📄 Our Mission 📄

"Our mission", no no no, folks, we are just fooling around. There is no mission, we are not there yet. We saw a bunch of website that have pages entitled as such and we wanted to be part of the cool kids too. "Our mission" sounds like we have something super important going on that everybody should be part of it, like we take this supposed mission super seriously as a way of life and what guides our whole business, like we want everyone to take it seriously to and waves our flag around. It is not quite like that... yet.

There is still something we would like to talk about, though, and your attention would be greatly appreciated. Let us tell you a story: the tale of why Role Playing Games and storytelling became such a big thing in our childhood.

 

Sometimes it is hard to bring people together.

 

We have a huge family that we grew up close to, we also had the wildest variety of acquaintances and the most blessed diversity of friends through our lives.

Religion and politics, music and sports, passions and hobbies, etc. Everybody has their thing, everybody is drawn to something, and there is beauty in that.

There is also a lot of divide, of course. Which, in its own way, leads to personal and collective growth. Sure.

As the very creative builders that we are, driven by incalculable different reasons, we humans can use our skill sets to build anything imaginable: sometimes the production is magnificent content that can be shared through ages, sometimes the result is a bridge helping us share the magnificent content, sometimes it is a wall to protect that magnificent content.

For a plethora of reasons, some of those protective walls also work against us, and while you are well protected inside your own fortress, we tend to underestimate how valuable the bridges are, how resourceful it can be to pave good roads and fix the overused ones, how convenient and joyful it can be to have a few secret doors to let people come through and be part of, our protected environment, even contribute to it.

The connection between diverse people is powerful simply because there is an unknown variable to each relationship. Everybody is their own individual, you are not going to like everyone, neither should you. What we should do is respect each other at all times, even more when it comes to people that are very different than us, because that empathy can nurture a caring feeling that allows us to see the world through different perspectives, learn a bit more about human feelings and how to position ourselves when confronted with adversities caused by communication issues due to lack of connection, decisive divides caused by misunderstood diversity, or even moral conflict generated through ethical/cultural dilemmas and the constant clash of views and wills that happens naturally in any group or society.

Unfortunately, when you are a young kid, sometimes you don't care for intricate details of human interaction, you just want to have your buddies around spending some quality time with you and with each other.

Sometimes it is so hard to bring people together!

Since I was young, I noticed how resistant some people are to unity. I was not really sure why at the time, but there is a clashing nature to some people, while some others have a hard time getting out of their shell, and others yet simply didn't have the chance to meet enough different people to realize how far ahead they could be in their lives just by opening themselves up to participate with diverse people towards a common goal.

I remember how difficult it was to figure out some sort of common playground for my friends and family. Some friends had physical limitations, some friends had really strict upbringings, some of my family members were too different in their educational background, there was always a barrier to connection, there was always a division, and the bigger the group, the harder it was to walk around the restraints of natural diversity.

Sometimes it was hard to bring people together.

Then I got to know this RPG (Role Playing Game) stuff, where everyone is allowed to explore a point of view that they don't necessarily share in their own lives.

All of a sudden we had something that everyone could relate to, it didn't matter what you are in real life, or how you were perceived: for a moment there you are allowed to put yourself in someone else's shoes and simply have fun with it. The chance to take things as lightly or heavy as you want to. The chance to explore unspoken feelings, unturned stones, unheard accents… The chance to tell impossible stories, to change outcomes and explore all potential in our own minds while being delighted to realize the potential in the people around you.

When you play Role Playing Games like we've learned to, then you can be the hero, you can be the villain, you can be part of a tale where neither of those are necessary. We learned the power of storytelling and the vastness of possibilities.

The best thing: no one owns or commands a role play game table other than the probabilities.

There are different systems and different games, but mostly they have something in common: you don't necessarily have control over the outcomes, just over ways to alter the probability of an event to be successful or not. As good as you might be regarding addressing the probabilities, no one owns the probabilities.

