Maybe it's just me...

but everytime someone posts a "what if" scenerio isn't it a form of role-playing?

-Blast, who has watched "Bambi" six times this week with his sick daughter and thinks maybe Thumper's mom needs to come here and talk to people...

Yes but we don't start talking gibberish and whip out a time machine.....that was a little wierd....

Only to someone unfamiliar with RPGs (which, in reality is a fairly small group). I guess it's kind of like when we start talking to PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. about being prepared. They don't understand and start calling us weirdos.
Her "gibberish" was just a scene from one of her role-playing games. Boiled down to it's essence it's just another way of responding to the question, "What would you do?"

Different people have different frames of reference, that's all. Think of it as "Diversity".

Peace,
-Blast

It was just that she went into "role playing" as if we would all follow along.
Talking about a "what if scenario" on this forum to hone your survival skills is reasonable but to just jump into fiction like that without prefacing it with an explanation makes no sense at all.
She showed up at a new forum and assumed we would appreciate her fantasy.
Look at how the thread unravelled when the gibberish started.
And it was gibberish IMO.
I have nothing with RPGs and folks who play them; in fact I played a lot of D&D back in middle school. I don't need to play RPGs anymore; my reality is pretty exciting. I live in a crappy part of Oakland. That keeps it interesting.

Oh man, you have my sympathy. Move to Texas! Pretty much any job you can get in CA you can get here with a much lower cost of living. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Of course, we don't have beautiful mountains, majestic redwoods or stunning beaches but we do have all the, uh...hmmm...uh, let me think about this for a while and get back to you. <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

-Blast

p.s. Ah, would swampland and mosquitoes be appealling?

Sure, it's a form of role-playing, but it also gets people to thinking. If you've noticed the Extra Information down at the bottom left of the main forum pages, you may have noticed that the unregistered users often outnumber the registered ones by 8 to 1. Suppose one single person sees someone's post on keeping your shoes beside their bed instead of their closet, and they think, 'You know, that really makes sense' and they do it. And then a week or a month later, an earthquake or explosion blows their window into their bedroom window at 3 a.m. Has this forum served a useful purpose?

IMHO, if someone even THINKS about what they could do in an emergency, those thoughts may come back to them in the crucial instant that they really need to do something. Even something as seemingly inconsequential as keeping a flashlight beside the bed could make the difference between life and death or injury, and being able to help someone else.

And, if you come right down to it, this whole site is based on What If.... Only a tiny fraction of the people here will probably ever need their kits or their food storage for anything. But if you need it and you don't have it.... THAT'S when the S really HTF.

Besides, new people are constantly joining the forum and some of the old ones leave. Ideas are constantly being refined and adjusted to current conditions.

And if you stop thinking, your brain rots.

Sue

And now we're talking about it "behind her back" in another section of the forum... Must be a bad netiquette day.

Man, I am so far behind the power curve, and probably the wrong generation. I thought a RPG was for blowing stuff up from a distance...

Me too for the first minute or so.
I thought how did he get an RPG ain't those illegal?

*bows to Blast, in the form of a teacher to a student* Exactly, grasshopper.

Step back, close your eyes, and think aboutat TEOTWAWKI +5 years. See anything familiar? Maybe something from a Faire? <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> That's just roleplaying, with a subconcious purpose.

Well, if your GM provides one and it isn't terrificially out of character, you can use an RPG in an RPG.

"...GM..."

You're talking Chevy, right???

I'd rather have a good old LAWS anyway, smaller and easier to carry...

Ooops, my bad.

GM = Game Master, aka "storyteller", aka "Game Operations Director", aka the friend who's got the rule book. They set the tone and create the scene. They are director, producer, special effects, writer (not editor- the players make you change things as they go along), property master and fight choriographer. (Players bring food, so you at least get out of being caterer.) You don't find RPGs in Bunnies and Burrows, for example (think Rats of NIMH or Watership down, and you get to be a bunny), but you might in a different setting, such as, say, "what if HG Wells War of the World happened today; what would your characters do". If you find something like an LAW, sure, feel free to use it.

The results can be quite funny if the character doesn't know how to use it. I'm thinking of a particular character who tossed a flash bang into a fuel dump.... Nonleathal, right!

Roleplaying games, all the propaganda and xenophobia aside, are nothing more or less than a sand table exercise with some mechanics to simulate probability/chance/TSHTF. That's the "playing game" part of it.

The "role" part of it is becuase you generally try not to play you, it isn't as much fun, but every single one of us playes a public character that is a little different from thier private person- if you work with the public, and want to just slap the next idiot who calls you with a stupid question that you've already been asked fourty times in the last six hours and you need to pee but the phone keeps ringing and the supervisor has been giving you the evil eye all week so you can't park the call and sprint for the head, well, you just have to put that part of you away for a bit and roleplay being a nice, calm person. Not the axe murderer lurking just under the surface.

Although thinking about what you could do with that person and an axe if there was no repercussions can be soothing after they hang up. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. That includes disagreeing nicely.

I play in a fantasy RPG. It reminds me of a quote from a book by Terry Prachett called "Going Postal" (not exact since I have the audio book)

" 'Ah, you can learn all of an enemy's strengths and weaknesses on that board.' 'Really? I thought you were supposed to be learning your own.' "

Even playing a different person in a fantasy world, I still learn a lot about how I reach to situations and deal with other people. I think roleplaying is a valuable tool. Time machines, magic sticks and dragons, those are just props. They aren't important. What's important is what goes on in the player's heads.

Though I'm not an RPGer, it strikes me that there's a relationship between that and the ability and inclination to think-through survival scenarios. As I said, I don't play RPGs, but I do read quite a lot of sci-fi/"what-if" fiction.

In general, this seems to be the opposite side of the fence to the "nothing bad can happen/if it does I can't do anything about it anyway" viewpoint that I'm sure many of us have encountered. On a wider level, this is a failure of imagination, in the same way that precautions* against people hijacking planes and flying them into buildings weren't taken until after it had happened; despite the fact that the idea had been around for years beforehand.

It's only a quarter-formed idea, but if we wish to encourage the preparedness meme, communities of, for example, fiction writers may be fertile ground.

eeph

* Most importantly, the abandonment of the "do whatever they say and we'll sort it out when you're on the ground" approach.

The only purpose of a time machine in a role play world is that it allows people to get to the scene. Other than my time machine and my custom built ambulance, every piece of equipment I use in the role play world, I can obtain and use in the real world or without extensive training be able to use in the real world. My reason for choosing a medical role is because in real life I have some academic level medical knowledge and some practical, hands on level medical knowledge.

Jeanette Isabelle

Exactly, you play a medical character because that reflects what you know and I suspect how you respond to crisis. My characters seem to always be jacks of all trades, I always seem to spread out ability into lots of different skills. Same happens in real life.

Uh-oh. I usually play a Half-Orc ranger.

-Blast

Well you did post your picture... <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Aloha Blast, you know I'm just kidding right? (As you teleport over to Hawaii to open a can of whoop a$$)

That's why I inevitably turn into the team tactician. Even when I'm not playing a character with that background, everyone looks at me for advise. That, and father confessor type. :P

Aloha,

Now worries mate. I'm the first to laugh at myself (usually because no one else ever gets my jokes). <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Two atoms were crosing the street when suddenly one lets out a yell, "Aagh! I lost and electron!"
"Are you sure?" asks the second.
"Yes, I'm positive!" says the first.
<img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Well, it's funny if you are a chemist. It could be worse, I could have told the on about the lion...

-Blast, who wishes teleportation were an option. 13 hours in a Chinese airplane is NOT fun.

Can you bring fluids on board with you now? Are you going by yourself or bringing the family?

Oh yeah, I usually laugh at myself too. I always tell my wife, "I amuse me." Uh oh, I just realized that statement could be misconstrued. <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

We are still imited to 3oz bottles in a baggy. <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> China Southern flies out of LAX and so we have to go through normal USA safety checkpoints.

All three of us are going. My parents offered to take DD1 for the three weeks we'll be in China but DW overrode them. It should be an interesting trip. <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

-Blast

Though it is not the main drama, my favorite role play taking place is being a part of a medical team in a refuge camp in South America. How we got there is the work of pure science fiction but the medical situations we face is challenging me to learn more.

Jeanette Isabelle

Have a safe and rewarding journey!

13??? Try thirty. At least it was the right oriental airlines this time. I highly recommend Singapore Air.