Look into another world.

 Basically, I should be studying for my final exam in German on Tuesday. I’ve already read the notes I took on the books we read, noticed that I still know almost everything that’s written there, so I’m taking a break now and write this entry. Afterwards, I’ll have a look at the things I’m not familiar with – communication theory, stylistic devices and the different literary epochs. The same goes for tomorrow, and then I’ll write that exam. You can’t really do much for German, can you?

However, the past few weeks showed me how much I am going to miss role-playing when I move to the Netherlands in August, for three years, to do my Bachelor of Arts. I have to admit that in the past few months I had a hard time role-playing. I wasn’t able to fully concentrate on my character, I wasn’t able to fully appreciate what we were doing, it felt strange and I had a really hard time being creative enough. I felt more or less uncomfortable. I wasn’t able to emotionally connect with the happenings and the characters, and I think that this emotional connection should be the basis for good, real role-playing.

That changed in the past few weeks. I don’t know whether it’s because I don’t have to concentrate on school stuff anymore, or whether it is because I know what the future has in store for me (speaking of my studies in the Netherlands), or whether it’s something completely different, I don’t know. But the past few weeks were really emotional when it came to role-playing. I like to have my characters be exposed to extreme situations, physically and mentally, and it is very interesting to see how they react, what it feels like to be in such extreme situations. Of course I can’t have that all the time; I need to have a certain balance between “tavern-roleplaying”, meaning just playing my character in his everyday life (we like to do that a lot, too), and those adventurous, exciting situations. And for the moment, my regular group has achieved this balance; I’m already looking forward to playing again, even though we just played the irregular “parody” group (main focus: fun, fun, fun!) yesterday. I can’t wait to play again, seriously. I’m all crazy about it.

Where does that come from? When you don’t know what I’m talking about, all this sounds simply freaky and strange to you, and anyone who has never done role-playing doesn’t have a clue what the hell should be interesting about that. To me, the most attractive thing about role-playing is that you actually have to behave, think like someone else. Someone who has principles that are, probably, not your own, someone who thinks in ways you’d never think like in your everyday life, someone who is just entirely different from yourself. And you have to deal with that. You have to adapt to that different mentality and act accordingly. That is what makes role-playing extremely interesting to me. The other thing, of course, is that it is a means to spend your time in some “different reality” just for a few hours, to leave your everyday problems behind and be someone else instead. I’d rather think it’s a means to keep a healthy balance between creativity and real life and I wouldn’t want to miss that experience. And that has become obvious in the past few weeks. A lot. How much you connect with your character, emotionally, how much you are able to think about him/her. I like to have in-depth characters. Complex characters with a variety of reasons to act the way they act. I don’t want to play any “super-hero-people” simply because I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that. My characters do have their flaws, and are aware of most of them, and they have to deal with them nevertheless. And the more I play my character, the more I grow attached to him. I speak of Chakijian mostly because it’s the character I play most and on a regular basis, but that goes with my other characters just the same, normally. And it isn’t only reduced to the weekly role-playing group: when Annika and I sit together and start to have our in-character-conversations, that is awesome as well, and lots, lots of fun. There was a time when I had a hard time role-playing, there was even a whole year where I totally refused to play because I couldn’t get that role-playing feeling, but now I’m more attached to it than ever before, I guess. And I don’t know why.

But I do know that it’s one thing I am going to miss like hell. Not playing on a regular basis any longer, not having that balance. Only being able to play when I come back home for the holidays. Of course there might be a small chance that I can role-play in the Netherlands, too, but I strongly doubt that. At least not DSA – I think Dungeons&Dragons is much more popular with English-speaking people. But even if I had the chance to play there, it wouldn’t be the same. This role-playing group is simply unique and very special, I wouldn’t be able to find something similar to that, ever. The characters just belong together (even though they’re getting on each other’s nerves most of the time) and we, the players, belong together as well. It’s as simple as that.

But I guess that’s the toll it takes. At least I won’t have to give up role-playing forever. And that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Off to the disturbing BaföG thing now, and then – joy, joy – a painkiller to get rid of my headaches. After that – communication theory, I suppose, and a quick look at stylistic devices. Keep it up!