Roleplaying has been one of my favourite pastimes ever since I went to university and discovered the internet (after growing up in a small town, ignorant of Dungeons and Dragons or World of Darkness).  I was thrilled to discover busy sites dedicated to people getting together and playing pretend, much like the games I’d played at recess in elementary school, only with adult levels of complexity and characterization.  The old World of Darkness sourcebooks describe their game as cooperative storytelling, and looking back, it’s not surprising to me that I resumed story writing-something else I’d done in elementary school and faded away from in high school-around the same time I began roleplaying.

Some people say that roleplaying is a good rehearsal for writing, and to a degree that’s true; a player is creating characters, worldbuilding, practicing description and dialogue, and crafting sentences to convey ideas and emotion.

But roleplaying’s easier than writing.

It’s easier because I have other people contributing to my story, inspiring me, steering the narrative in directions I’d have never imagined on my own.  Dice rolls throw elements of randomness into the tale.  I, through my character, am an active participant in the story, and I don’t know where the game will end up taking me.  This means I don’t have to script too far in advance-if I do, the game’s almost guaranteed to veer in an entirely different direction.

It’s easier because the only people who are likely to read my roleplaying posts are the folks I’m playing with.  They don’t care if I’m tired and making typos, or using the same phrase too often, or being less than precise about semicolons versus dashes versus ellipses.

It’s easier because I don’t care how long, or how short, a story thread will be by the time we reach the end; it doesn’t need to fit into short story/novella/novel format.  It doesn’t matter if the pacing’s off.  It doesn’t matter if the plot meanders about.  It doesn’t matter if the story doesn’t meet a satisfying resolution; there’s always another game in the future.

I have a friend who used to make a fanzine; she included roleplaying logs as well as fan fiction, art, and poetry.  I never found the logs as satisfying to read as the fiction-because pacing and structure and style and resolution matter to a reader.  It’s the difference between the reader as observer of the story, and the gamer as participant.

The biggest challenge, of course, is that the time I spend roleplaying is time not spent writing something I could sell.  I’ve deliberately chosen not to seek out roleplaying groups in my new city, but I do still play on a message-board style game; in the ten or fifteen minutes before work or between wash loads, it’s easy to pop on, contribute a post to a game in progress, and pop out again.  A fair concession, if you don’t count those Saturday mornings when several of my friends are all on at the same time and the next thing I know, it’s Saturday afternoon.

I love roleplaying, and I don’t want to quit completely.  I’ve made a lot of long-term friends via online games, and when writing’s coming hard, it’s good to go somewhere that makes wordcrafting fun again.  But I also need to remind myself that roleplaying is personal entertainment, not professional writing, and budget my time accordingly.

In my past two articles I’ve written about two groups of readers I’ve seen debating one another:  the “black and white team”, who enjoy stories where noble heroes defeat loathsome villains in a world of clearly defined morality, and the “grey camp”, who want their fiction to challenge them to think about the world and see situations from different points of view.  As writers, we may enjoy both types of story or we may prefer one over the other.  I feel there’s a market for both types of tale, or there wouldn’t be so many debates over which type of story is “better”.  Just as it’s hardly fair to say that science fiction is “better” than fantasy or horror is “better” than romance because different genres attract different readers, what matters most is how well the writer succeeds in giving the reader what she is looking for in a story.

A successful “black and white team” story will fulfill the reader’s expectations of a grand battle between good  and evil.  Writing a “grey camp” story can be challenging for the writer because it pushes her outside the traditional heroic narrative.  If a “black and white team” story runs the risk of entering cliché territory, where a Perfect Hero faces off against a Cartoon Villain for an inevitable victory, a “grey camp” story can devolve into a situation where neither side seems preferable to the other, leaving the reader confused.  Or, the protagonist can be so unpleasant that readers don’t want to follow him on his adventures.

A “grey camp” story demands that the writer be able to see the world through his characters’ eyes-both the protagonists and the antagonists.  Both sides need to have a coherent worldview in which the behaviours that put them into conflict are logical extensions of their beliefs, goals, and historical experiences.  Both sides will have flaws, and both sides will have positive traits.  But in a world of such grey morality, how can the reader choose who to cheer for?

One way of making an anti-hero appealing is to make his enemies even worse; but this technique alone will not guarantee that readers will want to follow him through the story.  It’s best if the anti-hero has at least one admirable trait.  If he is a clever thief, the reader will enjoy watching him outsmart the police.  If he is a gangster who overthrows his abusive father for control of their criminal empire, the reader will admire his courage and tenacity.  If he is an enemy spy who falls in love with the woman he seduces, readers will hope that their love can survive the revelation of his true identity.  There is a certain appeal to some audiences to read about characters who do things that would be terrible in real life, but can entertain in fiction, taking the reader to an aspect of the world far different from her own.

In other examples, the creator has chosen a main character that has only a vague similarity with the reader:  for example, a human fighting aliens.  Only as the story progresses do readers come to see that the “enemy” has a legitimate point of view.  Some may choose to remain on the “side” of the protagonist, while others might find themselves cheering for the “antagonist”.  Reader’s loyalties may come to lie with certain characters, but not necessarily with their causes.  The ambiguous worldview-what is good?  What is evil?-lays open the possibility of characters doing unpredictable things, unfettered by many of the constraints of the traditional narrative.

Grey protagonists, done well, can be interesting and challenging because they do things that a traditional “hero” wouldn’t do.  They often find themselves in circumstances where they have to make a choice between two difficult options.  It is left to the reader to decide whether their behaviour is justified given the circumstances.  That decision in turn will be affected by the beliefs and life experiences of the reader.

Some readers will prefer the traditional heroic narrative, where it is easier to decide who to cheer for, where they may not be forced to examine their own beliefs and worldview.  Others will seek out a story that exposes them to alternative points of view and challenges them to think.  Both types of fiction have pitfalls for the writer:  how to keep the traditional narrative fresh and interesting?  How to guide readers through a world where morality is in flux?  Rather than debate which type of story is “better”, writers should challenge themselves to create a tale that will deliver a satisfying story for their reader.