While RPGs are chimerae, games which draw upon the elements of other older games, they have long held deep fascination to me. They are more than monsters, taking from the outside structure and procedures from wargames as well as the imagination of the Other which comes from Make Believe.

The unique appeal of the tabletop roleplaying game for me is the opportunity to imagine a deeply realised fantastic world and then place myself within it in the role of a character. To meld my consciousness with that of an alien being inhabiting an Otherworld is the height of the experience which I seek.

As a GM, of course, I am generally denied this height as I seek to provide the experience for the other players. Yet the delight of imagining the Otherworld is palpable and real for me. To sketch out the world for play and then, over time, to colour the details and textures is a pleasure that is somehow more than other forms offer.

Certainly the novelist and the film maker can sketch the Otherworld but, with the medium of the roleplaying game, this blending with the structure and procedure of the game is a singular delight. I love the interplay between the grounding of the Rules and the flights of imagination possible as we draw the World.

As I sit and imagine a new cosmos, choosing the elements which I desire to see within the subcreation before me, I also find pleasure in knowing that my chosen Rules exist to give the creation form and reality. Nothing is arbitrary but rather crafted for specific effect and with the pleasure of the other players in mind.

Perhaps I am alone in this desire to draw nearer to the chimera and come to into its embrace. I want to embrace the monstrous individuality of each fantastic Otherworld in its roleplayed form. I must have both the strange order from wargames and the wild freedom from make believe. Anything else is disappointing.

Game on!