Niche, or how I actually am better at role playing.

 Hello! 

So in my previous journal entry on the school forum, I talked about the game Niche. Niche is a science-based game that teaches its players about genetics and the importance of traits that help an animal survive in its environment. Animals find mates and produce offspring which have the chance of manifesting a combination of the traits of its parents, which in turn will help it adapt to its environment better. If you have enough food gathered, you can invite a potential mate into your "tribe", which enables you to see its genetic profile and decide whether or not to mate with them. You can also choose two potential mutations which have the chance of manifesting in your offspring. Not only are you trying to breed offspring which will outlive your current creature, you are also trying to explore your terrain to gather food and nesting materials. Every day that goes by, you age, and you have a limited lifespan. Thus, you must create offspring which will be playable and have a chance at surviving. The ultimate goal is to have your offspring eventually reach the island where you "or the ancestor", was taken many many generations ago. 

I'm not going to lie when I say this: even though I play many games, I am really really bad at them. I have a hard time navigating menus and I also have a hard time "grinding" to level up my characters or gain skills in order to build better armor or weapons. I am pretty decent at Skyrim. I am totally awesome at Destiny. I am also very, very enthusiastic about Bioshock. I tend to gravitate toward shooter games because you basically just have to remember to aim for the center of the screen. And most shooter games are linear in that you automatically level up as you go along, so by the time you get to the boss baddie, it just so happens that you also have the one particular gun that takes the baddie down. My consort is a gaming connoisseur. He grew up playing games with his grandmother, which is a really interesting fact that I was amazed by when we first met. His grandmother loved to play Zelda! He excels at character building and will often times spend hours playing MMOs (Massive Multiplayer Online games). 

I didn't do very well with Niche. I made it through two generations of offspring each time, and then everyone died out. I ended up getting discouraged and moving on. The game is beautiful and it's FREE for teachers and students to play. I was content with the time I spent playing it, but I also accepted that I was moving on with life.

Niche avatars. 

One kind of game I am VERY good at, however, is role playing. When I was in middle school through high school. I developed a very tight knit group of friends who shared an interest in LARPing (Live action role playing). When you LARP, you are able to pretend to be anything you want. The chance for shared storytelling within the framework of an already-established world meant that my friends and I were able to transcend the hardships of our adolescent lives. We were vampires, mages, werewolves, and thralls. I saw my friends develop story lines that to this day I am simply amazed by. Even though I stopped speaking to them ages ago, I am still proud of what we accomplished. During this time in my life, I played a myriad of characters. I was always some form of vampire or another. I was almost always a male while LARPing. I also played online role playing games through Compuserve. My time in Compuserve, typing madly through the night with total strangers, is the reason why I am still able to type as quickly as I do. I needed to learn to keep up with the narrations. 

Anyways, even though Niche taught me something about genetics, role playing taught me a lot about myself. So when I read Jones, et al, I was excited to hear that other adolescents that are as different as myself were also finding succor in the world of role playing. I'm glad the experience I had developed organically. Basically, we found a batch of Vampire: the Masquerade books and just went hog wild making up our own stuff based on the pictures. I found the students in the resource presented to be doing somethig very similar by making up their own world based on a framework that was predetermined. Although it appeared to be a purposeful attempt to reshape a narrative the students felt were problematic, one difference was that in our world, we were less intentional in our rebellion. 

Reading that paper made me want to be a kid again. It made my inner Tzimisce* vampire prince long for those days, wandering through the woods and gazing out the window of the car while my mom drove around on errands, imagining my next battle, my next act of diplomacy. 

Anyways, thanks for reading this. I could literally go on for hours and hours about role playing. I appreciate all who made it through this long blog entry! Cheers! 

Here is an example of a Tzimisce prince, alarmingly similar to the one I envisioned myself to be while LARPing. 

A Tzimisce noble with a thrall. During gameplay, it's actually difficult to determine who is the "thrall" due to the shape-shifting nature of the Tzimisce. 

*the Tzimisce are a clan of vampires from the White Wolf role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. They are considered one of the most sinister of the clans, belonging to the Sabbat who are a group of vampires that believe humans should be used like cattle: subjugated and exploited as a food source. The philosophy of the Sabbat is that vampires should not hide from humans, rather they should ascend to their true status as masters. Their particular talent is that of shape-shifting and an uncanny ability to shape the bodies of others. Looking back on my choice of vampire clan, it is easy to see how, as a queer youngster who was often bullied, I could find comfort within the storyline of that clan. 

Reference: Jones, K., Storm, S., Castillo, J., & Karbachinskiy, S. (2021). Chasing New Worlds: Stories of Roleplaying in Classroom Spaces. Journal of Language & Literacy Education, 17(1), 17.