World of Dorkness

See, we're dorks playing ourselves in World of Darkness... OK, the joke's been done, but it's still an appropriate title for this post.

We had our first of what will probably be two sessions of Liz' New World of Darkness game, and it went about as I'd expected. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it except me, and I enjoyed quite a bit of it, but was unable to generate a great deal of interest in the play itself. I enjoyed the character generation, and I was a bit surprised at how much I liked the system, having mostly stayed away from White Wolf games over the years. The humor at the table was quite strong and I laughed myself silly at a lot of the table talk. I just couldn't get into my character.

Which, of course, is pretty strange given that I was playing myself. As I explained to Liz after the game, rather than dispensing with the layer of separation between self and character, it seemed to instead add another layer. Instead of just playing myself, I was myself, playing a character, that was supposed to be myself. This was taken to yet another level by the nature of the scenario which caused us to lose our memory of our identity.

So just as I was getting used to playing myself, now I was myself, playing a character, that was myself, but without a sense of identity! No one else seemed to have a great deal of difficulty with this concept, but I was a bit flummoxed trying to determine what that would actually mean. I didn't know my name, but did I remember my alma mater, or what town I was born in? I had so many questions that I didn't really know where to begin, so I simply sat back for a bit and watched what everyone else did, only really taking part once things shifted to action.

I think I would have had an easier time adapting if I'd been playing a fictional character put into that situation rather than myself, because there would have been less "background" to worry about in terms of what I knew and what I didn't.

That said, I think I will enjoy the second session much more, as I'm no longer playing myself, but playing myself as a changeling. I think that should prove more interesting.

If you're curious, you can get a description of the play itself from Liz' writeup here.