I opted for an anecdotal response to this prompt. Just know that I also get my kicks playing adventure games (like Monkey Island, but not Monkey Island… see The Dream of the Turtle), doing thoroughly mediocre graphic design, acting into a mic, and pondering the problems that are coming to light with electronic academic publishing. And collecting old-fashioned hot type.
When I was thirteen, I had a top-rated, top-searched Google site, and as a result, one of the most frequently-accessed play-by-email RPGs on the web of 1999. It wasn’t until a few years later, when my interest in the game was waning due to an extremely prolific writer who favored martyr characters and a dearth of player applications that were up to my (admittedly very high) standards, that I realized how kind of sort of cool, albeit very dorky, my accomplishment was.
I started at twelve with a brand-new yahoo email account and a friend who convinced me to join a similar style of RPG based on our then-favorite book series: Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern. As entranced as I was by the world of the books and my new-found ability to participate in it, I found the community of the game easily as captivating. I could email someone twenty years my senior with a proposal to write a post together, and Older Stranger X would acquiesce. I got to practice my creative writing, comprehension of plot dynamics, and character development in a setting of mutual respect and relative freedom. Moreover, a system of rank functioned both in and out of character, and I was actually involved. Hell, I was elected to a position or two, given responsibilities. That’s heady stuff.
So I grabbed a couple of my friends and started my own club/game in a world of my own invention and description. There were maps, bestiaries, ethnicities, landscapes, pantheons, magical and mystical phenomena that were both quotidian and completely out of the ordinary for my little country with three major cities (and thus three major role-playing locations). I came into the venture pretty cold, with little to no knowledge of email distribution lists, HTML, the ins and outs of web hosting, or any of the technical stuff. I didn’t have any of the skills I needed to do what I wanted, so I set about learning them. After a week or so of dedicated research and preparation, I had what was then a well-designed and, eventually, extremely popular website.
As someone who values interacting with people in person (i.e. I hate phone interviews, I rarely check my facebook or use AIM) I sort of wonder what’s so great about playing RPGs online. Not knowing any better, I might buy into the stereotype that people in online communities/games like the ones you created would be kinda “geeky” or socially awkward. Have you ever met any friends you met online and what are they like? Am I just perpetuating a totally false and unfair stereotype here? Or would you say the people you meet embrace their “nerdom”? Oh, yeah…would you mind sharing the URL of the website you created?
Responding to Kyle:
I never got into your standard everyday RPG. The kind I played/created were more about the writing. You create a character, then you send “full posts” (complete short stories located in the world’s timeline) to a mailing list. Collaboration comes out through a process called co-posting, in which two authors build the story by sending emails back and forth. When it’s complete, it goes to the list. For most people, it was just play, just an opportunity to create something in an engrossing world. Some people took it a little too seriously, but for most, the whole business was part of an online persona. I’ve never met anyone I’ve “met” online, but it seems like a lot of the adults had jobs, families, other hobbies… fulfilling and productive lives offline… and only very few of the teens/young adults seemed to have no life at all.
As for that URL, the website is long dead (can’t even get it with the Way Back Machine). Artifacts of table-bound coding do not need to survive.
I had very similar experiences when I was younger, and I can attest to the fact that a lot of these players had lives outside of the RPG itself. I’ve actually met multiple people from the RP’s I used to do, and even now they’re still good friends of mine who I communicate with very often.