Seven Hours of Superheroics

Saturday is my favourite day of the week. When I was little it was because I had no school and there were cartoons on television and I could go outside to play all day. Now that I am older, Saturdays are my most very favourite day because it's the one day of the week that a bunch of our friends come over to play tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons or Mutants & Masterminds and the like. My hubby runs the game as our wonderfully awesome GM and the rest of us gather on couch, lawn chair, and floor with our characters awaiting the adventures that are about to unfold. I keep a journal/archive of our sessions so that I can look back on them and laugh, and also so that we have a record of what we did so that there is a bit of continuity in our game. We socialize and joke around and for the most part have a helluva lot of fun!

Last night was our regular gaming night. Currently we are playing a superheroic campaign featuring the comic book-style episodes of The Watch, Lake City's #1 supergroup! We were missing a couple of our players (they're on vacation where it's warm, the lucky ducks!) but decided to carry on anyway since we haven't played for a few weeks thanks to the holidays. My hubby had us on an epic and cosmic quest to gather items from across the dimensions so that we could save the multiverse from an evil warrior bent on ruling all. We started the adventure a few weeks ago but last night we finally finished it and I have to say it was more fun than I've had in quite a while! Part of that fun was due to the fact that no one had to work in the morning so we all got to stay up really late to finish the rest of the story. It was somewhere around 4am when we finally sent everyone home and went to bed and I didn't mind one bit. Playing so late was like harkening back to when I was still living with my parents. I'd tell my mom that I wouldn't be home until really late so she wouldn't wait up for me and worry, and she'd wave good-bye and tell me to watch out for pit traps or to have fun slaying dragons and kobolds. Then I'd go off and play all night long, crawling in to sleep just before the sun came up.

There's something about immersing yourself into a realm of make-believe for several hours that is very theraputic. Pretending to be someone that I'm not, in the context of gaming at least, allows me to get in touch with other parts of myself and allows me to expand my imagination. It also allows me to be something I could never ever be, such as a flightly teenage girl with magical powers or a rugged gunslinging man in a post-apocalyptic world. Having fun and hanging out with friends for hours on end to enjoy a common interest is what gaming is all about. I've been missing that in our current gaming group for a while, and although I wouldn't want to do this late night stuff every Saturday, last night was special because we did stay up so late and we did have a ton of fun. I can hardly wait until next week now when we start up our Golden Age superhero campaign!

Also, I need to send a BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY into Blogland today. I know she doesn't read this, but today is our youngest's special day -- she's a whole decade old! -- and I just wanted to proclaim it to the world at large. Take care, Blogland, and remember to have fun and indulge your inner child once in a while -- you'll rarely regret it!