We Live Many Lives: TTRPGs, The Inner Light, and That One Time I Was a Lich King

 

There’s this Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called The Inner Light. Even if you’re not a Trekkie, hear me out.

Captain Picard gets zapped by a mysterious space probe (as one does), passes out for a few minutes, and wakes up living someone else’s life on a peaceful planet. New name, new wife, new everything. He spends decades there—grows old, learns to play the flute, raises a family. And then, poof. Back to the Enterprise. The planet’s gone. The people are gone. The whole thing was a memory implant—this extinct civilization’s way of being remembered.

But here’s the thing: it changed him.

That episode came to mind the other day, and I couldn’t stop thinking—maybe we’re all having little Inner Light moments when we play TTRPGs.

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The Lives We Roll Into

I’ve played a lot of characters. Some were dumb. Some were funny. Some were powerful. Some were disasters. And a few… a few left a mark.

No, they’re not “real.” I get that. They don’t go to work or eat cereal. But the emotions? Those were real. The tension when the rogue had to betray the party to save her sister. The joy when the warlock finally broke her pact and lived. The heartbreak when the paladin died alone, still believing.

Emotions are the only thing that really anchor us to life. Otherwise it’s just scenes flying by.

So when I say I’ve lived many lives, I mean it. Not in a “past life” kind of way—but through dice, stories, drawing characters, and creating worlds. I’ve walked in shoes that weren’t mine. I’ve felt things I wouldn’t have in my normal, relatively quiet life (which involves zero dragons, by the way).

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Why It Sticks

The randomness is part of the magic. In a novel, you control the outcome. In a TTRPG? The dice laugh at your plans. Characters start one way and end up somewhere completely different. They grow. They change. Sometimes they surprise you.

And even if I don’t go full method-actor immersion while playing, those characters linger. I think about them later. I write stories about them. I draw them. I reuse them. Sometimes they show up in other campaigns. Or as NPCs. Or as weird little ghosts in my stories. They’re not gone—they just evolved.

And they remind me of the people I played with. Friends who aren’t in my life anymore. Late-night laughs. Emotional moments. Pizza on the character sheet. All that stays.

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What Is a Life, Anyway?

A life is a collection of memories and feelings. That’s it.

So if I experienced something with depth—grief, joy, regret—even if it was inside a made-up world, isn’t that a kind of life?

I’m not trying to get all philosophical, but I am saying this: creating makes us live more. Some folks say reading does that, and sure, it does. But creating is more intimate. It’s more personal. It gets under your skin. You’re not just imagining someone’s life—you’re being them, just for a while.

Even if everything around us is fake—a matrix, a dream, a brain in a jar—the emotions still count.

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Why I Keep Coming Back

I don’t know why everyone plays TTRPGs. Some people love the strategy. Some love the math. Some just want to hit stuff with a sword. That’s cool.

But me? I come back because it lets me feel things I wouldn’t normally get to feel. It’s a way to explore ideas, emotions, and lives I’d never touch otherwise. A safe way to live other lives. To go on journeys that challenge me, or surprise me, or just make me laugh.

And the best part? When a campaign ends, you don’t lose that life. You carry it with you. Like Picard and his flute. A little piece of a world that doesn’t exist anymore… but changed you anyway.

So yeah. Maybe none of this is real. But it feels real. And that’s enough.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go write about that time I ran a game where the big bad evil lich got teleported to our world—straight into Comicon—by the party of heroes.

Roleplaying Is Basically Art Therapy in Disguise

Art therapy teaches us something simple but powerful: creating helps. Drawing, painting, writing—whatever the medium, it lets you express things you might not know how to say out loud. It helps you understand your feelings, reduce stress, and work through your thoughts. You don’t have to be a professional or even "good at it"—you just have to do it.

Now, look at roleplaying games.

You create a character—not just rolling stats, but imagining who they are, where they come from, what they want, what they regret. Sometimes you pour in little pieces of yourself without realizing it. Sometimes you build someone completely different from you—someone you want to understand or become. That process alone already touches on identity, self-reflection, even healing.

Then you build a world. It might be a creepy dungeon, a haunted kingdom, or a peaceful forest where mushrooms talk—but that’s storytelling. That’s symbolism. You’re creating a place where ideas and feelings live. It’s not always conscious, but it reflects you. Sometimes you design the kind of world you wish existed. Other times, you explore your fears or frustrations through fictional conflict.

Improvising scenes, acting out dialogue, reacting emotionally in character—that’s expression. Real expression. You’re trying out different responses, different personas. You can be brave, angry, heartbroken, charming... and it’s safe, because it’s a game. But your brain doesn’t fully treat it like fiction. It learns from those emotional experiences. It processes them.