The games we played, these games don't care for our religion, our politics, our skin colour, impairments, financial situation, age, gender… the dice we rolled were simple and true, they didn't depend on any socio-cultural-economic external factors to provide us a universally accepted answer. The way it works is very simple: you say what you want your character(s) to do, the table has previously agreed with a set of rules, then roll your dice in the open for everyone to see and evaluate together if the numbers describe the results you were looking for.

Role Playing Games were the big equalizer for my youth, the one place where judgment, fate, destiny, outcome, etc. are build on top of a simple gesture that would be the same for everyone involved: a roll. It was a huge lesson for my life regarding justice and fairness, because it doesn't matter what story we are telling, or what system we were playing, we would all abide by the same rules and work as a group around those rules to build up our characters, scenarios, campaigns… ultimately, we learned how to be together for a greater purpose.

Not just the equalizer and the measurement of fairness, the Role Playing Games also taught me important life lessons about frustrations, about overcoming challenges that were not expected, how to re-calibrate and adjust based on outcomes that were not entirely under my control.

Even beyond the realm of possibilities and certainties, the Role Playing Games also had me figuring out how to celebrate together, because whatever happens, it was ours.

Not a single person owns a good RPG table, yet the resulting fantasy is a collectively built structure that belongs to everyone involved. We celebrate the wins together, we laugh about the losses together; sometimes we put things in the perspective of such a good storytelling event that there are not even such things as a win or a loss, even though we are still playing a game.

Our game, our story, our moment.

We played so much, we've learned so much from other people sharing their creative minds with us, that eventually bringing people together was not hard anymore.

For a minor moment in time, when we were playing our games, we were allowed to be human. Allowed to make mistakes and learn from them while having fun with it. We were allowed to play freely and adapt to every new situation, every new player, every new dice roll.

I just realized that sometimes I write as "I", and sometimes I explain the events as a "we". That happens because there are a bunch of ways to achieve the same results, I was just lucky enough to have others around that would appreciate the safe haven of Role Playing Games. So, these events I partially describe as the awakening of a bigger collective consciousness inside me were the same events for others that also took the opportunity to let the magic grow on its own. The RPG games and rolling dice were the equalizers for me, as they were for my brother, my cousins, and a great deal of awesome friends we had the pleasure of playing together with.

Sometimes it is hard to bring people together, if you don't have the right tools for it.

Oh, folks, RPG and storytelling are THE tools. We've played with kids and elderly, we've played for fun or to dive deep into historical issues, we entered completely fantastic worlds of imagination and absurdly complex dramas that would make movie makers proud. 

So, this is what we want with this website: we want to build a beautiful fort/castle/city/paradise with natural bridges, where everyone can find the connections to try and be their best selves, or just have fun a while. At the Omega Roll there is no judgment for the ways people enjoy their games, we want to encourage people to feel free and give it a shot at themselves, play a little bit with storytelling, sit around boardgames, make their realities better through the endless possibilities of their own dreams and imagination. Mostly, though, we want you to spend some time together as people.

We want you to get together with others just because, get to know the people around you, give them the chance to be part of something unique. It is like writing a book together, and every now and then the dice tell you what could or not have happened. Sounds like an exaggeration, but these days it gets harder and harder to connect with real people, to know how to enjoy each other face to face, leave the masks, tags and user names behind.

We want you to have fun and enjoy this website as a whole, beyond the store.

The Omega Roll store is awesome, sure, but there is much more to that.

The dice we sell, the theme of this business, our blog and the way we describe and cherish our products… it seems so silly, it is so simple, so niche…

Behind our words and our business, though, we are offering an open-hearted welcome for everyone that wants to feel human again.

The world can be a tough place, and reality is challenging enough as it is, we usually don't have the time to feel, to get to know ourselves, nor to acknowledge others for who they are and provide a respectful environment for them to be welcomed into our lives.

Playfulness brings us closer to ourselves and to each other. You've seen that before for sure, all sorts of examples, from when people wear sport shirts to cheer for the same event or go watch professional bouts together, to when we practice physical activities together or encourage others to excel at their own activities.

