20181118.0430

In a few of my recent posts, as well as in others throughout the span of my writing in this webspace, I've made reference to roleplaying games. Traditional writerly advice is to write what you know, and I've spent enough time rolling dice and telling lies to claim to know about RPGs, at least a little. It's part of why I return to them again and again, both in the writing I do (here and elsewhere) and in the recreational time I have. The other part, really, is that I enjoy the work; I like the material, I like working with the material, and I like sharing that love with others. Some others, I can reach through the table itself, whether physical or virtual. Some others, though, I can only reach by way of the writing I do, here and elsewhere.
I took the opportunity to look back over some of the writing I've done about RPGs in this webspace. Often, I merely make a glancing comment about them, speaking to my then-current involvement with one or another, or relating some then-present experience to something I recall from one of the several games in which I've taken part. There are a few times I've taken things more seriously, whether reviewing RPG products or going off on what might be called liberal-arts screeds about one thing or another I find in them. (Here and here come to mind as offering the main examples.) Those entries join my undergraduate thesis (I'm glad it's not online) and a number of papers I wrote prior to that, as well as selected bits later on, in a relatively minor line of work I've done throughout and outside my abortive career as a scholar.
Thinking back over that line of work leaves me feeling a bit strange. There's still relatively little work done on RPGs, at least the tabletop variety that have attracted most of my attention, although I'm not up on as much of it as I used to be. Not being a full-time scholar accounts for part of that. Not having focused on it when I was trying to be a full-time scholar also accounts for part of it; despite my prevailing interest, I felt compelled to dedicate my "real" work to "legitimate" topics. It was folly for me to do so, I realize. I had focused on "legitimate" topics in part to afford me better academic job prospects; the results of that focus should be obvious. (I'm not a full-time scholar.) If I was going to fail in my goal, I might as well have had some more fun along the way--but I wonder, now, if I might not have had better success looking into the strange places that attracted me, rather than into the staid ones that, while meriting examination (and I wonder if I will ever return to that project...), put me in direct competition with many others whom I know to be better scholars than I am. At least, in a smaller field, I might have stood out more.
It is too late for me to make such a change now. I am, as I've noted elsewhere, an academic expatriate (I can still visit, so I am not an exile, but my visits back to the country I sought to enter are fewer and fewer); I do not think that I would be able to build up my credentials as I would need to to be able to repatriate. But my case might well be a bit of a warning for others. If they need any more warnings than they already have.