"RPG," he said.

So, a small hiatus. Wondering where I have been? Literally - in another world

The world of RPG. For the uninitiated, RPG stands for Role-playing games. It basically goes like this:

You first register on some RPG site and get a username. There is a public forum where different people from around the globe start various threads. you can either start your own thread or enter an existing one. The thread usually is a typical game of the fantasy genre - swords, knights, dungeons and dragons. You start out by defining the character and type in your character's actions and dialogues and the events surrounding him/her. Someone may (and will) respond with their character's response to the above-mentioned action. And it goes on and on, sometimes involving hundreds of players, spanning various lands and events. No visuals. There are rules, however. You can't act out-of-character (OOC); you can't do everything! (god-modding or mary-sue); you can't right away do magic if you are too young and all that.

It is an extremely addictive world. After sometime, the real world fuses with the RPG world. I even started seeing myself in the third person; my mind forming words in the past tense for my actions. Scary. And man, does it give you a high. You could be absolutely anyone you want - go anywhere - undertake quests - kiss sleeping beauties...

Why do people do RPGs? I got to interact with a lot of RPers outside the game and most of them had a very sorry personal life. Kids and teenagers living in trailer parks; going through some sort of mental trauma....Sad.

Why did I go? Initially, the main reason was to write. I love writing (especially this dungeons and dragons kind of stories), and I was curious. But once in it, I realised this was big! This was like a deep chasm - the one from which you cannot tear your eyes away but dangerous all the same. I once sat up till four in the morning, trying to kill the evil king Aemon!

Then I got thinking. What makes this RPG world real? Acceptance. Everyone in your story accepts you are the Dark Knight come to terrorize the town - and you are. Just like how everyone accepts you are Mr So-and-so in the real world.

And then, there was this nine-year-old girl (meggiethebest was her username) who wanted to play a game about 'hourses'. Her hourse's name was Penny. Poor girl, no one ever replied to her post. Only one did, and that too to tell her that it is spelt 'horses'. I just do not want to think about her reason to enter the world of RPG.

Call me crazy or weird or freaky or whatever - but this post is for meggiethebest.