The natural prowess as builders is a magical thing, and enables us the greatest of of the human beings, also makes us very susceptible to the urge of building walls. The chase for productivity nurtures that natural prowess constantly, it can be a good thing.

Our natural survive-and-adapt mindset needs to be nurtured too, to keep our creative tools sharp and allow us to see beyond the immediate. We are born dreamers, we are curious, we imagine multiple futures and choose the event we want to be part of to try and steer our lives towards that future. The more we get used to working our brains towards the visualization of multiple paths, then greater the chances that we can build better paths, safer bridges to the benefit of all.

Well, it sounds like I am connecting the roll of dice with a better future for humankind, is that it?

YES.

Seems like a long shot, eh?

Tell me though, can the world we live in be a better place without getting different people working towards the same goal? Can those people work proudly and happily without feeling safe and welcome? Can we move along and overcome challenges if we don't realize that sometimes the dice were already dealt and it is time to move on together and find a new path for our own life stories?

My friend, "making things better" is a skill, whatever the thing that you want to make better is. As any skill, you need a medium to practice, grow, test, improve, research…

We truly believe that storytelling and role play are one of the many exercises that you can perform to improve your "making things better" skill. We truly believe that letting the dice roll and moving forward together can be beneficial for anyone. 

Through the ludic ways of role play and storytelling, you can explore anything you want, you can flip the views just to see where things would go, you can let life happen in scenarios where things go unexpectedly perfect or get hit by surprises when mundane events collapse the whole story inadvertently.

There is a reason that playing make-believe is so important for kids to develop certain skills, it is no joke; what we believe and stand for is that this ludic aspect of growing up not only should never be discarded: it should be embraced, trained, encouraged and upgraded. Again, sometimes it is hard to bring people together, if you don't have the right tools for it, and we are talking about a tool that you can bring with you anywhere you go, a tool that you were born with and just need to honed and put to practice.

We know that simple gestures can go a long way, so don't wait: start rolling as soon as you can.

If you don't have dice, get a few from our store, go play with your kids/friends/family, you will immediately recognize the powerful connection between you and the person rolling dice with you.

Don't like dice? Don't have money? Fine, flip a coin. Use a virtual dice roller of some sorts, ask random people for a number or even for an answer, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that anyone can train their creative minds to imagine and understand other points of view, other realities, and that will necessarily help you put yourself in someone else's shoes and give a boost to your "making things better" skill. 

It will come to a point where you will be able to think of so many different scenarios for even the simplest of events, then you eventually will be able to empathize with people that have nothing in common with you other than existence. I've seen this power to empathize with other people, mending friendships, reconciling siblings, healing marriages, and even saving people's lives.

It is indeed a crazy steep jump from rolling a couple of dice and playing make believe and saving someone's life, I understand that, of course. Stop to think about it though: making things better is not always about grandiose gestures, being a superhero or dedicating your whole life to a cause. For the most part, our ordinary lives are made of ordinary things that we give extraordinary meaning to. So go ahead and give extraordinary meaning to your creations and connections!

We are here to remind you that the difference between your real life story and the life story of your darkest self is just a few dice rolls away, and so is the difference between you and your best self. Learn how to assess those possibilities, remember how to dream big and allow yourself to play around with everything that you are, everything that you feel, and everything that you would like to be and would like to feel. Give yourself the chance to also recognize the traits that are not so good, play with those too, why not? That is the whole game.

Get to know yourself, and give the space for people to get to know themselves too.

This whole website and store is an ode to Role Playing Games and Storytelling, and all the good it has done in our lives, and it lives on with the hopes that the magic rubs into you as soon as you roll one of dice, see yourself in the mirror with our beautiful dice merchandise, or read one of our posts that we create to celebrate and challenge our skills.

Thank you so much for allowing us to ramble on and try to reach out to you, it is already a pleasure to have your visit and your time and attention are greatly appreciated.

If you ever want to talk about this and want to know more about my ambitious claim that RPG and storytelling make the world a better place just click the following link to contact us and share your thoughts on this too.