As a child I always liked to imagine myself in the stories I was reading or watching on TV, and we played with friends what we had experienced through fictional characters. I was Aragorn, I was Robin Hood, I was Han Solo, I was a padawan, I was a Star Trek officer, a pirate captain, and so on (I was never the princess).
The first cRPG I played was Baldur's Gate 1. My that-time-partner was playing Baldur's Gate 2 which was new back then, and I played through 1 to catch up. During that time, what I liked most was to experience a story by participating in it, by shaping it with my decisions. I love good stories, and playing and influencing it makes the experience so much more intense and personal.
In Baldur's Gate 2, another aspect came into it: Interaction, conversation, friendship, romance. Suddenly the imaginary friends I always had in my head when reading stories or watching TV shows could talk back! I love connections and emotions, and when characters in a game are well-written, they feel like real people.
I know for certain that me and my friend back then talked about Jaheira as if she were a roommate, and it didn't feel weird at all.
At that time, I still preferred playing a shamelessly overpowered demigod, a berserker half-elf dual-wielding Crom Faeyr and Celestial Fury. Oh well.
Then came a long, long break, about 10-15 years where I didn't play RPGs or in fact any computer games at all, finishing university and then being very, very busy with work and family. My love for good stories and my imaginary inner worlds never went away though.
When I rediscovered BG2:EE by complete coincidence when I got a tablet, I got right back into it, even installed some mods which is a bit annoying on Android, and through the Beamdog forum, my new home on the internet before we had this place here, and the friendships I forged there, the world of RPGs beyond the Baldur's Gate series started to open up to me.
First, in Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, I used roleplaying to stick to strict rules and restrictions and see if a game can be beaten like that too, especially in minimal reload. That was my "paladin phase", an unforgettable time where I exchanged a lot of experiences especially with
@BelgarathMTH and discovered how much I like to write roleplayed playthrough reports.
Later, mainly through the input from
@Antimatter, I broadened my horizon with a greater variety of RPGs, like Divinity: Original Sin, the Mass Effect trilogy and Dragon Age: Origins.
What I love about RPGs stays the same for the most part, experiencing a story more intimately and personally by living through it, by shaping it with what I do, by deciding how it proceeds, but a new aspect started to come into it: Stepping out of my comfort zone.
In Mass Effect 2, you can't be a space paladin, and I realized I don't need to, I don't need to restrict myself to "honorable" methods. There are games that feel real because you get thrown into a bad situation where you have to make difficult choices and live with it, work with what you have. I noticed I enjoyed that a lot.
In Dragon Age: Origins I played a rogue, because I realized (after using awesome rogue skills in Divinity: Original Sin with a party member there) that combat is combat, it's just skills, and I enjoy a smart, stealthy approach more than wearing plate mail and carrying a sword. Forget RL rules, in Divinity: Original Sin 2 it's incredibly exciting to set up distractions, sneak up on a trader and steal what you can without getting caught!
I learned to appreciate the other aspect of RPGs: Being who I want. Or trying things I wouldn't dare to try in real life, or that I wouldn't do for whichever reason, but in a game I can. Being of a different gender, romancing a character of a gender I don't date in real life and admitting I find them attractive, because it's just a game, why restrict myself. Dating the evil guy or girl, the assassin. Or as now in Cyberpunk 2077, experimenting with looks and outfits without being judged.
Visiting places I can't visit IRL, like the immersive exploration in Skyrim, like walking through Athens and seafaring in Assassins Creed: Odyssey. Riding a motorbike through the neon lit streets of Night City in CP2077 while listening to the radio, walking around absorbing the atmosphere, going to clubs listening to music and watching people.
To make a long story short: Interactively experiencing a story, influencing it, experimenting with things I can't or won't do IRL, either to learn more about myself or just for the fun of it, keeping an open mind, making new experiences, seeing new places, getting real emotions from fictional situations, be they good or sad ones, experiences that impact me. And people, interaction, connection, the imaginary friends taken to another level.
Also, not to be underestimated: Sharing these experiences by discussing them with like-minded people.
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