Things we get out of roleplaying

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm with you on rules and competition, but for me the make-believe worlds are crucial. I want to envision the make-believe world, or to explore someone else's vision of one, and I want it to be interesting in its own right, and I want it to be the focus of everyone's attention.

Please note that what I said was highly conditional. Adding emphasis:

Originally Posted by Kromm

If the other gamers are obsessed with [...] make-believe worlds [...] at the expense of being friendly, then I couldn't care less about the game.

If the fascination doesn't become an obsession and if friendliness doesn't suffer, then I'm all for make-believe worlds!

Originally Posted by whswhs

In other words, it's kind of like belonging to a square dance club or a chess club or a writers' group: The play of the game is a thing for me, not simply a mode of socializing, and the social interaction is subordinate to the thing.

I know that there are people who do this, but it hasn't been my personal experience in life (and I'm not that young). Every hobby or activity I've been involved with has quickly crystallized into friendship groups, and I find that no pastime can hold my interest if I'm not friends with a few other participants. My latest interest, tango, already has me showing up as much to chat with the people as to dance, and when we talk, it's more likely to be about entertainment, travel, or life experiences than about steps. That's pretty much a mirror of everything in my life. Only work enjoys a strict firewall, because I'm a strong believer in professionalism – and I avoid such firewalls in my downtime precisely because they leave a bad "unpaid work" taste in my mouth.

Originally Posted by whswhs

But the socializing takes place after the game and is kept somewhat separate from it.

I'm certainly unable to do that. At best, I can put socializing on an equal footing with, say, make-believe worlds. But without the socializing, I probably wouldn't bother the stick around to hear about the worlds. Then again, as I've said many a time around here, I'm an allistic extrovert, which appears to be a minority temperament in the gaming hobby.