Author Ethan Gilsdorf has been on a gamer’s quintessential quest for meaning. He’s been a cemetery groundskeeper, a movie projectionist and a bookstore manager. After some time in Paris, Gilsdorf settled near Boston. His writing on pop culture, travel and the arts has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times and Boston Globe, among other respected publications.

To further his quest for self-discovery, Gilsdorf authored Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms.

In the book, the author searches his own past and explores his reasons for turning to fantasy role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Gilsdorf’s mixed feelings about escapism and gaming bring the reader on an honest journey into various realms: table top gaming, LARP, wizard rock, large conventions and even Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

Alltern8.com correspondent Tara Clapper spoke to Ethan Gilsdorf about his exploration of geek culture and his own past.

Tara Clapper: Did you ever scare yourself by delving back into the past?

Ethan Gilsdorf: Continually….it certainly gave me pause. I had put these realms aside. Over the years I had attempted to get back into a lot of these things and it was a fear--I was worried I was going to get sucked into a fantasy adventure.

TC: Did you find that some fandoms had more intense fans than others?

EG: That depends on how you define “intense.” At a gaming convention, people stay up all night long playing games, and that’s the kind of fan with devotion. I don’t think any one fan type is more devoted than others. It’s one thing to sit around the table and play for twelve hours straight…it’s another thing to dress up and go to a ‘Harry and the Potters’ concert. For some people it’s extreme, for others it’s just normal.

TC: Which of your ‘adventures’ stood out the most?

EG: There are individuals I encountered who I found to be amazing. They had very interesting stories to tell. There’s a woman who I interviewed who is a devoted online game player. She’s disabled, and through the game she is able to experience another self. She is able to interact with people who do not judge her.

One particular member of the Tolkien Society in England has this thing called the ‘Orc’s Cave’ in the basement; it has reproductions from the movies. There are people like this all over the place. They are players, they are game collectors, they are LARPers.

TC: What is your preferred race/class/profession?

EG: I think that as a kid when I was playing a lot of D&D, I was strangely not attracted to playing the ‘super-macho warrior with eighteen strength.’ I think I was more inclined to play sort of the nature-loving range elf/hunter/druid kind of character. I was also very intrigued by hobbits and dwarves and I think it was something about being this small sneaky creature that could lurk in the shadows and take walks that had special abilities and tricks and traps and that kind of stuff…which I think was very appealing. As a kid, I was always inventing and coming up with inventions and goofy contraptions and that kind of appealed to me.

In my chapter on LARPing, I go to a LARP called Forest of Doors in Atlanta. I was writing about it and participating in it and the character I chose was a monk and a scribe…his character would record what was happening in the LARP…it was a good role play for a journalist. It didn’t actually require much role playing.

TC: Was it odd to participate in some of these gaming activities as a forty-something?

EG: It was very difficult. I had a lot of questions about why I was doing it or how I would feel about it once I started to participate. It’s my own personal quest to understand what this means to me.

TC: You admit escapism as honestly being one reason for gravitating towards role playing games and fantasy. Did you find others who admitted this as well?

EG: I think most people who are into these various kinds of fantasy and gaming subcultures have an awareness to an extent they are escaping…the problem with the term ‘escapism’ is it has negative connotations. So if you were to say to these people ‘are you escapist?’ they would disagree…it’s not really escaping, it’s doing these other things like finding a community, having fun, doing things that you can’t do in regular life…going on adventures, using imaginary realms for creative problem-solving but in a fantasy realm. So that said, there are people who I talk about in the book (including my own story) who may have taken this too far.

There is particularly one man who I interviewed in the book who admitted to being addicted to online gaming. He was escaping from a difficult situation he found himself in in life. His family wanted him to become a doctor and he didn’t want to become a doctor. He went to medical school. Rather than quitting, he decided to sabotage his medical career by turning to gaming. It was very much deliberate.

In my personal experience, the reason for my interest in role playing games as a teenager was my situation at home with a disabled mother. Had I not found Dungeons & Dragons, I would have found something else to take away from my pain ultimately. It is just fortunate that D&D found me! It has a lot of wonderful side benefits which I go into in my book.

TC: Why do you think some gamers or geeks abandon their geeky pursuits?

