Why Text Based Role Playing?

11Nov06

Some people (hem. Brandy Pie comes to mind – my wife knows what I’m talking about) have questioned the legitimacy of continuing textual role playing in an age of video games, TV and block buster movies. It seems utterly irrelevant for a bunch of people running around imagining things when they could see them in a video game just as well or even better, that they should write it down instead of just act it out with the mouse, keyboard or controller. Or does it?

When did the ability to read and write correctly, the ability to imagine, to comprehend, plot and solve problems become worthless? When did humans let machines live for them, does an engine get rewarded for its work? I think not. There’s a song by Johnny Cash called “The Legend of John Henry’s Hammer”, about a man who worked on the railroads laying the tracks for the trains and in the song it says “Did the lord say that machines oughta take the place of living? And what’s a substitute for bread and beans? (I aint seen it) Do engines get rewarded for their steam?” That has a very good point, when did machines take the place of living? This is no different from video games, TV and all the ‘conveniences’ of modern day living have made us no longer need to imagine, sometimes even think and it’s utterly appalling at least to me.

Text based rping (TBRPG) has taught me how to make realistic characters, not to be afraid of flaws, to plot, to write in different styles and genres it’s also improved my spelling and grammar dramatically as well as my confidence in my writing and my ability to explain myself and write more then two sentences per post. I learnt how to use proper sentence structure, how to describe, it was invaluable to me not to mention it taught me how to cooperate with other people no matter belief’s. You can’t tell me a video game teaches those things to you, I’ve played video games, hell I own a few but I still think most of them are a waste of time and energy in a society that is getting stupider by the generation because they don’t want to learn the fine art of literacy they don’t care, why should they anyway? Everything we can get on TV or audio book anyway.

I’m a writer, not by choice, by birth. I also design graphics, I have a great love for images too but in a world full of pretty pictures the words that hold them together are slowly disappearing and that’s worse then loosing the treasures of Atlantis. It is legitimate to continue TBRPG because people need words, communication and language, because people need to know how to act things out and how to think strategically, to think of people as three dimensional, these are few of the wonderful things that TBRPG’s bring about and they alone are enough for me to fight for them to stay.

So the final answer? The day we fall from this planet and words are no longer of concern to us, then and only then should someone be so stupid as to stop TBRPG’s.

You’re welcome to give opinions.

- Stephanie.

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