I Attack The Darkness

So I'm going to run a role-playing game online, posting via a message board. It's with a few guys with whom I liked to 'game' when I lived in Illinois... in fact, gaming with them was so much fun, I didn't really want to give it up when I moved.

Yes. I approch being one of the biggest nerds alive.

I am shameless on this. I'm actually more proud than anything. Hardcore scientist, can quote the Holy Grail, better than average knowledge of computers, went to school forever and loved math, worked for a decade with lasers, paint miniatures, work for an electrical engineering company, and play D&D and all sorts of other D&D types of games. And that's just one small facet of me.

I also like a good white wine sauce with seafood.

Most of you, if you didn't know this about me, haven't really been paying much attention. Anyway, I'm sidetracked. The game. It's in a game system under which I've never played, nor have the players I think. It allows me to tell a story while getting direct input from a small group of others. It just so happens that this group of others can get me in stiches from laughter. It's all any of us can do to run the game while incorporating the wisecracks.

I wish I could translate it for you, but if you don't speak dork or nerd the nuance would be lost on you. And the humor is in the details. It would take forever to explain a simple phrase that causes a grin. Much in the same way that, at least for those of you that speak geek, saying "Leeeeeeeeroy Jenkins!!" elicts a feeling of knowing something really, REALLY funny.

http://www.leeroyjenkins.net/leeroy-jenkins-videos.htm

Such is the nature of the title of this post. The default manner in which someone may find themselves playing a game of this nature is to attack everything that breathes, and to eschew the subtlety of social interaction. Most people know that there is a significant amount of dice rolling involved with the game, with several creative three-dimensional baubles; the four-sided pyramid, eight-sided octahedron, ten-sided, twelve-sided, and twenty-sided icosahedral dice all accompany the ubiquitous six-sided cube. They are hackers and slashers, and they are the stage at which many of the cranially-inactive throw their hands up and say "D&D is for nerds." Yet they usually proceed to lose their money at craps tables, playing the role of "sap" for the casino, and this is socially acceptable.

The beauty of the games are that you help to determine the outcome, and that there is rarely a set course on which the game must travel. As a player, you are reading an interactive book, out loud, with others and trying to accomplish something. The most fun is when somebody thinks of something that no one else has, a thought that twists the mind just enough that you may have touched a place in the creative universe that is new, vibrant, and worthy of contemplation.

It is a place where the seeds of genius are reaped.

That may be a bold, possibly even an arrogant statement to be sure. But part of the element of genius isn't the acquirement of knowledge, but the application of knowledge- in other words, wisdom. It's wisdom that allows you to do things that others may not have thought to do, and that is a path with unending promise.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to running my game. If this sounds semi-interesting to you and you want in, send me an email. The guys are very friendly, and who knows- you may actually like it.