Casting Shadows

When I reflect on this blog and what my projects under the name of Runeslinger are, it is inescapable to conclude that in the beginning, these endeavors were rooted in an effort to maintain a conversation with the dead. An RPG séance, if you will. As that séance continued, however, the emptiness of the void, the blankness of pages, or the red and staring eye of the record button resolved more and more from the silence of the lost into the silence of those unknown to me who game and keep to themselves. So many important conversation starters are directed toward those who can no longer respond, or those who are not there to do so.

While perhaps a sad thing for me on a personal level, on a broader level of the hobby as a whole, this silent majority is not suffering for the lack of RPG conversations, explorations into the nature of play, product news and reviews, design and designer histories, or whatever fad has seized the attention of the vocal minority talking RPGs on social media. They are, it would seem, flourishing.

How can I know this if the very definition of these people is that they are incommunicado about RPGs on social media? It’s easy – they aren’t seeking help or giving it. Considering that seeking or giving advice, arranging and presenting actual play videos, and product promotion pretty much define RPG social media presence, it’s a safe bet that the silent majority are satisfied with the games they play and how to get more if they need them, they are satisfied with how they play them, and they are satisfied with who they play them with. The silence tells us that they aren’t having any trouble playing and it may not even occur to them that anyone would. They have learned how to satisfy themselves with their play and if they give anyone else a thought, might be safe in assuming that any potential gamer can do that too.

Once belief in the silent majority manifests, and once you start considering who and what they are as gamers, turning that around is a compelling tangent. In other words, in this context, who are we? Life’s too nuanced for simple opposites, but it does love its symmetry. We are the ones who are – in some way – not satisfied. Like the silent majority, we stayed with the hobby where those who actually don’t enjoy it or were dealt a bad hand of friends to play with dropped it. Like the silent majority, we have a sense of what good play is. Unlike them, however, the vocal minority needs to fill some gap in enjoyment by supplementing or in a sadly large number of cases, totally replacing play with talking about play online. Unlike them our circles of friends and fellow gamers might be in some small or large way, insufficient for whatever need it is we are not able to fill in our private associations. It’s fascinating, really. They have no use for us, and for all the advice, new games, old games, clone games, mashup games, game jam games, and dice – let’s never forget the dice – we cannot find the complete satisfaction that they have. Given the way the world has tilted, we might expect this hidden cabal of satisfied gamers to be tiny, but it isn’t. It’s huge.

We are the tiny minority pushing for changes in, demanding solutions to, naming and renaming aspects of, defining and redefining principles for, praising and vilifying creators of, and endlessly remixing the mechanisms supporting, RPGs. Given the way the world works, we might also expect that this sets us up as some sort of elite with the power, connections, and talent to run the show. Despite the ludicrous turn the world is in at the moment, however, things have played out properly and proportionately in gaming. The silent majority play on oblivious to us, unaffected by us, and if they were to take notice, would not need care enough to get involved. Our struggles play out on a side stage near the main event, but separate from it.

A once-wise friend once told me that ‘perfection is attainable‘ but what he meant by that was this sentiment will forever be in the present tense. The pursuit of perfection is not one which can be completed for by the time we reach a stage our less-experienced selves thought of as perfection, we will be able to see its flaws. Perfection will remain a goal unattained.

In my own reflections on this axiom, though, I have noted that – at least for some of us – sharing the journey toward furthering the satisfaction we have already attained is a worthy pursuit. Further, we have already seen signs of the silent majority being as subject to aging and loss as the rest of us and they like I did at a very early age, will inevitably lose those who defined their gaming worlds and cemented their silent satisfaction. If we are not here, ready to greet them when they come looking to replace what they might fear is irreplaceable, then we who have endeavored to build communities, improve play, and make others welcome in what is an ever-growing and ever-more-confusing trove of possibility, have truly learned nothing about what being a roleplaying gamer is.