Role-playing games. They’ve been around for decades, starting with Dungeons & Dragons in 1974. So they’re almost as old as Southwest Airlines. (Random trivia is my love language.) My first introduction to D&D happened around 1980. My mom became close to a single mom of one boy five years my senior, and our families lived together for a time. He set me up on my first dungeon crawl with my party of adventurers. They were trying to find and defeat a powerful magic-wielding sheik who ruled the nearby city. I had no idea what I was doing, and I loved every minute of it… right up until I discovered it was a suicide mission all along. After an epic and costly battle, my last party member defeated the sheik, only to die at the hands of the newly freed citizens when he emerged. In a Twilight Zone-esque twist my character didn’t speak their language and couldn’t explain he wasn’t with the villain. It was all a bit jarring at that age.
In 1984, after my family’s conversion experience, my parents bought into the Satanic Panic. TTRPGs, comic books, He-Man, and lots of other things were a gateway for demonic activity so it all had to go. They wouldn’t even let me read “Lord of the Flies” in high school (not that I’m complaining. It’s kind of a downer.)
Fast forward to 1990, when I met North Roberts. He’s a full-on actor now but back then his storytelling skills were already impressive. I was very interested in developing my stories, and North introduced me to the idea of using TTRPGs for plot and character development. I was still worried about the fantasy and “evil” of D&D, but he showed me another way. There was a very generic, very universal RPG that could be made into anything. It gave you the rules and let you build your worlds how you wanted. GURPS allowed us to craft and control all the details of our characters, and use the framework of the game mechanics and rules to test out story ideas and work out personalities by playing “in-character”. It was game nights and acting classes at the same time. Feel free to roll your eyes when I tell you my first major player character was female. In my defense, I was young.
From left to right: Knightstrike, aka Stryker Knight, who would evolve into Red Cat, Black Rain, Cold Steele, Nightfire, and Crossbow, who was named after GURPS founder Steve Jackson. Characters are placed from front to back in the order of their in-game creation over the years. Special credit and thanks to Brett and Cam for their contributions and permission.
For the next three or four years, I played GURPS exclusively. Most of that time was spent developing the stories, characters, and ideas that laid the foundation for the Vagabond Universe. Red Cat was one of the later heroes I created. Eventually, I would meet other players and learn to play other game systems, exploring multiple genres and even running games as a DM/GM. I never forgot those early game sessions, some all night, at the local Olympic Star, a 24-hour Greek-owned family restaurant that still operates in Tinley Park, IL. Whether it was the relationships and personalities molded through hours of pretending to be someone else or the way the dice created a chaos factor that always kept things dynamic, I doubt I would be the writer I am today if I hadn’t opened myself up to the idea that playing pretend is a great way to stay real. Ecclesia!