Role Playing in the Internet Age

    It was an era of 28.8 baud dial-up modems; TSR, Inc. game manuals and novelizations; and the early attempts at Internet roleplaying.  Decency committees worked to ban Dungeons and Dragons as a breeding ground for witchcraft and devil worship. But they only made their own religions seem regressive and uncaring, a vehicle to bring fear into this world.  We were just kids having fun, which seems far more obvious in retrospect.  

There was a website called WebRPG, at this time.  Unlike more traditional Internet media, like Play-By-Email, it hosted a variety of standing "forums", public and anonymous pages for publishing posts for or about roleplaying.  A person could take on the role of a character and insert it into the world of other players, interacting in a shared story.  It was Dungeons and Dragons without the Game Master, rules, or dice.

  I quickly flipped through my trusty AD&D 2nd edition Monster Manual and thought the Death Knight looked cool.  Within minutes, I inserted "Moneter the Death Knight" into some fellow's story about a town under siege by dark elves.  I gave Moneter enough backstory to explain why he helped the villagers fend off the dark elves.  All the men and children of the village had previously been killed, so there was only a ragtag militia of women defending their town.  When the battle was won, Moneter became the trainer of this militia as they left their ruined home to make their way in this fantasy world.  The story never concluded, but I remember it more than two decades later.  I still send birthday wishes to the player behind the characters in the so-called "Maynton Infantry''.

  Role Playing, and the cooperative storytelling and worldbuilding that this entails, brands itself onto you.  It teaches you how to empathize with other people; the successes and failures of characters teach you about consequences.  And the confidence to freely and voluntarily engage with writing is a lifelong blessing.

  Today, the website at RoleplayGateway.com is at the apex of the roleplaying forum community.  What's fascinating is that many schools block such websites from school computers.  Decency committees, who may not have much familiarity with the academic and social advantages of roleplaying, seek to snuff out anything which may have even a remote whiff of adult content.  Luckily, censored material is often more enticing than permitted literature.  Even in this age of fiber-optic cables and Netflix, I think that roleplay forums are here to stay.