Translation of Lisa’s video on happiness and solo roleplaying.

Welcome all to this new video.

I am delighted to meet with you today. I’ve wanted to discuss this topic for some time, so here it is. I would like to tell you of the well-being one can find in solo roleplay, of what I have received personally, of the possible paths for you to explore to improve your daily life a little bit if you feel tired or worn out, or... In any event—we’ll chat a little!

Before jumping into the topic, I would like to make two very important disclaimers:

The advice in this video is for people who are not suffering from mental illness, and if that is your case, I invite you to speak about it with a health professional. I am not one, and I speak only and simply from the point of view of entertainment. Never forget that if you are not doing well, you must absolutely seek help. When we injure our knee, we go to the hospital, so in the same way when in our head things become a little difficult and we have a hard time—don’t hesitate to ask for help.

The other disclaimer I’d like to give is simply that I will state my personal feelings and opinions, and we are all different. Different things will bring us happiness in our everyday lives. We handle things differently and things don’t affect us the same way. Take those things from my video that speak to you, that give you hints to improve your daily life—in any case, my words are not gospel!

Now that this is clear, we can dig into all the things roleplay gaming has improved in my life. Well, this might be a bit too strong. You know what I mean: what it has brought to my everyday life—the positive effects.

My experience today is a bit different because it’s now my job. But I’m not going to speak about that. Anyway, I am in a unique situation because the work side is not at all the same as the fun side, even if most of my work is fun for me. It’s still very different. It’s not at all the same than when I role-play.

Today we will focus on the fun side—after I am done with the workday, when I grab my notebook and get into a game.

The very first thing that had an impact on me, that transformed me and became indispensable for me is that it’s a fun activity in which we do things only for us. Okay, let me explain. It’s a little strange expressed like that because what we do for ourselves—you go jogging, running, or you play basketball or go hiking—no matter the activity, it is primarily for ourselves.

Yet, in the grand scheme of things, there are a lot of hobbies and pastimes geared toward self-improvement, toward reaching the next level, in which we compete against others—in team sports, for example. Even in the world of role-playing, Lisa as a game master, we feel a little bit of pressure. Some might think I’m talking about difficult situations or having dreadful tables—but, as a game master, for example, it’s to prepare well and to build the story well, that sort of thing.

Anyway, there are often cases where we are not really alone in our pastime and we often put pressure on ourselves when we should actually not do that.

When we do our first solo roleplay, we bring this pressure along. We feel pressure from many angles: did I prepare enough materials to begin with? I hope I don’t miss anything during the gameplay. Am I writing the story well enough? Am I making too many mistakes? Is my handwriting beautiful?

But as we progress in this hobby, I find at some point we let go, and it’s at that moment when things click that we realize that actually nobody will ever read our notebooks and we really feel calm about it.

Of course, I’m not talking about those people who share reports of their sessions—that’s something else. That’s something rather uncommon in this hobby. The majority of practitioners do not share what they write down—in some cases they might talk about it, but we never share drafts or create unpolished manuscripts.

Actually, to allow myself to do those things I could not do in school was really healthy for me. I’ve kinda always known how to write—without being the next bestselling author at all—and I managed pretty well, and I finally realized that I love to write but don’t love editing a first draft to restructure it, to show it to a professor who would offer correction and maybe not understand what I meant to say—as it should be; these people are specialists so if they offer criticism it’s for the better—but actually I had drawn pleasure from the writing and I didn’t want criticism. At the end of the day this comes up again in solo rpgs (role playing games)—this something that is for our eyes only, and this notebook, you will own it your whole life, or throw it away one day, a little bit like a personal, intimate journal in which, instead of writing about your everyday life—which is probably, like mine, not extraordinary: we play, we go shopping, we pay rent, we clean up the house, we take care of the kids if we have any, stuff like that... It’s not transcendent—whereas in the games they are grand adventures that belong, in the end, only to us.

In conjunction with this side of things where we do it for the intrinsic aspect, we also experience the lack of time pressure. No one is expecting us to finish the adventure to meet some deadline, or that the adventure needs to be epic or serene. There are none of those pressures. We can choose to spend a year making a map, as long as we’re having fun, possibly to use it later on.

We are still in this stress-free mode where everything is okay, and I find it extremely refreshing to be able to spend as much time as I want on interesting details, to toss them in the trash when I don’t care anymore, and to have absolutely no one waiting for us to finish.

Another point that makes this seem like personal development—this video does seem it’s about personal development! There’s not much I can do about that. These things kinda happen on their own and I think that’s a good thing—it’s that with solo rpg we learn how to accept imperfection. There’s always going to be people who do things better than us. This is normal. In every field there will always be a master we can learn from. But as we mentioned earlier, the fact that nobody will read it means at some point we accept that—well, for example there is a scratched out word in our notebook and we don’t tell ourselves ‘Gaah, I need to find a way to hide it so the notebook still appears nice. I know I have a tendency to make spelling mistakes when writing the first draft. While I’m writing I’m either inside my story—I am lost in the telling—or I am have to concentrate on whether a word ends this way or that—that kind of thing. So theoretically I should re-read what I wrote and fix my mistakes but one day I told myself “this is bullshit,” so now, in my notebooks, there are spelling mistakes because I would rather be immersed. I made the choice because my brain can’t fix them when first writing it down, only when re-reading—either that or I would be completed unfocused: does my character do this, or how is this word spelled?

And now I don’t give a damn about it. So there. And I was able to let it go so well that now I am not bothered when, for example, I show a page from one of my notebooks to my community, because we’re friends and I don’t feel pressured. Even if there are mistakes I don’t give a rat’s ass, actually, because it’s my game party, and all this work on myself has helped me reach the point where if it’s not perfect it’s not critical; if I had fun, it was a success, and no one is expecting anything from you. I feel it’s a milestone an enormous number of people are struggling with—if things are not perfectly pretty, if things are not perfectly well-written, if the handwriting is not aesthetically pleasing—all of that— or, I must not share it, or it’s not good, or it’s worse than other people’s. When you can finally tell yourself that this makes you happy and the rest does not matter, I feel this will have an impact on all areas of life, in many specific ways. I find sometimes it’s a training for our brain to say: it’s no big deal. Thus in many other things, I can tell myself this is no big deal because I trained myself a little.

Okay, so there, if that’s you—if you’re the kind of person who does not do things because you feel it’s never good enough, solo rpg might possibly give you training in that area because it’s really just for you, and the only person to convince is you because you’re the only person this is exposed to. Yeah, I repeat myself, but this is so uncommon in leisure that I feel we need to lock this down in our heads.

Another thing that was unsettling—I didn’t experience this when I began with solo rpg, but later when I understood my tools better, when I better understood my likes and dislikes—is the practice of listening to oneself. The world we live in—how I interpret it anyway—affords us very few moments to ourselves. Before, we used to be able to be lost in thought, to hear ourselves. For example, on a bus or train, that kind of thing, it took some time and we got bored, which led us to be more in our own heads. Now we have social media. It has changed a lot of things because, actually, all these micro-moments have disappeared because now we scroll. First of all, scrolling is not that interesting, but we still do it, all of us. It’s hyper-addictive for the brain. I’m not here to be the referee because I think we all get sucked in. We don’t retain any of it and I find that after scrolling—in the bus for example—when you leave the bus you don’t remember anything you’ve scrolled through. In fact it all just vanished. End result: Nyet. And your brain was neither active nor resting. Maybe you can find it—I had read a clever study about this that mentioned we’re more tired because during these moments of boredom the brain was taking micro-naps from time to time and this was healthy for the mind to have these little breaks—something we don’t have anymore because we are overstimulated.

Subsequently, in our daily life—all the rest: preparing meals, cleaning, all of that—we feel we can never rest and then we scroll so we end up not really resting, not being 100 percent with ourselves. With solo rpg, many new things opened up for me, like: what do I wish for tonight? Am I feeling adventurous, romantic—there’s this internal questioning of ourselves because we don’t have... Take the example of Netflix: we can ask ourselves, “What do I want to watch tonight?” But we will not think “I want to see an adventure film” before jumping in Netflix. In actuality, we go to Netflix, scroll what’s offered, and say to ourselves: “Oh, let’s try this one.”

With solo rpg there is more emptiness to start with and we have the opportunity to ask ourselves, what do I want, before getting started with it.

Beyond that even, during gameplay, later on, we will need to listen to ourselves because we can encounter difficulties during gameplay—sometimes, we’re not in the right mood. That happens. And then we are forced to listen to our own emotions, like, I am not happy. But we can also have the feeling that we aren’t safe, we aren’t relaxed, we aren’t feeling well, because the storytelling went down a weird path that doesn’t align with us. As a result it teaches us a lot about ourselves, about some of our limits, whether we want to keep going or not—do I want to try to go beyond my own boundary, to play a little with what you accept or don’t accept, etc. To take a simple cliché, some people never play an evil character and as they play an evil character this one time they are able to gauge their emotions, etc. So these are things we can do. This taught me an enormous amount of things about myself. I am very friendly—this is something a bit complicated, because I found myself being stressed out because I could not help a NPC (non-player character)—when you play solo you get attached to them. It’s a little strange to verbalize that we create real bonds with them. I was then able to ask myself why I felt this way, why this particular character meant so much to me, and sometimes it allows me to connect the dots—I am not sure that it’s useful for me—it’s not psychotherapy by a long shot—but it’s fun, I found, to be able to discover oneself, to understand how we operate, and to, in a way, be kind to ourselves.

