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Published Senior Combines Two Favorites: Role Playing and Writing For Immediate Release: 
Earlham College senior Nathan Rockwood holds the latest role playing book that he has co-authored. RICHMOND, Ind. — By the time Nathan Rockwood and his friends were 10 years old, they had grown tired of the limits of his parents' Dungeons and Dragons role playing game. So they decided to write one of their own. The group produced a 60-page book and Rockwood hasn't stopped writing since. The Earlham College senior has co-authored four books for Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd., including his latest, the Battlestar Galactica Role Playing Game, which was released in September. "I woke up one morning and had an e-mail offering me money to write," Rockwood says. He had been testing a game called Serenity, a science fiction role playing game that follows the characters and story of the movie of the same name. "I made a lot of suggestions and shared my ideas," he says. "As a result, they offered to hire me as a freelancer to write a chapter for the book." The offer came a week before finals during his first year at Earlham. The English major had two weeks to produce 30,000 words. "I wrote 17,000 words in one 24-hour span," he remembers. From that first experience, more offers have trickled in, and he's been steadily busy. "I don't have any plans to stop," Rockwood says. "It's very weird to be published. I didn't expect it; it was so out of the blue." Although his interest in role playing began in grade school, it flourished while attending the George School, a Quaker high school in Pennsylvania. A Lot of Time on His Hands "I had a group of friends and we didn't drink, do drugs, or do anything illicit, so we had a lot of time on our hands," he says. They began spending more and more of that time role playing. "We would create our own games by telling stories set in the different worlds. The stories became more complicated as we got older, more than slaying dragons and rescuing princesses. There was mystery, murder, political intrigue and strange disappearances. These make great fodder for the imagination." Rockwood says role playing has changed from its early Dungeons and Dragons days. "Now it's more collaborative storytelling," he says. "Rules provide the framework, but it's a lot of creative storytelling. It has become less of a board game and more of an exercise in creative writing. Role playing is a collaboration; it's a team of people. It's a spontaneous endeavor. We follow the whims of chance and variation, our flights of fancy." Role playing games require dice, cards, a shared imaginary space, and sometimes music, snacks and caffeine. According to Rockwood, he quickly emerged as a gamemaster or GM and he says that friends back home and here on campus enjoy his fast-paced stories. "The GM creates the world and a problem or mystery, and the others create the characters that try to solve it," he says. "I roll the dice and move the stories along in a fairly fast, easy manner. I enjoy keeping the game moving." Although he loves to role play, Rockwood says he was looking forward to taking time off from gaming after high school. "When I first came to Earlham, I felt relieved that I wouldn't have to GM games," he says. "After three months of not playing, I was going stir crazy. I realized that it was something I needed to do. Even hard classes don't engage my creativity the way a role playing game does. It's a high level of constant creativity." He says that gaming wouldn't be nearly as appealing if it weren't for the fascinating characters his friends create. "My friends who game are brilliantly clever," he says. "I rely on them to help me create. The games are as much mental puzzles for me as they are for them." More Than Just Entertainment Rockwood says role playing is more than just entertainment and can be used as an academic tool. "I appreciate that the faculty here (at Earlham) are willing to consider fantasy/ science fiction as an academically viable genre," he says. "I propose that role playing games can be used as a tool to study themes in philosophy, literature and other creative endeavors." For Rockwood, role playing also has been a way to break into writing. "I always wanted to be a writer, and now I am one," he says. His secret? "Good luck and perseverance." — EC — Contact:
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Earlham
College · 801 National Road West · Richmond,
Indiana 47374-4095 |