Ever wonder what it would be like to disappear into your fantasy and not have to return? Video games are like that, online role play games even more. It can be more powerful than any drug, and far more seductive. But what happens when the power goes out and the person is forced to face reality? -- Anon Guest
This is a box. This is a window. Turn it on and view another reality. There were other boxes like it, in days of yore. They were called book. They were called television. This box is called computer. The window is called game. The world? Could be anything.
Some dig. Some build. Some battle. Some are lost in peaceful worlds they have created on their own. All prefer these other worlds to reality. Why? Because reality is not in their control. Because in these other worlds, there is reward for toil. Because they can show what they have accomplished. Because they can take out their frustrations with the real world. Because they don't have to deal with the real world.
The achievements, in-game or in-mind, are measurable. Not like the ones you get in a cubicle or by restocking shelves. In reality, the reward for a job done is another job. It doesn't matter if it is done well or done half-assed. There are no rewards for caring in the real world. There's only the threat of unemployment and ruin. Is it any wonder, when faced with an atmosphere of pain and misery, that people retreat through a window into places where things like that do not exist. Those in charge of distributing the misery resent any kind of escape. They want them gone.
The conflict, of course, is with those making enormous amounts of money from selling the balm. So with shares in both misery and thin medicine, they appear to limit escape whilst pretending to care about things the common folk do. In the name of environmentalism, the power to these windows is shut down. They think it will spread more misery. The common throng will be hungry. The common throng will be desperate. The common throng will be afraid, which is the important part. They were not prepared for what the people truly were.
They were nerds. They knew things. Some had power for those who literally needed electricity to live. Some had survival tips from the days before the modern era. Some had improvisations that would work with extant materials.
Most important, for those whiling away the hours until the power returned, they had another window.
This is a box. This is a window. Open it and turn it into another reality with the power of words. Enter a world where anyone can be a hero, regardless of their origins. This window does not depend on much more technology than literacy, numeracy, and imagination. This window is called Roleplaying Games.
The funny thing about such games. They teach a very dangerous lesson - that the powers of evil can be defeated by teamwork.
This new escape will be called... revolution...
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Lantern_Works]
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