Another thing that touches on what I mentioned earlier about our days being overwhelming is that it pushes me to take care of myself. I will plan an evening for myself to engage in roleplay. There was a meme on social media that I found amusing along the same lines called auto-dating. Instead of waiting for someone to call you for the perfect rendez-vous or the perfect evening, you give yourself that. So you organize everything. You say: “Next Friday night is for me, from me to me. I love me!” There!

Anyhoo, I give myself this happiness, and think about what would make me really happy. So it can be...

I know this about myself: I like to order food to-go, think about what drink I will pair with it, organize my desk very neatly. I organize everything beforehand, taking time to clean everything before that evening so it’s spotless. I wear comfortable clothing. It’s an evening I gift to myself. It’s true that in everyday life it’s something we have tendency to not do so much, so to decide to do this for ourselves—even just the anticipation makes me happy, thinking, Ah, tomorrow night is my evening by myself. Yes!

I say evening but you can do that when you want. I have kids so I can’t tell them: “Friday afternoon YOLO! You’re on your own!” But I can plan that Friday evening after they go to bed. I’ll not watch a film with my husband or something like that—it’s an evening for me. That said, do it whenever you like—Monday morning, Sunday afternoon, it doesn’t matter! Throughout the week you’ll be anticipating it, thinking, that time I gift to myself. It will be good for me. Just the anticipation itself, I feel, creates dopamine, creates happiness, because we know it’s going to happen and be for ourselves. Sometimes I feel that we have difficulty taking care of ourselves. I find that in everyday life, in this flux of life that never stops, never stops, never stops—this is the opportunity to listen to ourselves, to create a little bubble of happiness.

As a matter of fact in my online shop Imagine Ton Aventure (Imagine Your Adventure), I have quite a few products that can be both practical and decorative, because, for me, it’s essential to have an aesthetic workspace, because it’s my bubble. For some people, a solo-date will be something else—saving to go to a spa, to the movies, whatever brings you joy! Since for me this is a pastime that takes place inside the house, and the house is also my workplace, I really like for there to be a feeling of fantasy when I sit down. I want to create a very cozy atmosphere. Looking at the whole community from this perspective, I’m not the only one who feels that way. Many of us appreciate creating this bubble for ourselves. The fact this is at home is amazing because we can be there kinda when we want—no need to plan an outing, or to say: “I’m not available that night,” instead of having to get in the car to drive to the spa.

One of the things I hadn’t anticipated and which made me so happy is the way in which solo rpg connects with other pastimes. What I mean by that is that it’s not perfectly, directly linked. The connection is not readily apparent. For example, when you’re playing solo rpg, you’ll be preparing materials. If you create your own adventure, you’re going to perform a lot of what scrapbooking does, and all you have to do is work a little bit to make your notebook pretty because psychologically you enjoy it. Eventually you’ll develop an interest in scrapbooking—where to find pretty paper, for example, or cute ink stamps, pens, and markers. I don’t think I’m alone in this considering the number of people in the notebook world!

But that’s not the only thing. Cartography is another example. A lot of players make their own maps, and it’s not a hobby one comes to suddenly one morning while waking up. “What if I did cartography? It’s so cool.”

So we develop interests. We are also attracted to culture in general because some people want to know more about the era their game takes place in, or the city in which the adventure takes place, if it occurs in a real city. There are even people who write down their findings in notebooks, a little bit like when as children we had to do presentations at school, but without showing it to the class and all that. This is kinda the same thing, just without a scoreboard, a teacher grading it, without a research assignment. So in a way we again pick up these interests without the boring academic parts, keeping only the good stuff. So if this appeals to you don’t hesitate to make a general culture journal. It’s very useful. It’s somewhere to note pertinent information, illustrations or decorations. It’s fun. It’s not the last of it. There’s a lot more. There’s drawing! Lots of people in the community draw and tell us they stopped drawing because it felt weird to draw just for the sake of drawing—not everybody has that temperament. But now there’s a reason to! I love to illustrate a scene. I do it even if it’s not perfect. See the point about perfectionism we made earlier. It’s not a problem if it’s not perfect, since it made me happy; it allowed me to relax, and I had missed doing this—making time for myself, and listening to myself. See? Everything is connecting! I had prepared an agenda but I didn’t plan for everything to end up being connected like this. Really, this is why it’s so wonderful. There are so many sides to this hobby.

Another example is music lovers. Some people share the soundtracks they use during solo rpg for immersion, etc. This lets us discover new instruments, new kinds of melodies. Some people also went back to reading because sometimes we want to experience a story without getting our gear out to play. You understand what I mean?

