About Volara’s Creator

I have long loved to act (having been the male lead in all of my school plays from grades 5-9). I took acting in high school, but I had a somewhat less than positive relationship with the acting teacher. Since he was also in charge of the school’s plays, I didn’t even bother to audition for them. This left a hole that needed to be filled.I didn’t start gaming until grade twelve, and I skipped what I’ve heard is the more common development (D&D -> Shadowrun -> Something by White Wolf -> Mind’s Eye Theatre) and jumped directly into Mind’s Eye Theatre.

That’s right, I jumped directly from being a total non-gamer to being a LARPer (MET is the White Wolf LARP, which uses rock-paper-scissors (of all things) as its basis for resolving conflicts). I was first drawn into the game via that game’s ’storyteller’ (no Dungeon Masters here).

It was really easy. He told me the secret history of the world, according to the writers at White Wolf. He told me of the origin of the species (in this case, we’re dealing with vampires).

He told me of the roles they played in Egypt, Rome, and Carthage. He told me of the middle ages and the groups that formed among them. He told me of the current conflicts, and the current divisions.

He told me of their prophecies and what everyone was working towards.

I’m amused by alternate histories that ask what the world would be like if the Nazis had won, or if the South had defeated the North, or if Rome hadn’t fallen, but I’m a downright sucker for tales that are woven into the fabric of what has happened, events that parallel, mirror, and allow blame to be laid for unexplainable, inexplicable, or otherwise unusual events. I love that stuff.

So I started role-playing.

That storyteller let my first character be a spy for the rival group. Now, I have three theories about this: a) he thought I had the skill to keep myself hidden, b) he was just throwing an option out there to see how it would turn out, or c) he knew that, as a newbie, I would make inevitable mistakes that would result in me revealing myself fairly quickly, thus getting myself killed but underlining for the other players the fact that the rival organization was present and could be anyone (in which case, “Darn you, G, you used me!”).

In any case, yes, I made some stupid mistakes, and yes, my character was dead by the end of the third gaming session. That character was designed to be an acting based character.

Before you ask, no, I won’t be exploring every character that I’ve ever played. I’m just going to mention the first few, as it underlines where I’m coming from as a GM.

My next character was also designed to be acting based. Also, I thought part of it was a funny concept. The problem is, the concept I had chosen was very annoying (I was 17, I was stupid). By the time I had a grip on the way to handle the character, I had learned some things I shouldn’t have, and had annoyed enough others that he was executed, again, in his third gaming session.

Just to clarify, I had lost two characters in six gaming sessions, in a game that is, theoretically, not supposed to be about killing.

I felt that something had to change in my characters, so I made a combat monster. And he survived.

More than survived, he thrived. He thrived when combat arose, but, since I knew that I could handle combat, I also had no fear of delving into politics too. He ended up being one of the relatively few to survive the game. And I was trained like Pavlov’s dog. Take combat abilities, as everyone will always try to kill you.

After that, many of my characters became combat monsters, in one way or another, for quite a while. Eventually, I figured out that it was just my inexperience with gaming that had gotten me killed, and so have even gone on to play a pacifist on a couple of occasions. But I usually default to something combat related.

Eventually, I did play Shadowrun, and I played a street samurai and a physical adept.

Eventually, I did play D&D, and I played a fighter, a warrior cleric, a monk. Because everyone hated the wizards that I played. Everyone hated the thief. One of the bards did alright, though the other was seen as useless.

But, and this is, perhaps, the point, though they were all combat based, none of the characters were the same.

I loved to be powerful, perhaps instinctively felt it was necessary to survive, but the true focus was on creating characters that were interesting and different, that could be thought of as distinct from the others not because of their skills, but because of who they were.

I no longer play anything by White Wolf, as I seem content with D&D (though I’d really like to play Shadowrun again)

…

I think that’s what I’m aiming for with Volara. Yes, there are dragons, orcs, dwarves, and elves. You can find many of the D&D staples (if not all) around the world, but I hope to create something that is itself. But there will be combat, because everyone tries to kill you.

All the stories have been told.

All we can do is change the telling.