Writer's Block: The name of the game

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Pretend. And that's exactly what I called it, too: "playing Pretend." Of course, Pretend referred to a wide variety of imaginary games, including but not limited to House (which in my world was usually Cat Family, because as a kid I was totally uninterested in the goings-on of people; anthropomorphic animals were way more fun), other live-action roleplaying, and acting out dolls and stuffed animals. I could probably also include Running-Around-And-Thinking, in which I actively daydreamed episodic plots with a recurring cast of characters while running and skipping around my living room or yard, much to the irritation of my parents. (Why couldn't I just lie on my bed and do it?).

I overwhelmingly preferred Pretend to all other form of game. I didn't like many games *with rules* (which is pretty much all games, lol), and the few I did enjoy were because I could inflict a pretend game on top of them, like pretending I was some sort of refugee during Hide and Seek. Part of it was that I preferred to focus on the creative play than *following the rules* but another big part was that I didn't like the standard winning/losing structure, because as someone who simultaneously craves harmony but is a cutthroat perfectionist (and thus a rather sore loser) the competition always stressed me out too much to have any fun. (And I'm still this way-- and you can see the proof in how the only video and computer games I like are things like the Sims where there is no way to "win" and it's just about creative play).

I remember most birthday parties I attended as a kid started out with some unstructured time to just run around (and in my case, get anyone I could involved in some elaborate imaginary plot we could never hope to resolve in the short length of the party) with the party games starting once all the guests arrived, and I always regarding the games with disdain, an annoying distraction from the fun I had been having before. Sometime during kindergarten I swore that at my next birthday I would not include any games with rules, but engage everyone in one giant Pretend game. I think my mom realized that wouldn't keep all the kids amused, but she did honor my wish for unstructured play; instead we had craft stations and a no-time-limit candy scavenger hunt in the yard, which was a hit even though my parents complained forever about the destruction wreaked on their flowers.

When I was really little, I pretended with anyone and everyone. Between the ages of about 3-7, most kids are pretty down for roleplaying games, dolls, and figurines, and that's probably the only age I was ever "popular" with my peers, because I was good at coming up with interesting characters and stories and few of them were affronted by my bossy directions. In elementary school people started to "grow up" and be less interested, but I had a few buddies that were usually down for Pretend on the playground or on our long bus commute. (My friend Alice and I kept a cast of characters in our backpacks specifically for playing with on the bus). Of course, I had a couple friends who would only Pretend in the privacy of our homes but refused to let anyone else at school see them do such an embarrassing thing. In middle school, just as those friends were finally ready to give up Pretend at all, I met Tiffany, Amber, and Allison who were totally down for playing Barbies or acting out the story we were writing together, so long as we kept it to ourselves. Amber and Allison left the picture before high school, but Tiffany, Jessica, and I kept right on roleplaying through the end of college and beyond, using the Internet when we couldn't do it in person. I also was in a couple Internet-based Harry Potter roleplays for a while. Roleplaying is the adult version of Pretend (:

Writer's Block: The name of the game

[Error: unknown template qotd]

Pretend. And that's exactly what I called it, too: "playing Pretend." Of course, Pretend referred to a wide variety of imaginary games, including but not limited to House (which in my world was usually Cat Family, because as a kid I was totally uninterested in the goings-on of people; anthropomorphic animals were way more fun), other live-action roleplaying, and acting out dolls and stuffed animals. I could probably also include Running-Around-And-Thinking, in which I actively daydreamed episodic plots with a recurring cast of characters while running and skipping around my living room or yard, much to the irritation of my parents. (Why couldn't I just lie on my bed and do it?).

I overwhelmingly preferred Pretend to all other form of game. I didn't like many games *with rules* (which is pretty much all games, lol), and the few I did enjoy were because I could inflict a pretend game on top of them, like pretending I was some sort of refugee during Hide and Seek. Part of it was that I preferred to focus on the creative play than *following the rules* but another big part was that I didn't like the standard winning/losing structure, because as someone who simultaneously craves harmony but is a cutthroat perfectionist (and thus a rather sore loser) the competition always stressed me out too much to have any fun. (And I'm still this way-- and you can see the proof in how the only video and computer games I like are things like the Sims where there is no way to "win" and it's just about creative play).

I remember most birthday parties I attended as a kid started out with some unstructured time to just run around (and in my case, get anyone I could involved in some elaborate imaginary plot we could never hope to resolve in the short length of the party) with the party games starting once all the guests arrived, and I always regarding the games with disdain, an annoying distraction from the fun I had been having before. Sometime during kindergarten I swore that at my next birthday I would not include any games with rules, but engage everyone in one giant Pretend game. I think my mom realized that wouldn't keep all the kids amused, but she did honor my wish for unstructured play; instead we had craft stations and a no-time-limit candy scavenger hunt in the yard, which was a hit even though my parents complained forever about the destruction wreaked on their flowers.

When I was really little, I pretended with anyone and everyone. Between the ages of about 3-7, most kids are pretty down for roleplaying games, dolls, and figurines, and that's probably the only age I was ever "popular" with my peers, because I was good at coming up with interesting characters and stories and few of them were affronted by my bossy directions. In elementary school people started to "grow up" and be less interested, but I had a few buddies that were usually down for Pretend on the playground or on our long bus commute. (My friend Alice and I kept a cast of characters in our backpacks specifically for playing with on the bus). Of course, I had a couple friends who would only Pretend in the privacy of our homes but refused to let anyone else at school see them do such an embarrassing thing. In middle school, just as those friends were finally ready to give up Pretend at all, I met Tiffany, Amber, and Allison who were totally down for playing Barbies or acting out the story we were writing together, so long as we kept it to ourselves. Amber and Allison left the picture before high school, but Tiffany, Jessica, and I kept right on roleplaying through the end of college and beyond, using the Internet when we couldn't do it in person. I also was in a couple Internet-based Harry Potter roleplays for a while. Roleplaying is the adult version of Pretend (: