Why do you play...?

Dorn wrote: What brought you here, the Larp world, and why did you choose your race, class, and archetype?

What brought me here... like everyone, I loved dreaming/imagining/pretending to be someone/something else as a kid. Never really grew out of it.

Why I choose my race, class, archetype... that's something more deeper, personal. Let's just say the role I play was because if something I did not want, but felt I needed to do.

I have played role playing games since <mumble mumble> when I was in 6th grade. The only hobby I have done longer is computer programming.

I did traditional RPGs through college, toyed around with boffer combat a bit in college (not larp, just combat) and was drawn into the Night...Falls Vampire Larp, part of OWBN. There I met a whole host of friends including Larry Wile and Ben Theis. Later on I met Rebecca and she was involved in the SCA. We got married and did some SCA stuff for a while and I built up a persona for it name Valentine Graye. Fast forward a bit, Larry and Ben get involved in Knight Realms and I'm running an online and by appointment game store with Larry and my wife Rebecca. We meet a lot of new friends there including Alice. Larry talks to Alice about KR and Alice then helps convince Rebecca and I to try it out too. That was about three years ago.

I picked my first character because I already had the clothing from the SCA and so I just morphed Valentine into a Larp character instead of an SCA persona. I picked the role of merchant because it seemed like a good schtick and I liked to be "well traveled". Gambler seemed like it would be fun too since I enjoy playing cards and other games as well as doing some magic tricks for real.

During my RPG past I always liked to switch my characters pretty radically when it came time to change characters. So that no character I play would be too much like a past character. This held true when I was in the Vampire Larp and I played a Malkavian, a Tremere, a Brujah (very briefly) a Nosferatu and a Ventrue.

So when I started my second character at KR I created Ox out of the desire to have him be vastly different than Valentine. Then there is Thaddeus who is different than both of them. (Yes, I do tend to play a lot of alts) In April I plan to start up what I hope will be a long running character again. Gunnar is drawing a bit on a past character I played in a tabletop game. He is created in a large part to participate at KR with some wonderful new friends that my current characters haven't had as much of a chance to interact with. Also in part because I realized that I had been holding back a bit from my other characters. I still had the mentality learned from Vampire on how to defend oneself from PVP by not giving people anything to latch on to. However since having had the pleasure of being part of a mind blowing scene in January based around Atrus I was inspired to make a character who is much more outward facing ... who will get more involved in things and through which I will be able to experience much more of what KR has to offer. I have seen that a large part of the point of KR is to put your character out there so that it can be changed, beat up a bit, suffer tragedy and experience joy. So in April I will be starting a new KR journey.

I come back because Knight Realms is a place where both my love of gaming and my love of theater are not only accepted, but are always encouraged.

I am welcome by this player base.
I have never felt ostracized or lesser than.

This, above all, has been a unique experience for me.

I didn't get into cards or table top until college.

Up until then, I was firmly met with the "You are a girl, you really can't do these things/we're not going to waste our time on you" mentality from the nerd dudes I was surrounded by. Which was really stupid and made getting involved in anything super difficult since they had a strong hand in organizing and running most tabletop, card, and video game clubs.

So, I Theater'd hardcore.
I did chorus, marching band, Springshow, Musicals, I ran SING, I joined everything, all of it. I was *THE* theater nerd for a hell of a long time.

As I got to college, it flipped. Theater became super exclusive and hard to participate in.

The tabletop club, however, was INCREDIBLY open.

Karen Y. and Katie J. met me in the Dance Dance Revolution club and pulled me aside saying "Have you ever played D&D, because you're cool and we really need a sorcerer for our campaign."

I had zero idea of what that entire sentence meant.
Literally no clue. None. At all.
I was immediately swept up.

A few months later, a handful of the now famed "Purchase Crew" went to comic con, bumped into James Kimball, and immediately organized an enormous trip to Knight Realms through the tabletop club.


April of 2012, I wrote a slap dash character in the backseat of the car on the drive up to camp Sac.

And that's about it.

A week or two after graduating high school, I went to pick up my brother from the airport. He said "I'm gonna be gone this weekend, playing LARP with my friends from school". That was a Wednesday. Thursday and Friday morning was spent crafting weapons, putting together costumes, and reading the rulebook. Psions were recently re-written at that point and it looked really cool to me. Steven and I had a With Rowan, I was able to use my talents and passions to live out my childhood fantasy-adventure dreams with other people who shared the same interests.

I wouldn't be larping without all of you wonderful people.

You've heard it from me before, but I'll bite again:

I make fun for a living and igniting imaginations is really what I enjoy most. I also enjoy camping and running around between the trees and beneath the stars. My coworker and good friend from college, Taylor, informed me of a location where I could both work on bringing fun and magic into the lives of others AND spend some time 'round a campfire. It was a simple choice. I've never wanted to feel like a storybook hero myself, but I do discover a certain joy whenever I'm able to contribute or find a nice little angle to twist that might leave other players feeling excited. KR has a lot of opportunities for that. It also provides a fantastic environment in which to work on banishing shyness.