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As a young adult, I spent quite a lot of time playing Dungeons and Dragons with a small group of like minded friends. We had great fun, and a lot of interesting role play. Years later, one of these friends introduced me to a new computer game called Everquest.

I was relatively uninterested until it was explained to me that it was an online game, played by thousands of other people at the same time. I was kind of flabbergasted by the idea, and sat down to make a character.

Eventually I found a pretty large group of folks who, like me, preferred to role play their characters,rather than to just randomly run around, and I've been hooked ever since.

Online play has several advantages over tabletop gaming in regards to role playing.

First and foremost, in my mind, is how much more immersing it is. With artistic renderings of everything from the character standing next to you, to the grass at your feet, to the sky overhead, it's difficult not to fall into the world into which you're playing. That immersion is, I think, unbelievably helpful in character development.

There's also the convenience factor. Rather than have to worry about scheduling a time when everyone can show up at your house for several hours of play time, you can just log into the game whenever you have the time, and find one or several or many folks interested in spending that time doing the same thing you are planning on doing.

Gaming online also has the added benefit of being instrumental in introducing the idea of role play to an entire new generation, as it were, of gamers who might not otherwise have been exposed.

Online gaming also gives you a freedom you don't have in tabletop gaming. There isn't some person constantly pushing you towards some predestined ending, you have complete freedom over the choices your character makes. As well as the need to be responsible for your character's choices in regards to the entire community, rather than just the 6 folks sitting at your kitchen table. It makes for a much richer and more fulfilling experience.

While tabletop gaming will always hold a special nostalgic place in my heart, the advent of online gaming has given my creativity and my role play a much larger canvas with room and time to create a truly epic story of my own making.

Learn more about this author, Tracie Smith.
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