EG: That’s a good question. I think for some people it’s like any interest, like knitting or sewing or crocheting…but you move on, you’re not really into it any more. For many people it’s just a phase; it’s just a hobby. There’s a huge cultural pressure to not play these games. We grow older, we have full time jobs, married, spouses, children…all of this takes up a lot of time. The gaming in particular requires large amounts of time.

One of the wonderful things I’ve noticed on my book tour are lots of fathers and sons. Lots of people introducing all of this stuff to a new generations. I think this is particularly true with Harry Potter. They’ve grown up hearing these fantastical tales in the Harry Potter universe…that has a huge effect on what kind of pop culture and leisure activities are accessible and acceptable in the future for these kids when they become adults. Some people read The Hobbit as kids…but multiply that by 300 million and you have the number of people that were exposed to Harry Potter.

TC: What do you think of cliques in LARPs and elitist attitudes in gaming?

EG: I encountered a little bit of that and a little bit of infighting or strong opinions. The SCA had a lot of bureaucracy. It was kind of hierarchical and sort of like the real world. There are some people that moan about the SCA or LARP. It’s a healthy debate going on within the communities. I think people make fun of the phrase…which I think is kind of ironic. They know what it’s like to feel this thing of being ridiculed but it’s human nature that even if you’re at the bottom of human nature, you’ll find someone below you, in a lighthearted way.

With some of the older groups, they feel a little bit of resentment because they’re culture’s becoming mainstream … anyone can become a member. They may fear it’s going to lose its spark, its magic. [Groups should] forge onward despite being a fringe group…there’s a bonding that occurs there. A mentality. It’s the same thing with people who follow music…”now there’a huge act but I knew them back when…”

With Tolkien fandom, there’s a chapter where I visit Oxford, England and the Tolkien Society meeting. People were just talking about Tolkien business and there was a bit of a grumbling going on among the old school fans. [They felt that there were some] who hard read the book and were studying for years and there was this whole new group of fans who had never read the books and had only been introduced to the stardom via ‘Viggo Mortensen and Orlando Bloom are hot.’ More fans who are aware of Tolkien would be a good thing, [they] might go on to read the books, might take their fandom more seriously…but it is funny, a funny little phenomenon of the old versus new and the ‘we were here.’

TC: You seem to be a professional storyteller. Did role playing games influence you to be a writer/teacher/poet?

EG: I really do think so. It could be I’m just looking backward and looking at all of the things that influenced me. Maybe I want to look at D&D as having a positive effect on my life…there’s no doubt that that’s one of the positive impacts that the game had on me. That’s why it’s such a great tool for learning. Kids or adults who play don’t even realize that they’re being taught how to add other characters or spin a tale.

Some playwrights are role players because they have to inhabit the characters they are writing about; they have to be them on some levels. In the process of creating a poem or short story, you are kind of creating a world Even if it’s a world identical to what we live in in 21s century America, it’s world-building. I recall making [world] maps and dungeon maps and the scenarios and back story. That influence is still in me, I’m just not exercising it as a dungeon master anymore.

TC: Was writing this book your way of admitting that the geek within never dies?

EG: You’re absolutely right. It was a question I myself needed to answer. Was the inner geek still there and how did I need to recognize it and embrace it? It sounds hokey to say ‘embrace your inner geek.’ I do feel like for a certain number of people they don’t feel comfortable admitting to an average person that ‘I play World of Warcraft’ or ‘I participate in a boffer LARP’ because they’re afraid of what people are going to think about them…but this has changed in the last twenty-five years…there’s a lot more LARPing and cosplay. The world has exploded in my view. People are still going to look at you a little bit funny if they see you in your wizard’s robes.

It’s not that my book has a mission…but hopefully the book will help them understand that this is okay. It’s okay to have these geeky pursuits. We shouldn’t fear what people will think of it…it’s like an education process very similar to gay rights, civil rights. The stakes are lower but people still feel justified in making fun of us…and you’d never make fun of someone’s interest in a sports team or someone who is collecting Beanie Babies…you might think it’s kooky, but we’re not going to make fun of them. In the beginning it’s still sort of the last frontier. There’s probably other subcultures similar to that.

Learn more about the author and Fantasy Geeks and Gaming Freaks at Ethan’s Web site.