Even in games built for silliness, I can’t get over myself

I’m here to confess a problem I have when I roleplay. It’s ridiculous, almost embarrassing, but entirely, undoubtedly true. It’s very nearly a source of shame. Here goes.

I can’t get silly. 

I can be funny, I can be humorous, dramatic, intensely over-the-top, even clever when I’m really in it, but what I cannot be is goofy. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know what the fucking problem is, but as much as I joke about staying goofy despite the horrors of the world, I find it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to be a silly little guy in games. 

An example: I recently played a one-shot of Interstitial 2e–a fanfic mashup alt-universe simulator that is built to be absolutely bonkers, to encourage the most off-the-wall interactions and absurdities–and even though I was playing actually magic Magic Mike, I was still the most serious, goofless motherfucker alive. I described Mike’s magical go-go girl transformation as a spin amid falling Benjamins where he transformed out of tapered sweatpants and a Carhartt jacket and re-appeared in black leather chaps and a cowboy hat, and ten minutes later I was still the character in the group saying “well, fellas, I think we should talk this out over a brewski,” like what is wrong with me? I was playing a chosen one stripper with a heart of gold and my default was not “I cast a magical spell using my tight ass as a conduit for irresistible supernatural energies,” but “whassssuuup.” Holy god, why have you cursed me to be this kind of man?

It feels like I take games too seriously, even when I am presented—or, in this case, actively encouraged—to be as ridiculous as possible. I organized this game! I gently bullied Riley Hopkins, the author of Interstitial, to run a game for me, and I had roped in two of my online friends—Joy and Drakoniques—to join me. These are good roleplayers! This is Hopkins’ game! Joy played a tone-perfect Sasha from the live action Bratz (2007) movie and Drak was grown-up dirtbag Timmy Turner (but Black) who was also in a relationship with Jimmy Neutron and… god, was I the boring one? Was I bringing us down? Was my complete and utter resistance to cringe preventing me from being a silly goofy lil guy? It’s on reflection that I can admit to myself that yes, I was the boring one in that group. 

Dear Joy, Drak, and Riley. I’m sorry. I’m the most rizzless motherfucker alive and I apologize that I dragged you down like this. We could have been great together.

Look, I got some laughs. I played up Magician Michael’s himbo-with-a-heart, thick of head and thick of ass energy to its fullest extent. I knew who Magic Mike was and he was just a dude’s dude who would absolutely pop a cold one with Itachi while telling Sasha that no, she probably should not articulate to anyone present that Mufasa was “datable.” See what I’m saying here? Sasha and Mike are staring down Itachi (Naruto), Mufasa (Lion King), and Portgas D. Ace (One Piece) and I’m out here telling Sasha to have some composure, and stop thirsting over a lion, like what the fuck am I doing? Why am I so boring? Why can’t I be silly about this? What is stopping me from being a pathetic little weirdo with my friends in a semi-private Discord TTRPG? Why didn’t Mike offer to show Ace some sexy dance moves? Why didn’t he decide to seduce Mufasa? Why am I like this?

I’ll give another example. A few years ago I decided to run a game of Rapscallion (yes, the one currently crowdfunding—I’m a special special boy and I received an ashcan version in 2019) for my in-person friends. It was one of my first times GM’ing for this group (we were in masks in my living room—the windows were open, I remember these details with such clarity) and maybe it was because I wasn’t confident enough or hadn’t quite embraced the game, but when my good buddy Sara told me that she wanted to search for a holy bezoar by licking the deck of the ship my mind short circuited. I should have been able to run with this and come up with something equally ludicrous, but I couldn’t think straight and fumbled the entire way through the rest of the game. I forget what happened after but I do know that because I had failed to keep the goofy silly alive the game never got a second session. I still regret this. 

I don’t know why I have an intrinsic rejection of this kind of off-the-wall roleplay. Maybe my imagination isn’t wired that way, my creativity is fixed to a different North Star. I wish I could be sillier; I wish I could let things go. The fact that I feel the need to be logical, rational, the voice of reason when I play games might be a sign that something else is going on but I don’t know what it is. Is this the family ‘tism playing up? Is this because I’m a control freak? Am I this way because I’m a type-A eldest child? I’m a Scorpio, is that why I can’t be goofy? Someone, please, answer me, I beg to be a silly goose, I yearn to be a goofball, I wish for cringe to meet me in a corner and teach me its ways. 

Maybe I don’t do goofy because I’m scared that people will laugh at me and not with me—not because I’m funny or clever, but because I’ve done something unreasonably stupid. Is it that simple? I can’t bring myself to be too silly in tabletop roleplaying games because I’m afraid of being shamed by my fellow gamers. I want to avoid feeling ashamed, feeling worried or anxious or like I’m not gaming good enough; and in doing so I keep the silliest parts of myself crushed down. I don’t want to feel like that—like I’ve played as someone too vulnerable, too open, like I’ve invited someone to make fun of my most absurd choices, my wildest reach, my biggest imaginative stretch. So I don’t do it. Is this a defense mechanism, or am I overthinking this? Are you going to laugh at me? Are you?

What do I need to do to get over myself? How long will it take for me to let it go? I’m a person who keeps a lot of themselves very contained and private. I don’t show a lot of my vulnerabilities—I’m always “good stressed,” or “busy, but handling it,” or “taking care of it myself.” Sure, there are moments where I leave out bits of myself—small offerings of information plied in deniability. I tell my friends “I’m just a little tired” or I let my co-bosses know that “I’m blogging through it,” but it all leads to the same thing—what if I’m not good enough? What if trying my best through the stress, exhaustion, intense brain fog, distractibility, is not really enough at all?  

I just don’t know if I can be silly or goofy in games because I’m worried that people will think I’m weird, that they won’t want to be my friend, that they’ll never invite me to their table again. Maybe I’m not wired to let things go, to be cringe and free in person. I’m too judgemental, I’m too mean to myself to give myself the kind of grace needed to be a goofball. There is a part of me that enjoys the high standards I hold myself to, the put-together-ness, my ability to handle literally anything, to take care of any problem, to be independent and self-reliant and maybe this all ties back to the same thing, right? The same hangup I have in games is the same hangup I have in person. I’m so, so scared to fuck up. 

It’s not the kind of scared that keeps me up at night, it’s the scared that makes me wake up early, make my coffee at 8am, walk my dog at 8:30, log on by 9, and be so fucking on it that my planner’s color codes have section indices. I enjoy being this anal retentive because my life is together because of it. I still have fun, hang with friends, play games online, I even joke around, but I cannot cross over into goofy territory and I don’t know why. I want to know why. Like I want to know everything so I can catalog it, analyze it, hold it up and say “this is the exact nature of this structure,” and then I can tear it the fuck apart and eat its flesh and manifest its powers within me. 

I want to be silly. But my games—and my characters—are a lot like me. They care deeply about story and structure, about building things up, about creating things carefully and with intention. Saying it like this, articulating that I am measured, that I mete out jokes with a restrained deftness, makes it sound less like I’m a killjoy. I guess the fact is that I want to play games well, and you cannot measure goofiness by a metric that makes it a more or less impressive thing. I resist vulnerability, and cringe is allowing yourself to be open and uncaring on a level that I cannot master. I want to be silly because I want to play a game where I’m not holding myself to any standards. Playfulness is so intrinsic to humanity, to people, and when I resist pushing my own boundaries of playfulness I feel like I’m losing something, as if I’m not gaming good enough. 

I hope that one day I will sit down and be able to unlock a playfulness in myself that allows me to be completely goofy. I want to rid myself of the idea that games are something to measure your worth against. One day, I will play a game and I won’t worry even a little about whether or not people like me or whether or not they think I’m funny. I want to be a silly, goofy, stakes-less little buddy. I’ll pick up Magic Mike and he’ll be ridiculous and silly, earnest and loving, and I’ll find a balance between playing up the arcane himbo and remembering that it’s just a game. I can do anything I want, even embarrass myself, and it’ll be okay. It’ll be totally, perfectly okay.