not, the Dunning-Kruger on display is just horrendous).

In a world like the one we currently live it, I totally get the idea that a rolepplat8ing session is an exercise in practical empathy. As the original post suggests, there's something inherently empathetic about putting yourself in someone else's shoes and reacting to situations based on what their values and systems of belief might influence them towards. Most of the narcissistic players I've met over the years haven't tried to put themselves in the thought processes of someone (or something) else, they've always used the gaming situation as a power fantasy... (which I've got lined up to discuss in my next post). Generally though, I've often found gamers to be among the most empathetic people I know...especially the overlapping circles of gaming and neurodivergence.

For another example, the hobby generally exists as a shared experience and a game becomes dysfunctional when a single person controls all aspects of it. My three-way tension theory indicates that everyone should have a pull on the session's flow. If they don't they'll lose interest, they won't feel a part of the communal storytelling, they'll lose their connection. I've always found most of the fun experiences in gaming have come from playing off oter people, letting go and collaborating with others to push the narrative in unexpected directions, or just letting the dice go where they may. Fudging dice, talking people down, and having someone being too self interested has typically led to fights and even breakdowns of the groups.

I really like this idea that the liminal space of TTRPGs is a chance for people to experiment with empathy in a safe liminal space with people they know and trust, or at least in a situation that isn't going to have negative consequences outside the game (unless we're talking bleed... but that's another issue entirely).