kethrai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why I am Not a Gamer, despite being a Sci-Fi Geek From time to time, my legitimacy as a sci-fi fan has been challenged by fellow fen. I haven't read "Lord of the Rings", I haven't taken a Vulcan name, and...worst of all... I'm not a gamer. Certainly enough people have tried to suck me into the world of gaming. Initially, a lot of my aversion to gaming tied directly into my learning disability--a game full of rules involving dice and probability and drawing up character sheets that had numerical values-- oh, fun. Not. Even if I had WANTED to know that my strength was the strength of ten because I rolled a four on a 37-die, there was no way that sort of arcanae was going to stick in MY head. Even the fact that my adored big sister was a gamer was not going to make one out of me. As Brown Belt Girl once rather acidly noted, I really don't like failing in public, and the process of gaming is that when you are starting out, you tend to make an idiot of yourself fairly frequently--if you don't, then you're not really participating. I tend to limit exposure to activities where I die repeatedly and publicly, my cigarette smoking aside. This is not to say that I haven't actually gamed--I have--but I tended to play characters that were...throwaways, let's say, something invented for the weekend and gratefully discarded. Some of them were funny as hell, as well as obnoxious--my sister's gaming group kept one of them on as an NPC (non-player character) for years, specifically to beat the snot out of him, because he was such a misery. At various points in time, I have attempted gaming again. The tedium of rolling dice for character sheets aside, I never did end up enjoying the experience all that much, unless I regarded it as a slightly boring movie, and brought along busywork or handwork to keep the other 3/4ths of my brain occupied. And I was reminded this past weekend of why I don't enjoy gaming much, quite aside from the math and the tedium. Gamers, in choosing characters, tend to make themselves painfully naked in the process. Inevitably, no matter how matter-of-fact the gamer, the character that they choose to play represents them, or them as they wish to be. Brown Belt Girl, one of the most rational and impersonally kind human beings I have ever met, has been playing a healer bard for over a decade--gleefully collecting cantrips (tiny spells, along the lines of "Sneeze" or "Trip") and solving the problem, be it dragon or kobold, with the most efficient use of force possible. My Little Housemate consistently rolls up characters that are part-elven, woodswise, petite, beautiful, somewhat magical, that have bird companions, as part of the vision she has of herself. The Scot rolls up characters that are violent, sometimes evil, frequently not human. Other friends--FilmMaker and Theatregeek--consistently roll up characters that are, again, much like they are themselves--hopelessly honorbound and desperately serious. I'm not sure I need that kind of exposure. Even though I kind of already have it. I mean, hey, I'm already an exhibitionist on the net, yes? Y'all can read back and there aren't too many holds barred, here. Those that are, are findable if you know me well enough or if you have a reason to ask me and I'm willing to hand you a few url's for my more private writing. If I'm rolling up any characters, here, then I would have to say the character I play that's closest to me is my net-name of Kethrai--when I first started on the net, she was rather more harsh and bold than I, off-net. I'm happy to say that the two of us have merged in the middle, over time. She's mellowed, and I'm more likely to punt assholes to the moon. But I as Kethrai is not a matter of rolling dice and wistful fantasy-playing--more a matter of writing, and thinking, and deliberately letting down some of the walls I used to hide behind, and learned to be stronger than I used to be. Lois Bujold's character Aral Vorkosigan says to his wife, Cordelia, that she is the only person who envisions their retainer, Bothari, to be greater than he is--she is the only one who sees him as a hero, and so he strives to become that, for her. In a very real sense, when I first took on the name Kethrai and started writing on the internet, I was envisioning a woman bolder, brighter, larger, stronger than I was--and then started working to make sure that I fit comfortably into her skin. Some of that is a function of age. Some of it is a function of time. Some of it is a function of tempering--hammering will strengthen metal, even as it makes it more brittle, and heating it, makes it softer again. I have been toughened by the contention, softened again by love, and sometime I will have been tempered far enough to not break, and to be a useful weapon.
Or maybe, in the end run, I'm not a gamer because the wistful representation of Kethrai-as-I-Would-Like-To-Be is something that even my exhibitionist online self finds too private to give away. 5:33 p.m. - 2004-03-01 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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