This was one of those days where it was really hard to choose one of the prompts. So I decided not to. Why not both? Yes, there are four prompts but don’t ruin things, I’m on a roll. Just go with it.

I’ve always been a dreamer, stuck in my own head. I used to create quite fanciful stories as a young boy and I much preferred the worlds of fantasy to the real one. RPGs have allowed me to turn those dreams into reality, at least after a fashion. What I noticed about my daydreams was that they never really went anywhere. They didn’t get terribly complex. I had great ideas but I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with them. I’m more of a premise guy. The magical thing about RPGs is that for the most part they aren’t solo activities. Other people can help us along.

These other people at the table are able to add on to my ideas and together we delve into them, exploring as we go. Maybe I’m dreaming of things as a game master and I include them in a campaign or session. Perhaps I have dreams or ideas about my character, who they are or what they might want to do, and later on these guide my actions in the session. I get to experience what it would be like to be that person in a particular situation, or, I get to experience what it would be like if the situation in my head happened. How would the people in that situation react?

The reason I had to include delve in today’s discussion is simple. If what I dreamed happened, it would be kind of boring. I would already know what was going to happen. I would be limited by my own creativity. Omniscience comes at a terrible price. Fortunately role-playing games are often about exploration. In fact, they are always about exploration in a certain sense. We delve into the real or metaphorical caverns of the game world or the human condition. Delving deep into these passages we explore and discover the creations of somebody else’s dreams, we attempt to unravel mysteries, and we discover where we belong. We play to find out.

These forgotten tombs waiting to be explored could be the unexplored world of the game master’s design, mysteries best left unsolved, or the psyche of the character standing next to us, maybe even our own. We can boldly go forth, discovering mew and different types of experiences, and we can see where our combined dreams take us.

What could possibly go wrong? Ask young Danforth. Just don’t expect him to answer.