I've just realised something

I spend more time talking about roleplaying games than I do actually playing them.

I talk about what I want to play, what I want to write, I talk about the kinds of games I like and the games I own, and I even talk about how great the games that I played long ago were, but I don't talk about sitting down, playing and enjoying them right now. In fact, I don't think I've spoken once about a game that I've run recently. I harp on about the games that I want to do, but as of yet there are no posts about how they went or how they're going.

I'm playing in a D&D 4e game at the moment - and I'm enjoying it - but I'm not talking about it. That's because I'm playing and not running the game. 90% of my roleplaying experience is being the GM as I love to create, control and communicate the worlds I build to players.

Am I spending my time blogging and posting and writing free stuff because of my lack of gaming? Is my narrative GM gland trying to find another outlet for my imagination, for my need to talk to other gamers?

I created this blog to talk about my gaming, and that included World of Warcraft. You'll notice that I'm not posting about WoW that much - and that's because I'm actually playing the game regularly. If I had a regular tabeltop RPG then maybe my need to yap on about gaming would be satiated and I wouldn't be grabbing moments of time to write about RPGs but instead I'd be playing the damn things and getting my fill that way. Would that mean that my blogposts and writing would diminish? I think it would. I think the reason why I have so much free stuff out is because I'm using that as an outlet for my gaming needs. It's also why my fiction writing has suffered, because my writing time is being put into these games I'm creating.

Years ago I was a very prolific writer - I had more than a hundred short stories and three novels under my belt (none of which, it must be said, I felt were suitable for publication). This was at a time when I was GMing up to three RPG games a week for three different groups! What does that tell you? It tells me that my gaming needs were more than catered for and the time I had spare I'd write my fiction. Now that I'm writing to fill my gaming needs my fiction has been neglected.

So we come back to the fact that I'm talking about gaming more than I'm doing it, like a guy who harps on about sex all the time and therefore making it obvious to everyone that he's not getting any.

This is not a good thing. In fact, it worries me a little. I need to do some roleplaying. You know, that thing I keep writing about.