Being modestly known in a fairly small hobby is weird. You are existing in a world that nestles between the sort of amateur writing where your only readers are those you hand your work to directly like friends, family, and very patient partners, and the broader professional world of writing where your engagement with your audience gets to be at arms length and, broadly, on a professional basis. This correlates with size but not perfectly; I’d imagine my Cannibal Halfling articles (at least the popular ones) get more readers than the reports I write for work, though I’ve also spoken to rooms of 800 people for work and that has absolutely not happened at the con panels I’ve been on. Anyway. The point is, when you’re in a relatively small space, the distance between you and the people you look up to and strive to emulate is similarly small.

On one hand, this is incredibly cool. Game designers I’ve looked up to, who in some cases are responsible for the games that literally got me into writing about games, are sharing my work, are following me on social media, are running games for me and meeting me for coffee. And that’s where it gets weird, and some of this is not because of the access but rather because, at the end of the day, most of these interactions are in the form of talking about or playing games. Sometimes, yeah! This does evolve into something more friendly driven by a shared interest. Other times not. But then you get to the fuzzy middle. If I get to play games with people, be they game designers and other writers or just my friends I usually play games with, that’s no longer a parasocial relationship, that’s just a social one. But the designers and critics who I interact with strictly on Bluesky or Discord, and usually just in posts and responses? I know that’s different. My brain isn’t always sending the signals that that’s different.

Parasociality is a big part of TTRPG media. This is true for Actual Plays especially, because there’s something about the format that’s designed to make you feel like you’re sitting along at a gaming table with the folks who are there. When you watch something like Dimension 20, the players at the table (and their comedic styles) are just as important as the characters they’re playing. You see the process of play as part of the entertainment, and it (very deliberately) feels like a wall has been removed that is typically there in something like a TV show. In all TTRPG media, though, there is a degree of stake-claiming. “This is who I am, and this is how I want to play games.” While I don’t think it necessarily originated there, this trend was amplified by The Forge because Ron Edwards’ entire thesis was, in essence, that gathering a group with aligned play agendas and picking a game which served those agendas was always going to be more effective than trying to manage play agendas across a disparate group. Combine that with the squeezing effect of Hasbro owning D&D and now everyone is their own bannerman, waving their colors and trying to find people they want to talk games with.

In my almost decade of doing this, I’ve waved my colors around a lot, and I’ve seen game designers and commentators waving their similar colors when I find out that I like what they have to say. I’ve had some great conversations and I’ve engaged and been engaged by people in the hobby I never thought I’d get the opportunity to speak to or share opinions with. And then comes the weird part of this, the part where maybe parasociality isn’t weird, but I’m weird.

As I said upthread, I have met game designers in person and even played in games with well-known designers. When it comes to people I wish I could engage with more, in all honesty I’d bet the door would be open if I was investing the time in the standard modes of engagement, including but not limited to going to cons, publishing more, and having a more robust social media presence. I am in a liminal space between parasocial and social; I think if I really leaned into, say, RPG criticism as a bigger part of my life, many of these people I’m astounded at engaging with occasionally would likely engage with me more! I’d probably meet more designers and critics in person! My world would expand!

None of that is going to happen because I’m not in a position to deepen my engagement with the hobby. I follow with admiration (and some amount of jealousy, not going to lie) folks who are literal doctors in the space, academics who have been blessed with the opportunity to make this medium a central pillar in their career. I…am not that. I have a full time job, and one where I outstripped the potential earnings of a game designer years and years ago. I have multiple hobbies, and as much as being a commentator has allowed me to spend time on both writing and gaming in a way I enjoy and find enriching, if you count by hours spent bicycling is simply a larger part of my life. In a lot of ways, I simply don’t possess the dedication or single-mindedness that some of the people I follow and admire (and occasionally wish to be more like) do. But in reality, that’s likely what got me here. If I was actually more high-minded about roleplaying games I don’t think my writing would be as popular, but that’s neither here nor there.

Parasociality is weird. As media has changed with the internet, audiences are invited closer and closer, until it sometimes feels like the audience is right up against a window. For me, at least as far as game design and criticism is concerned, I was invited to crack that window open. And as long as I’m still sitting outside, that feels even weirder.