Very briefly when I was a teenager (actually right around the actual time I literally turned from twelve to thirteen) I was into Dungeons and Dragons. Not really playing the actual game but buying the books and all of the “stuff” that went with it. TSR manuals and graph paper and little silver lead knights. I had many different kinds of dice, 8 sided, 6 sided , dragon style, diamond style . . . all kinds of dice that I never really did anything with but keep together in an oversized shoe box in the hope that some day I would find some other people who were as enamored with all this stuff as much as I was and I would actually have the oppurtunity to play what I imagined must have been (and was advertised as) the most incredible game ever created.
When I finally did manage to get a game together with a small group of friends it was horrendously boring. The whole process was lame. One person played “Dungeon master” a sort of Narrator for the story that was being crafted by commitee. As if that wasn’t all bad enough there was quite a bit of MATH involved. I guess actual nerds didn’t mind, but I wasn’t REALLY a nerd. I was a writer, a misfit artist looking for a creative outlet. Sadly, it was always just an argument over whose battle axe could do 3X damage to an armored Troll. My time in the realm was short lived, though I did keep buying the books for a while . . .
I was reminded of all of this recently while playing Gears of War online with some friends. As our online battles waged and we took turns trash talking and destroying each others avatars with an increasing amount of healthy aggression and friendly competition I realized that THIS is what I wished Dungeons and Dragons would have been. Immersive and imaginative with very little math.
Even the group I play with wouldn’t have existed then as it does now. My “teamates” are all in their 30s with wives, kids, jobs, responsibilitiies and very little “free” time. So we play in the living room after the kids are asleep and the wives are tired of being bothered by us. I don’t really have a group of “friends” that I socialize with anymore. I have people I know at work and a small handful of actual “friends” that gets smaller with each passing year or broken marriage.
But thanks to the time we live in, I can fire up my cable modem, pop on a head set and hang out with my “buddies” in an immersive environment where we are free to go on quests and be the heroes we all believe we truly are. And even better is the fact that Microchips have generously offered to handle the math.
It’s a good time to be a nerd. Even if you really aren’t.
Posted by calmixx 
