It’s time to admit it: I’m done with roleplaying games. I didn’t mean for it to end this way, but the hour has come and up to this point I was just fooling myself that there was still some mileage left for me in the hobby. Such is not the case.
I got to thinking about this as I skimmed over the topics at Story Games and the RPGnet forums today. I haven’t posted to either of them in the better part of a year, not even to offer a minor comment, and I find that I don’t really miss participating there. I’m completely disconnected from the hobby, from the people who engage in the hobby, everything.
Just to see where I stood vis-à-vis roleplaying, I clicked on the appropriate tag over there in the sidebar. I discovered that over the last two years I have posted a grand total of six entries concerning the topic. Six. I’ve posted more about ninja in that time, and that’s an even more niche subject.
Earlier this year I took a swing at roleplaying once more, but I couldn’t get into it. Maybe it was the games themselves or maybe it was the con environment, but I didn’t enjoy myself. And thinking back, I realize that the last time I had a regular game (approximately 1999), I didn’t have much fun then, either.
I have terrific memories of playing games through my teens and into my early twenties, but I’m not that guy anymore. It’s been twenty years since my roleplaying heyday. I credit roleplaying with making me the storyteller I am today, so it definitely wasn’t a waste of time or effort on my part, but at some point I turned away from collaborative creation and looked inward. The end result has been my emergent novel-writing career. That hasn’t been all sunshine and roses, particularly during the four-year gap between recommitting to writing and actually making a novel sale, but things are developing well and I’m pleased.