Speaking of roleplaying games, the other great thing about this game starting up is that I'll get to create a new character. Breathing life into a character concept is one of the things I love the most about gaming. It's almost more fun than actually playing the game, because when you're creating a character, you are still dealing in the primordial ooze of fertile ideas. Your character has unlimited potential, they can be anything. Here you have the most freedom. Your whims dictate who your character knows, where they've come in life and where they think they're going.

Seeing where the process of creating and fleshing out a character leads is fascinating. There are times when it's as though the character has a mind of their own, and certain things just seem to make sense. Other times, I'm looking at you Shadowrun, you're at kind of a loss for words, aside from, "I DON'T KNOW BLARGHABLAGHABLARGH."

Once you start playing, then the waveform collapses, and your character ceases to exist in potentia... that is another kind of fun in and of itself. You see, I'm also an actor, and I love trying to figure out the personality of another character. It's an exercise in exploration both of the human experience and of the self. Through putting yourself in someone else's shoes, you not only allow yourself to experience things you wouldn't have otherwise gotten to do, you can afford yourself a glimpse into the other realms of your persona, seeing how, for example, the parts of you that glower at the jerkface who just cut you off in traffic, would respond given other stimuli.

It can be kind of cathartic in a way. Sadly, this doesn't happen too often, either in acting or in gaming. I feel it's because we've built for ourselves a kind of ingrained sense of detatchment. This lets us distance ourselves from what is going on, keeping us from feeling foolish if we're caught doing something silly ("Oh, I was doing that ironically,") but it also keeps us from getting to step outside of our own experiences and truly embrace another self.

Either that or we keep cracking bad jokes about the name of the ship, or the fact that the party has a donkey, so it's like unlimited ass jokes time.

Maybe a little of column A, a little of column B. I find though, that I have the most fun, and the characters feel the most vibrant when they go for the gusto. When I say, 'you know what? I'm just going to do this and it will be awesome,' then it usually is. I've seen other people do this as well. My friend Frank has done this a few times. His last character, Edward Bartholomew MacPhail was larger than life. On the surface his mannerisms were completely ridiculous, like something you might expect from an ostentatious Ming the Merciless impersonator, with a more benevolent megalomania, but that's what makes him so completely awesome. He knew what he wanted and was not afraid to go after it.

I hope the character I end up playing in this Star Wars game ends up as much a bon viveur as that. Given the kind of adventure the setting lends itself to, I'm pretty hopeful this will be the case.

Tomorrow, I'll include the backstory for my character, one Jenros Vel, MASTER OF THE well, okay maybe not.