An Adventurer is Me?!

Apologies for the previous post of downerness.  I remembered there is one thing I've been doing obsessively as of late, and feel compelled to talk about.  It goes against everything I've stood for in the past, and yet somehow encompasses all that I am.  And it's that kind of dichotomy that really gets my mojo risin'.

It's time I came clean on the MORPG that is near and dear to my heart.

Yes, I have, for years, scoffed at the WoW and Neverwinternights crowd.  And by scoffed I mean openly mocked to their faces.  Repeatedly and without mercy.  Even while dating someone who was instrumental in MELRO, and belonging firmly to the outer circle of persons associated with such nonsense I silently made +12 LOSER jokes to myself about my otherwise dear friends.  For that I should probably apologize.  I have seen the error of my ways.  Sorta.

In the maelstrom of irony here, my only love sprung from my only hate.  In the form of Kingdom of Loathing.  

I blame Chad.  One night we're having drinks and he very casually mentions "this RPG I play."  I immediately began firing up the mocking engine, but as Chad is one of my nearest and dearest and I defer to him in most things cultural I left it idling while he explained.  The finer points:

• Text-based.  No wacky graphics or crazy sounds.  The only graphics consist of crudely drawn stick figures.  Hilarious crudely drawn stick figures.
• In-game currency?  MEAT.
• Character classes: Seal Clubbers, Turtle Tamers, Pastamancers, Saucerors, Disco Bandits, and Accordion Thieves.  
• Turn-based on the number of adventures you get for the day, augmented by the cocktails and food you consume, but limited by your fullness and inebriety.  
• More pop culture references than you can believe.

So, graphics-light, content-heavy online activity centered around pop culture, booze, and meat? I had to check it out.  Suddenly, four months later I'm a Level 12 Disco Bandit with Advanced Cocktailcrafting Skills and an Overdeveloped Sense of Self-Preservation.  Opponents fear my moxie and my Disco Dance of Doom.  And it only gets more ridiculous from there.

So here's where it gets strange.  I began this thing because it appealed so strongly to my disgust with gamers.  Some of the adventures blatantly riff on Final Fantasy, WoW, and other popular games I've come to know and hate.  The writing is PRICELESS.  But at the same time I'm suddenly concerned with stats, buffs, in-game events, and potions, hilarious though they may be.  I'm begging my friends to join, we're sending each other items and discussing strategy at work.  I'm burning all my turns trying to LEVEL UP.  Now I find myself out in the world, having real human interactions and dying to get home because it's about to be rollover and I have new adventures and a fresh liver to adventure with.  HOW IS THIS IS MY LIFE?

The piece de resistance, however, is that now the suggestions I join my work buddies in a rousing marathon of WoW no longer sound as patently ludicrous as they once did.  This is deeply disconcerting to me.  I'm still nowhere near wanting to pay to do this to my life, nor take something so seriously as to treat it like a second job, but I have to say I'm starting to get. it.  You might not find me playing a Alchemist Blood Elf Mage just yet, but chances are you won't find me as intolerant of the idea as I once was.  

Somewhere, deep within, my 20 year-old self is screaming.  

Come play!  I need a sauceror on my side.