I‘m still out of pocket, as might well be imagined, and I am going to post about what all I’ve been doing while I’ve been away from home. I’ll need to finish up before I do, however, and I’m not done yet. So much said, I did have an idea pop up, and I figured I’d spend some time getting it out down so I can keep track of it for later. Hence what follows.

That I’ve long played roleplaying games, particularly tabletop roleplaying games and their online-forum-based iterations has not been a secret by any means. I’ve written about it in this webspace more than once, after all, and usually in favorable or better terms. I’ve noted, too, that I also run such things, developing milieux and situations in which players can navigate characters to collaboratively tell stories, hopefully such as they’ll recall fondly years later. And like many people who concern themselves with narratives, I often find myself looking for new stories to tell–or to set up.

It’s occurred to me before, and doubtlessly to no few others, that things like trade shows and research conferences offer good settings for such things. By their nature, they draw people together who have common interests but diverse backgrounds and skill sets; they necessarily address questions often in the roots of games, namely “Why would my character be here?” and “Why would these characters be together?” (“You meet in a tavern” is classic for a reason, but it doesn’t necessarily explain a whole lot.)

Too, by their nature, such events are necessarily focused. Most every conference I’ve attended, and I’ve been to more than many folks, has social events and entertainment available, but all of them have had a primary focus and purpose. They’ve had structure that allowed flexibility of approach to it. Roleplaying games operate with a tension between the two; there is and has to be structure by the very nature of the narrative of which the roleplaying game is but one form, but it is impossible to anticipate all player approaches and foolish to disregard most of them. (There’s always the potential for someone to be a jerk…) As with the character-gathering, the narrative focus of a game would reward or be rewarded by setting it in something like a research conference.

Additionally, such events as research conferences, while requiring substantial setup, often handle themselves once they get going. Attendees have clear expectations, and if it is the case that people will violate them, they are yet familiar with them; people know what they ought to do, even if they don’t necessarily do it. Forum-based roleplaying games, by their asynchronous nature, reward setting up events that run themselves; that is, they do well if they set up so that players can do the event without the game’s administrator having to be much involved during the event.

I’m sure there’s more that I could say, and I might could come back to this later on. It may not be scholarly, but not all of my somedays are such…

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