Kiddie games

My experience with roleplaying games dates back to the mid-1990s, when I was a shy, freckled little girl for whom made up stories were a way to find a gateway to fantastic new worlds, because the real one could not contain her rampant imagination.

As it often happens, it all began with books. The wonderful world of Narnia was the first one that had me reading under the covers with a flashlight in my hand, unwilling to put down the book even though my eyelids were heavy from sleepiness. Even during the lessons I would place a book in my lap and read while other kids were doing their schoolwork.

Needless to say, I wasn't a stellar student. If I ever received praise, it was for the stories I had created. They were naive, often tragic, and very, very unprofessionally constructed, but they were always written from the heart, adorned with illustrations which themselves were hilarious in their attempt to resemble anything passing for artwork.

After a while, creating complete stories for my (scarce) readers to enjoy was no longer enough for me. I wanted others to become part of my stories, and I wanted to be part of the stories myself. I had no idea that there was such a thing as roleplay; I didn't know there was more than one kind of dice, and that you could use them in storytelling. I hated numbers. To think that I would have to incorporate math into a story? As a plot point, perhaps, but not as mechanics (what the heck is "mechanics" anyway?). So, basically, my attempt at roleplaying looked something like that:

"Okay, so I play Susan, right? I can run very fast and swim pretty well, but I can't do acrobatics and I'm afraid of spiders."
"So... you're basically playing yourself?"
"Susan can do magicks, so obviously I'm not playing myself. Duh!"

These attempts were... cute. Often frustrating, especially when the other players refused to conform to my ideas, or when I refused to accept theirs. But they were fun, they were crazy, and they were incredibly creative.

My (then) best friend and I had even created a parallel world, inspired by Narnia, and filled with all kinds of original creatures with their own backstories, goals and connections to the characters we "played". And we "played" those characters 24/7, calling each other our alternate names and finding traces of the alternate world in our own dimension. There were clues left for us by our allies from the other world, there were traps set for us by our enemies, and the best thing was that the real world was completely oblivious to the marvellous, fascinating universe on the other side of the proverbial mirror. We were the only ones who knew! Thanks to our imagination, we were able to experience the best (and worst) of both worlds.

And now I am an adult (or so says my ID), but I know that there is still a lot of that little girl in me, and I hope she never grows up.