Beguiling New Identities

Part of the previously mentioned cultural shackles involves submitting to a personality lock-down.

At the Renaissance Faire, there was one young woman who played the Queen of England, year after year, at Faire after Faire. As she was carried aloft in her traveling palanquin^[2] by a dozen young men, all others at the Faire would fall silent and bow when she passed by.

^[2] A palanquin is seat or throne set on two poles. The throne and the poles are conveyed aloft, parallel to the ground, on the shoulders of a group of carriers.

I remember observing this one day, as I stood alongside a cynical news reporter. He leaned over to me and said, "How sad that this woman feels she has to pretend to be a queen."

I can still remember my response. "How sad that she lives in a society that doesn't see she has the nobility of a queen."

A role that allows a person to take on a beguiling new identity is a role the player will assume quite willingly, of course modified by individual taste. Even at the Renaissance Faire, those who enjoyed playing nobility wouldn't dream of playing a peasant, and visa versa.

In a game, we can escape our cultural shackles and become:

• A dark and mysterious hero

• The most feared man or woman in the county

• A benevolent god or the ruthless dictator of an entire community

• Mario

• An alien

• A superhero

• The leader of a fearless band of space militia

• The world's best thief

• A dancer in Britney Spears' stage troupe

• A noir detective

• A funny but slightly insane animal

Or we can choose hundreds of other roles that normally aren't available to us.