Why I Love Roleplaying

I love roleplays. If you and I have met on a forum, or on Goodreads, you might know that already; the roleplay threads are where you'll find me posting the most. I love it as much as I love writing- maybe more at times, since it combines some of the best parts of both reading and writing: the excitement of finding out what'll happen next, the thrill of creating characters and a story. But that's not the only reason I love to roleplay . . . and this week, I'm going to tell you why.

Why I Love Roleplaying

1. It's telling a story, but with other people. I love writing things by myself. But I also love writing with other people, seeing what happens when different people work together to tell one story. Each person has a different view on the situation, different expectations on how it'll go, different ideas for the story they're trying to tell. Put those together and you get something special- something that never would've happened without collaboration. And while sometimes those differences can end up being explosive . . . more often than not, they turn into something pretty awesome.
2. It teaches you to improvise. In a novel, you're in control. No matter what you say about characters surprising you, you're the one who creates the plot and tells them where to go. In a roleplay, it's a different story. You can't know what the other players will throw in your way, what the other characters will do. You have your own characters and, depending on who- if anyone- is running the story, certain plot elements. And so when your roleplaying partner (who happens to be the GM of this particular plot in all but name) throws your Jedi against four scarily powerful Sith ghosts (not all at the same time, thankfully) and everything those Sith and the traitor who let them out can come up with . . . well, you learn to think your way out of situations you never would've come up with on your own.
3. It teaches you how to plan (and to write convincing villains). On the other hand, if you happen to be the one largely driving the plot, well, you need to be able to plan ahead- at least a little bit. Otherwise, you'll find yourself spending a lot of time stalling while you try to figure out where to go, and that's the best way to kill a roleplay. And you need to be able to write a good villain- one who'll raise the other players' interest and who'll give them a good fight before going down, but who is possible to defeat . . . one way or another. 
4. It gives you ideas for your own stories. I'm sure I've said it before: at least half my characters owe their origins, one way or another, to roleplay threads. The Battle! thread, one of the longest-running roleplays I've ever been a part of, gave birth to my Berstru Tales novels and the Alyron and Firhirt families that make up most of the characters in those stories. And some of those characters came from other roleplays before Battle!; Jared Alyron in particular- along with Jason Silver and Jarek Gilleth- came from Jared Siver, a character on a dying roleplay who I just couldn't seem to let go of (and still can't). Outside of my own experience, I know that two or three of my other friends (including the one who came up with the four Sith ghosts) have written or are writing their own books based on roleplay threads.
5. On the other hand, it's a good testing ground for your ideas. For example, there's the New Generation- an idea I came up with after I watched The Avengers for the first time. What happens when the government decides the existing superheroes are too inclined to be loose cannons? When they decide to try to create their own heroes, more loyal to them than the originals? I thought of writing it as a fanfic or a novel- but I had enough projects going on already, and I knew next to nothing about writing superheroes anyway. But the next summer, there came a surge of superhero threads . . . and so I grabbed the opportunity to test my idea, and I think it's turned out pretty well.

Of course, there's one last, very simple reason I love roleplaying: it's just plain fun to come up with characters and see them interact with each other and with the challenges you put in their way. It's one of the same reasons I enjoy writing.

Have you ever roleplayed? If you have, what are some of your favorite roleplaying memories? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)  

The Underground: It's Just the Beginning; This Isn't the End

I should've seen it coming, really.

I joined the Underground, a forum created for fans of The Berinfell Prophecies, in spring of 2011. In the almost-four years I've been there, the site has gone down or messed up in some way about once a year. Sometimes it's from hackers. Sometimes it's because of spammers and the site's defenses against those spammers blocking the wrong people. Sometimes it's because the Underground has so many awesome people and stories and memories on it that it temporarily breaks the servers it runs off of. Each time something like this happens, it's frightening. But each time, someone steps in to fix the problem and bring the UG back online.

Each time- until this time.

On Friday, March 13- just three days ago- I tried to log on to the Underground and found it gone. There were no clues as to what had happened, only the message: The site you're looking for cannot be found. I tried again- still nothing. When the site was down the next day, I emailed Sir Hopper, the more active of the authors of TBP, to see if he knew what was going on. His reply: The server had been hacked. The UG as we knew it was gone.

From the very beginning, The Underground has been one of my favorites- if not my very favorite- sites on the internet. Why? I could list numerous reasons, but in the end, they all trace back to one cause: the people. The Elves of the Underground are, quite frankly, beyond amazing, and they've become some of my closest friends- never mind that I've never met a single one of them face-to-face. We've chatted together about everything and nothing, obsessed together over shared favorite books and movies and fandoms in general. We've shared our stories and our characters with each other and even written together- written epic, amazing stories, some of which were still in progress when the Underground went down. Most importantly, we've supported each other. Whenever one of our number was struggling, the others came alongside to encourage and pray for him or her. It didn't matter if the struggle was something big- depression, a potential move, a family member losing a job- or something small- an upcoming test in school, a need for inspiration in writing. We encouraged. We prayed. And we saw our prayers answered.

And now all that's gone.

Except . . . it isn't.

Just as the Elves of Berinfell didn't cease to exist when Berinfell was destroyed, so the Elves of the Underground remain even after the Underground is gone. And just as our namesakes salvaged what they could of their city and moved to a new place of refuge, so our Elven community has a new home: the Underground 2.0, Whitehall Castle Forum. True, it's not the same as the original Underground. True, we've lost a lot. But the people who made the Underground the Underground remain, just in a new location. If you're a fellow Elf who's been wondering what happened to your community, please come join us at Whitehall Castle. We miss you. And if you're not an Elf yet, but you enjoy The Berinfell Prophecies or just Christian fantasy and writing and awesomeness in general, come visit us- maybe even come to stay.

Rest in peace, original Underground. Long live the Underground: Whitehall Castle.
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade) 

P.S. If you know other Elves who haven't yet heard this news and you have a way to contact them, please let them know about this change! We're trying to make sure all the elves have heard, but there are some people we don't have contact information for. Thank you!