revolutionaification said:
You sir, are a verifiable genius.
First; thanks. You seem sharp as well, and honestly I'd wager any role player is smart, as I've never met a dumb one (I've met young role players who aren't very knowledgeable, but no one knows anything from like 14-17. Oh, and to anyone younger than that reading this, this isn't an insult, you can still be smart at that age, there's just a burst of knowledge from 18 on, at least, as long as you seek it out. Something about not being held up by the slow pace and idiot friendly nature of school makes people massively evolve I feel. Well that or totally burn out.)
Second; I totally hear you on your personal FemShep background taking up a large portion of your brain's storage, I know all about my FemShep's time spent in the megacities of earth, struggling to survive amongst the wreckage of our over populated, demoralized culture. When she entered galactic space she had only one clear goal: Humanity first, driven by her rough childhood on an overcrowded planet.
It's so odd the very natural urge to create fan fiction, mainly because it's not like an urge at all, it just kind of happens, you know what I mean? I never write mine down (as I never intend to read them, or have anyone else read them) but they still just play out in my head, and I'll enjoy every second of it.
Games all the way back to their tabletop origin have always been more about the players imagination, I remember playing Final Fantasy 6 when I was a little boy and every time an attack would take place I wouldn't be satisfied by the pixelated interpretation of the action, I would always picture in my head the beautiful flowing art of Yoshitaka Amano coming wildly to life in epic action sequences with emotion behind every impact.
This is the way gaming should be, a co-operative creative effort between the designers and their tech, and the players and their minds. Sadly however this trend is waining now that we can graphically pull off, well, Final Fantasy XIII, which is insanely close to what I used to picture as a boy (only the artist is sadly different).
The best way to reconnect gamers to their work, and resume that very stimulating game-imagination connection is through loose fiction that lets us fill in the cracks. The bigger the cracks the better, but they need to be interesting cracks so as to encourage exploration and development.
I'm such a role-playing nerd... If I were wearing my glasses right now I'd push them up.