And it’s not just at the table. You might draw your character. Write their journal. Build props. Paint miniatures. Make a playlist or theme song. Create handouts or maps. That’s artistic output. That’s craft. That’s you turning imagination into something real, something visible. And every little act of creating—even scribbles or nonsense ideas—is still working your emotional and cognitive muscles.

It’s a whole ecosystem of art. Of creativity. Of personal exploration.

Psychology even has names for this stuff:

Narrative Identity: We understand ourselves through story. When we create characters, backstories, and arcs, we’re playing with identity—ours and others’.

Flow State: That feeling when you’re so into drawing or writing or running a scene that time disappears? That’s flow. It’s good for your brain. It lowers stress and increases focus and happiness.

Constructive Imagination: Pretending isn’t “just playing”—it’s how we explore possibilities. We can mentally rehearse real feelings and test reactions in a fictional setting.

Creative Self-Efficacy: Believing you can create makes you want to create more. Every little success, every drawing finished, scene played, or idea shared builds confidence and emotional resilience.

All of this is what art therapy aims for. But a lot of us have already been doing it, just... with dice and dragons.

Roleplaying games give us the tools to imagine, create, and express in ways that are playful and profound. They’re collaborative, emotional, artistic experiences that can have real benefits—whether you're aware of it or not.

So if you’ve ever felt better after a session, or discovered something about yourself through a character, or calmed down just by painting minis or drawing your wizard... now you know why.

Roleplaying is art therapy in disguise.

You don’t need permission to benefit from it. You just need to keep playing.

From Solo Roleplay to Storytelling: How Red Noir Quest Turned Into Something More

 

It started with a solo game.

I wanted to try an evil adventuring party—not something super grim or edgy, more like something dark but fun. A little twisted, but with some charm too. So I created the characters, and then, like always, I drew them. I'm constantly drawing characters and coming up with story ideas. That’s just how my brain works, I guess. But as I started playing through the opening scenes, I began to feel like there was more here. Something worth keeping. Something I might want to turn into a proper story.

That’s how Red Noir Quest began.

 

Drawing has always been my thing. It helps me relax. It’s like entering a flow state, like reaching into a dream. But it’s not always about starting with a drawing. Sometimes it begins with a scene idea or a bit of dialogue. Sometimes with a map. Writing, drawing, solo games—they all talk to each other. I bounce between them all the time, and they feed each other.

 

What I love about solo roleplay is the freedom. There’s no pressure to please anyone else, so I can explore whatever I want. Weird emotions, bad decisions, morally gray stuff—things I might not throw into a group game right away. I can be honest with the story because it’s just me. And sometimes it gets pretty intense, ha.

Eventually, Red Noir Quest started to feel like something I wanted to share. So I began cutting the extra dark stuff and reshaping it. I kept the tone playful but gave it weight. I created a map, wrote up the world, the kingdom, the queen, even details that didn’t end up in the final story—but they helped me understand the world better.

And I didn’t stop playing either. I kept running little solo scenes just to get to know the characters better. That’s something I always recommend: roleplaying your characters—especially in solo—helps a lot with their development. You discover new things about them as you go. You add stuff. You take things away. They evolve naturally as you play.

That’s pretty much my creative process. First, I just let everything pour out. No filter. If it feels good, I go with it. Then, if it seems like it has potential, I take time to polish it and turn it into something I can show the world. But the fun part is always the beginning—that moment when an idea just wants out.

I also take inspiration from my solo games into my group campaigns. NPCs, plots, whole encounters sometimes come from solo stuff I played around with. It’s like a testing ground. A sketchbook with dice.

What I’m trying to say is: if you enjoy creating, but feel stuck, or you think you're “not that creative”—don’t worry about that. Just make stuff. Open your notes app and write down a weird idea. Draw something silly. Play a random scene in your head or on paper and see what happens. The first version doesn’t have to be great. It just needs to exist. You can clean it up later.

And if nothing’s coming out? Take a break. Go for a walk. Doodle. Take a nap—seriously. I get vivid dreams and sometimes they hand me ideas I never would've come up with on my own. Resting helps more than forcing it.

Red Noir Quest didn’t start as a book. It started with curiosity. With play. With sketches. And that’s how most good things start, honestly—not with a big goal, but just doing the thing you enjoy.

So draw. Write. Play. Let it be messy. Let it be weird. Let it be yours.

You never know what it’ll become.

Check out Red Noir Quest – A story born from solo roleplaying, full of mystery, charm, and dark fun. Illustrated with original art and written from the heart.