I’m not going to bullet-point the billion things that surround solo rpg! So many, though, are in the same orbit, and depending on people—like some people draw 80% and write 20%. Others will spend two months making a map then play for a year. So everyone picks and chooses what they like and in the end it’s perfect because it matches our needs and our gaming enjoyment.

Another thing that was good for me was how it widened my horizons. Like a lot of people when I began what I wanted was D&D (Dungeons & Dragons), medfan (medieval-fantasy), or live in The Lord Of The Rings. You get the idea. But in the end, I had so much fun that I discovered other rpgs, other ways of playing, other ways of experiencing adventure, and I find this wonderful. Medfan is still my favorite. Once, I thought science-fiction wasn’t for me, modern-day wasn’t for me, but nay, nay, I am now delighted to have a hobby that pushed me to discover new things, because it gave me a lot of ideas, lots of changes of scenery.

Look how many books I have about Vampire: The Masquerade—which I love.

It let me discover an astounding number of things, and in areas I would not have gone on my own. Also, so many venues for discovery are free. For me, since this is my primary pastime, I don’t mind spending some money on books or materials, because I love it and it’s essentially all I do. In contrast, I don’t go on vacation because I’m happier with my hobby than with holidays far away. There are lots of people who don’t want, or cannot, spend money on this. There is an enormous amount of free PDF resources. Don’t hesitate! Our discord community is linked in this video. We are always ready to share free resources. There is a vast library of rpgs that are accessible, including very old games that are now in free mode, so don’t hesitate, because old games were cool too, with mods, extra systems, etc. If people used to play them it’s because they were fun. So, we’re not required to be up to date with the latest releases, up to date with the news. We don’t care. Anyway we play for ourselves, and there are gems from the past. In another video I discussed Ars Magica, the little sibling of Vampire: The Masquerade, which they created long before. The books are super old, yet, YOLO, it is so much fun; I love this rpg and I still play it.

So, even if you don’t have much of a budget, try out some of the suggestions on our Discord—only if it interests you, of course—because there are gems. Gems I tell you.

After a while you’ll probably realize some of the games you’ve come to love did not appeal to you at first, and you will discover a new side of yourself—how amazing, no?

The last point I want to bring up is a little out there, but I still want to share. It’s mostly about me. I don’t think this is something most people experience—we are all very different. I want to talk about emotions. I am not someone who cries easily. I don’t cry reading books. I’m usually very stoic and I keep my feelings under control. I don’t get angry easily, or sad, etc. I am good at rationalizing. Once in a while, though, I think to myself it would be good to let go—some people can cry in two seconds. I think it must be good physiologically.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that with solo rpg, immersion is so important to me that I allow myself to experience emotions I don’t let myself experience normally because I’m always surrounded by people. This includes family and friends, and strangers obviously.

Within the context of solo rpg, there is no need to justify what we feel—there is no need to explain why we are sad, or happy, since we’re by ourselves—we’re fully aware of it. As a result we can completely let go of our guardrails and I found myself in many sessions wiping my tears so they don’t fall on my notebook. It’s very special because when I read it again later, it’s lowkey junk. If I was reading it out of context it would feel worthless. But in my head I was so immersed in the story or so in sync with my character—it actually allows me to live new emotions, to let go, to gain from it, and to be in absolute and total immersion.

I could not imagine that someday a hobby would allow me to experience this.

The closest activity I can think of in terms of emotional impact is literature. I feel reading allows you to enter—from my point of view, when reading a book, you can forget you exist as a person. You embody the character. You are not longer aware of your bed around you—you no longer hear ambient noise. You are really in a bubble inside the book. You travel into the book—that’s the expression.

With solo rpg, I feel we can reach a slightly higher level, especially with very narrative gameplay. Obviously if you are in the middle of a D&D game and you are in the middle of combat, it brings the immersion down a bit. But when it comes to narrative storytelling, it’s magnificent. I love to feel my feelings without experiencing shame, accepting them and letting them flow. I feel it’s one of the reasons solo rpg is so important for my personal well-being.

Especially with this video, please leave a comment to let me know if you connected with what I said, whether it made you feel happy.

I think it’s really interesting and would help motivate new players to jump in; we know taking the first step is the hard part. In any case, no matter your form of leisure, as long as it makes you happy, that’s what’s most important.

I reiterate: I’m not saying you have to stop scrolling or watching TV, but I think being able to create a bubble really helps to feel better on a daily basis: to have energy, and to be happy, finally.

I am a person who loves leisure. I know it’s not for everyone. In any case I’d love to read what you think about what I shared, and how other people do this.

We’ll see each other soon in another video, and in the meantime, may your adventures be “In a Bubble!”