I started gaming when I was 13 years old, and to give you some frame of reference, I just celebrated my 34th birthday recently. At first it was pretty standard stuff; Dungeons & Dragons, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Marvel Superheroes. In 1994, when I was 16 years old, I was introduced to a game called Vampire the Masquerade. The idea of being able to portray, through a role playing game, a mythological monster such as a vampire or a werewolf was a novel and intriguing one to me. Until that time, such things had been consigned to the list of enemies my characters might fight and best. What made it even more appealing (to myself and many others) was that the setting of the games, the backdrop if you will, was the modern world. These characters would stalk larger than life not through some fantastical and mythological world but on the streets of cities we all knew. What we saw outside our windows or on television during the news was the World of Darkness; granted it was a darker, more gothic version but all the elements were there.
So tonight, I downloaded a supplemental book in preparation for helping to run another chronicle. Since my teenage years, my gaming has undergone a number of changes. None have been as integral as my reemergence into the Mind's Eye Theater (or MET for short), which is the Live Action version of the World of Darkness. For those unfamiliar with this concept, a variety of games have made the transition from your standard forum of players around a table with character sheets, dice and pencils (known as tabletop) to Live Action Role Playing (or LARP for short). Most people have seen some of the videos posted around the internet of various versions of live action games and all I can tell you is this; no matter how goofy they might seem watching them on your monitor, most are a lot more engaging and fulfilling than you might realize. Like their table top counterparts, they promote imagination and socialization; only now its to a different degree. Settings are no longer the landscape of imagination only, but are often treated like sets in a play. People are encouraged to dress and act like their characters, much as an actor portraying a character in a film or play. While the dialogue is all impromptu, its usually very reminiscent of dialogue you'll find in any script or screen play. Taking away the aspect of rolling dice for everything and relegating most action to narrative description and off-stage events changes the focus though; you learn to react in a purely social environment and this can be an amazing experience.
I realize I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, but some explanation was needed. To get back to my thoughts, as I was reading this book I made what I believe is a rather inspirational insight; these games, and in particular those published for the World of Darkness, encourage healthy catharsis and the acceptance of the duality of human nature. One has only to look through our history to find bastions of humanity and goodness as well as agents of darkness and pain. What unifies all of these figures is that they made a choice at one point of another. For humanitarian figures it was the desire to suppress and distance themselves from all the pain, anger and violence within and carry a message of love, acceptance and understanding to the world. The others, whom we (rightly) name as monsters often chose their darker paths out of a desire to preserve some goodness or light. In both cases, the defining characteristic is that each individual realized the capacity for both within themselves. How many dictators and tyrants started out only seeking to preserve civilization, order and social tenets, but wound up going astray? By that same token, how many paragons of light began by only wishing to separate themselves from that within that they deemed dark, evil or wrong?
Our love for humanitarians (of any name, be it saint or teacher or what have you) and our dislike of those we deem "bad" or "evil" would seem to suggest that our history would be very different. Yet we can read accounts of both readily and easily. Dictators and killers have biographies on shelves not far from saints and guardians. Its all there for us to read. There are likely a variety of reasons, and many of them could be discussed at length. Really though, doesn't it all boil down to the same thing? The realization and acceptance that we have the capacity to be both within us. We make a conscious choice, each day, but that doesn't erase the existence of our duality. If it did, we wouldn't be plagued by negative thoughts like frustration over traffic, anxiety about money or anger at the noisy kids outside. That we choose to embrace out better natures does not absolve us of our darker legacy.
Games in the World of Darkness provide something few others can; a chance to experience a catharsis of those darker aspects in a safe, controlled environment. I'm sure a lot of people could argue that no such experience exists and that any indulgence of those things is "bad". For myself, I choose to see it as something that's as natural as breathing or sleeping. I realize the duality of my existence, and the catharsis of those darker emotions does not somehow invalidate my choice to be a decent person. If anything, it helps to accentuate and underscore that choice by showing me what a world in which that darkness is either embraced by all or ignored until it comes crashing through the door would be like. It allows me to vent frustrations, anger, even jealousy in an environment where they can do no harm to anyone, not even me. We were all told while we were growing up that bottling up emotions is never a good thing, and for the darker emotions this is doubly true. However, how many things in life offer you a chance to rid yourself of this kind of baggage safely? I honestly can't think of many.
