What If Life Is a Role-Playing Game?

If you’ve come here looking for answers, you’ve come to the wrong place.

This place isn’t here to give you answers. It’s here to invite you into a deeper question as a quest:

What if life itself is a role-playing game? And what if the quests, monsters, and treasures we encounter every day are not just metaphors — but narrative mechanics that help us level up who we are?

More and more, the world around us feels like it’s running on a script we didn’t choose — one that’s breaking down. Our institutions, our roles, our work — they often feel like cages rather than the creative playgrounds they were meant to be.

And yet, in the quiet corners of our lives — especially within the imaginary worlds we play within games — we glimpse something else:

• A sense of meaning, when we’re on a quest.
• A sense of purpose, when we face a fear.
• A sense of freedom, when we roleplay who we wish we could be.

What if those weren’t escapes?
What if they were clues?

What This Is

Be Real Creative is an evolving world — a living handbook, an unfolding map, and a growing journal—all built around one idea:

We can use the narrative mechanics of games, the mythic power of the Hero’s Journey, and the deeper terrain of psychological growth to navigate the adventure of being human.

As a whole, Be Real Creative embodies the leadership, authenticity, and creativity to heroically be nobody-but-yourself which is what Joseph Campbell believed being a hero was all about and what E.E. Cummings so eloquently put into words.

To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

E.E. Cummings

Within this sanctuary of exploration, you’ll find:

• A Player’s Handbook, unpacking the metaphors: quests, monsters, treasures, experience, and more
• A Campaign Guide, mapping out the stages of human development and the plateaus of adult development as the inner terrain within us — from The Walled City to The Great Wilderness
• An Adventurer’s Journal, filled with reflections, quotes, and breadcrumbs by notable people who have already lead the way

Most of this is still being explored and taking shape. Chapters are blank. Regions unmapped. Dragons unaccounted for.

So think of it like we’re both gamers and developers playtesting a new game called Life and we’re figuring it out, as we play it.

But the call to adventure has been sounded—and this is the beginning of the journey.

Who This Is For

If you’ve ever felt like:

• You’re outgrowing the story you’re in
• You’re stuck in a role that no longer fits
• You’re searching for a path that’s more alive, playful, and true to you…

…you might already be on the adventure. You’re just looking for a map. Or a companion. Or a campfire to gather around.

That’s what this is.

You are welcome here — not to follow a path, but to co-create one.

Join the Journey

Whether you’re just passing through or ready to dive deeper, this space is open. Read what calls to you. Share if it resonates. Or just bookmark and wander back later. There’s no “right way” to play this game.

The treasure isn’t at the end. It’s in the journey.
The leveling up isn’t in knowing. It’s in becoming.

Are you ready?

Here be dragons.
Let’s go.

This is such a strong match with what we know happens as players develop in virtual worlds that it can’t be a coincidence. People who play virtual worlds for fun must be engaged in their own, personal, hero’s journey.

If you think about it, why else would they invest two to four hours every night for 18 months playing the same computer game? They’re doing it because they get to be themselves.

That’s all that people anywhere throughout history have ever wanted to be.

Richard A. Bartle
MMOs From The Inside Out

What Role Are You Currently Playing?

To get started, help us to understand you by indicating the current role you’re playing in life right now.

In doing so, we can assist your exploration here using a language and a perspective you may be more familiar with.