Roleplaying as catharsis.

I wrote this ten hours into a twelve hour flight. So don't be mean if anything sounds insane.

Roleplaying is a cathartic measure. Those with over, or even yper, active imaginations find i ard sometimes to have vents for creativity and without these vents they can be prone to over excessive mood changes, varying from elation to depression.

The nature of roleplaying is that of a healer, spending time not having to be yourself, becomming someone or something else. Almost all forms of passive recreation contain this healing, watching a film you begin to emulate the protagonists thoughts, extrapolating the plot with your own interpretations of how the character would act. It is the same for reading and, in neccessity, writing.

The problem with roleplaying as a creative outlet (and a form of emotional healing) is that you create a whole new character for yourself. Whenever you play, it is the tole of this character that you assume. The preassure to be a good roleplayer is large within a group. The definition of such a role is a person who, like an actor, becomes the new character and invests in it emotions and thouhs that belong to it, and it only. This roleplaying 'perfection' can never be ascertained to be the most complete rewarding experience. You must stick to the rules and chance. These ultimately stop you becomming truly at one with your character and thus the cathartic healing never can occur properly. You still degenerate in whatever way it is that you degenerate until you get your next dose of your artificially motivated character.

If one character over multiple sessions does not prove to be the key to creative outpouring, then perhaps we should try less conventional forms of roleplaying to provide us with the needed healing.

Imagination, which in essence is creativity and healing, stirs from experience. The newer and stronger the experieve, the more the imagination is stimulated, creativity cultivated and pscyches brought to balanced emotional levels. Roleplaying can achieve this, but to do so we need to take a more Brechtian [to run with the acting analogy] approach. There is no fourth wall between player and character. The player should be fully aware of the control and definite difference from their character. Perhaps to the same degree, their character should realise this as wll. From this awareness, this distance from the character, the knowledge that yes we are playing games, a game that requires intelligence, creativity and empathy. Joyous healing will flow. You may become crappy roleplayes by definition, but you'll be happy crappy roleplayers.

Realising that your character is merely a vessel to exploe emotion and creativity is still not enough for complete catharsis, however. The character still remans a consistent personality, with it's own emotions and therefore it is a liimitation to your experience. You must follow there emotions, not your own. If your character is happy and your are miserable, then how can you use your character as healing? You can't explore your emotion in a safe sandbox world without actual consequence, because it doesn't match the person in the sandbox. To the same degree, if you constantly play a character as you feel, you will not get a health breadth of emotion. Thus random exploration is needed. Without control you will follow out the emotions needed, perhaps realising issues previously unresolved as you emulate a situation you have suppressed in your own mind.

Thus to improve new experience and to emotionally explore new areas, a measure and new rule could be introduced to the game. A D10 is to be rolled at the beginning of the session, each player taking the roll at consecutive sessions. Keeping the whole session based upon the result of the roll (consulting the table below) will allow for playable consistency and the ability to explore the results of the roll but the knowledge that all might change in the next session will allow you your distance and own thoughts, to be explored at all times. Whether the changes are permanent or tempory is entirely upto your group.

1 Change the game place, a new area in the same world.
2 Change the game setting, a whole new world to explore.
3 Change the game system, new rules to expand to.
4 Change the GM, a new leader with new ideas to guide the group.
5 Play as a different gender, an exploration of the meanings of gender and gender identification.
6 Play the character as a your current emotion, indulge yourself in the game.
7 Play the character using an emotion opposite to what you are feeling, exploring the other side of life.
8 Play a whole new emotion, one you have not felt in a long time, keeping checks that you have not forgotten how that emotion feels.
9 Play as you wish, allow yourself complete creative control over your character's aims, perhaps to find your own.
10 Stop rolling. The game is normal for this session, enjoy the normalacy.