Method Gamers

“What’s going on with the suits, Virgil?”

“Nothing. That’s his suit, I’m trying to fix it.”

“He can take a new suit, Virgil. Why are you wasting time with the old one?”

I fix a cold gaze on Virgil who stares angrily back. He knows I know.

“You’ve modified Johnny’s suit, haven’t you Virgil? To be safer, but not mine. Why is that?”

“You’re crazy. Get out of my way.”

“I’m right and you know it. What are you up to?”

“Men! Kill her!” Virgil yells at the mechanized troops to fire on me. He has been caught and I am a thorn in his side. I calmly pull out my two sigs.

“I’d call them off if I were you, Virg.”

“They’ll kill you if you shoot me, you crazy…”

“Yeah, well, maybe. But at least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing I took you out first.”

Diva is probably the most challenging character I’ve ever roleplayed. She was my barely human, sociopathic assassin character in our Friday Night Gaming Group’s Cyberpunk 2020 campaign. She was conniving, ruthless and didn’t trust anyone.

I, on the other hand, have a hard time killing a spider.

So, you see, there’s something of a disconnect between Diva and myself. I don’t like to pick fights; I don’t like to be involved in fights. Diva spoke her mind and generally got her way, whether by using her considerable feminine charm or her prowess with her most prized possession – her Sig Sauer.

But it was glorious fun. To unwind at the end of a long week by getting into a character so wholly different from myself was therapy – don’t mind the fact that the character I played could’ve used a good dose of therapy, herself. Plunging into the dark, near future on Friday nights, while sometimes stressful, was cathartic. We got together, ate too many salt and ground pepper potato chips, drank too much diet soda, and shed the worries of the week prior. We found a way to just make it all go away for a while. And who hasn’t ever wanted that?

That’s why we’ve decided to devote this week’s issue to the roleplayers. John Tynes is back, discussing his experiences with in-person roleplaying games versus computer roleplaying games. Nova Barlow shares some of the lessons she learned while running events in Ultima Online. Newcomer to The Escapist, Will Hindmarch, ventures for the first time into computer RPGs, and lives to tell the tale. Find these articles and more in this week’s issue of The Escapist.

Cheers,

-Julianne Greer