Ultimate Geek Fu

Note: This week's Ultimate Geek Fu is brought to you by Henry Vogel.

"It was a time when a strong arm and a good sword was all a man needed to carve out a kingdom." Sounds like the first line of a Conan novel, right? I'm sure that was what the original writer, whoever he was, intended. But the line does not come from a sword and sorcery story. It comes from a game review I read in the summer of 1974. The review appeared in a small press fanzine dedicated to wargames. I have no idea what the fanzine was called, but the game was Dungeons & Dragons. I am not overstating the case when I say the review changed my life.

I was 17 when I read that review. In the previous year I had read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I had discovered John Carter and had read all eleven of Burrough's Mars books. The review caught me when I was primed and ready for a life of adventure, even if it was an imaginary life of adventure. And that was what this thing called a "role playing game" promised -- adventure! But it was another two years before I would finally get my chance to play the game.

Small press games such as Dungeons & Dragons (D&D from now on) weren't easy to find in the mid '70s. I didn't live anywhere near a city large enough to support a store that might actually carry such games. It wasn't until January of 1976 that I was able to find a mail order store that had a copy in stock. When the game finally arrived, I dashed up to my college dorm room and started reading the first of the three little books that comprised the game's rules. And ran headlong into a wall of confusion. The rules, you see, were not what you'd call well written. I could figure out some of it, but the one thing I couldn't really figure out was how you actually played the game. Fortunately, a friend who went to a different college learned the game from someone who had learned the game from someone who had learned the game from the designers. (I still maintain that was the only way to actually learn how to play D&D in the early years.)

For me, the summer of 1976 became the Summer of D&D. Not as sexy as the Summer of Love but I didn't have to worry about penicillin shots after it was over, either. To the best of my knowledge, I was the first person to bring D&D onto the Clemson University campus, introducing it to old and new members of the science fiction club. The Fall Semester of D&D was better remembered by parents as the Fall Semester of the Horrible GPR. But, really, how could I go to class when there were orcs to slay, dungeons to explore and maidens to rescue?

No, I didn't use that excuse with my parents.

Thirty-three years have passed since the Summer of D&D. Through out that time, I have continued to play D&D and a whole bunch of other role playing games. Along the way, I have introduced the game to untold numbers of people. In 1979, I finally had a girlfriend who was willing to try playing the game. I married her and we both still enjoy playing role playing games with friends. My best friends are those who join us in our games, which now range from D&D fantasy to pulp action to star-spanning science fiction.

Okay, so I discovered a hobby I still enjoy. That's certainly a good thing but it's hardly life changing. The reason my life has changed is because I discovered that I loved running the games more than I enjoyed playing in them. For those who don't know, role playing games require one person to act as, for want of a better word for it, the god of the game world. Traditionally called a gamemaster, this person creates the game world, creates the adventures and populates the land with people the gamemaster controls. The only parts of the game outside of the gamemaster's control are the players' characters.

For thirty-three years, it has been my pleasure and duty to create stories and tell them to a live audience. But the story I'm telling can turn in a moment, heading off in a totally unexpected direction because of something the players have done.

For thirty-three years, I've gotten immediate feedback for my stories. If I put something illogical in my story, the players catch it every time. I usually have five minutes or less to come up with something that both fits the story and makes something illogical appear logical.

For thirty-three years, I've had to play thousands of different characters within my world, striving to give them each a unique voice and personality.

For thirty-three years, this game has made me hone my abilities as both a storyteller and a writer.

Without D&D, I would not have had the skills or confidence necessary to write comic books. Without D&D, I would not have learned the storyteller's craft. Without D&D, I would have lurked around the old Ranting Room, having neither the skills nor confidence to enter the Friday Challenges. Without D&D, I cannot even imagine what my life would be like today.

So, what are you wait for? There are orcs to slay! Evil masterminds to foil! Galactic empires to topple! And, most importantly, stories to tell! Grab some dice and get cracking!

As Bruce would write, let the arguments begin!

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ULTIMAGE GEEK FU runs every Wednesday. Have a question that's just bugging the heck out of you about Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Battlestar Gallactica, Farscape, Firefly, Fringe, Heroes, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Smallville, The X-Files, X-Men, The Man From Atlantis, or pretty much any other SF-flavored media property? Send it to slushpile@thefridaychallenge.com with the subject line, "Geek Fu," and we'll stuff it in the queue.