I’m a bit of a jack of all trades. When I work on a project I use anything from woodworking and sewing to chemistry and physics to human physiology and psychology. I also like reading up then chatting about random science and history and art stuff. I like working with computers occasionally, and I’ll just randomly throw some basic geometry or algebra into a project, but I was also an art student so I’m not half bad at making things visually appealing either.

I have a job where I often get a chance to use my various areas of semi-expertise when I pick up a side project, but that’s led me into getting waaay overinvolved in my work and neglecting my outside relationships. What hobbies or other non-professional things could I get involved in that would give me that same opportunity to flex my creativity when solving a problem?

  • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    15·
    1 month ago

    Because you talk about hobby, what about LARP ?

    It’s creative, is about problem solving, and involves a lot of skills including

    • Sewing and crafting, the community has a huge DIY culture (even though nowadays, there is a few brands doing larp fashion, and it’s cheaper to buy and chainmail, than to buy it’s weight in steel wire). So getting all these awesome kits is the opportunity to craft a lot

    • Acting : As it’s name stand larp is about role-playing, which is basically improvisation theatre with a scenario known only by the director. So you try to put up your best acting to be a realistic, mafia boss, naive kid, or lord

    • Problem solving and social interactions : Larp are a social game, where people face a common problem and need to find a solution, while finding the right balance between their character faction/interest and the common interest. So there is a lot of social negotiation (often around some spiced wine), mystery investigation, and exploration to solve the main problem

    • Combat, in some larp, if you play a fighter character, you may even have the opportunity to fight. On my experience, I end-up fighting in less than half of the game, there is game with no combats, games where my character either can fight or is too busy with other stuff to fight, and some games where I go fighting.

    • JoeCoT@fedia.io
      5·
      1 month ago

      Came here for this. You can basically use LARP as an excuse to further almost any creative hobby. For PAX Unplugged I made a LARP Escape Room, and that was an excuse for me to learn how to use Arduino controllers and wire hardware in order to make a robot puzzle for the event.

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
      2·
      1 month ago

      Any kind of RP is good for that. Personally I find LARP/Cosplay kinda cringe, but TTRPGs also encourage creativity in problem solving.

      • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.worksFrançais
        1·
        1 month ago

        American ?

        I really have the impression that on this side of the pond larp gets well accepted. And it offers way more way to be creative/craft than TTPRG. But i understand that if you’re used to see people in Short-Tshirt fighting each other with pool noodle in a public park and calling it “LARP” you have a biased view of the scene

            • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
              1·
              1 month ago

              Yeah it does to me. Not trying to yuck anyone’s yum, I think it’s great that those people are having fun. But for me, cosplaying in general is just really lame. I never understood the appeal of dressing up. For roleplaying, I feel that it would hinder my suspension of disbelief to be looking at someone’s conception of what fantasy costumes look like for them.

              Also, roleplaying is an intimate activity in my mind. Not necessarily sexually intimate, but there is a trust component. I wouldn’t want to attend a larping convention for the same reason I wouldn’t want to play Pathfinder with a different group of people every week. In order to really be comfortable getting into someone else’s head, you need to be a bit vulnerable. And to do that, you need to build up some trust with others. Trying to roleplay a character at a convention full of people I don’t know sounds like my version of Hell.