Are you bored with your life? Do you find yourself lacking an outlet for your creative side and wanting to engage your brain with something new and entertaining? Writing and playing roleplaying games is the best way to challenge the imagination and create friendships that cannot be broken.

In case you’re wondering what exactly a roleplaying game is, I will start by providing the following definition from the American Heritage dictionary: A game in which players assume the roles of characters and act out fantastical adventures, the outcomes of which are partially determined by chance, as by the roll of dice. This is a fairly accurate summation of roleplaying games but it fails to pinpoint exactly how they work. Generally the games are played with a group of at least three people. One person is titled the game master, who serves as the storyteller, and the rest are the players, who overcome obstacles as characters they create to play through the adventures. So what is so good about roleplaying?

I enjoy the privilege of having been a game master and a player and I thoroughly enjoy being both. The fun in being a game master is writing the adventure and seeing how the players react to, and overcome challenges within it. The great part of being a player is creating your character. Deciding how your character looks and acts, and what kind of skills your character has is very entertaining and I’ve had several friends draw their characters for fun. Another part of character creation is developing a backstory for the character such as an orc who seeks to deviate from his kind’s evil ways. Roleplaying game settings also make the experience more exciting. Settings range from historical fictions to space operas, and if you can’t find a particular setting there are several books for creating your own original world. The bond that forms between a roleplaying group is extremely strong because everyone becomes comfortable when they are joking around and acting with one another.

I began roleplaying my freshman year with a weird wild west setting called Deadland. It took place in the United States during the 1870s in a twisted history where the Civil War ended in a stalemate due to supernatural circumstances and the U.S. split into the Confederate States of America (CSA) and the Union. I made a union deserter who hid in the CSA to avoid being jailed and made money as a hired gun. The possibilities are endless and that’s what makes roleplaying so fun. If you want to do something, you can do it. If you want to be somebody, you can be that person. Now this might be the point where people start to get scared and say that players lose a sense of reality by playing. All of this drama was caused by a few cases in the eighties where people who had played RPGs hurt themselves or others, but to this I say that the players involved in these cases were already mentally unstable and RPGs had little to do with why they did what they did. Roleplaying games are one of the most innocent and fun things I’ve ever done and they deserve none of the bad wrap that the media gives them. These games teach very essential skills such as problem solving, strategizing, and  above all teamwork. I strongly urge one and all to participate in a roleplaying session at least once in their life. It will create memories and friendships that will last a lifetime.