#45 Role Playing - Perhaps the geekiest of all pursuits

Laugh if you must, but pencil and paper gaming is not only still around, but it's experiencing a resurgance. Dungeons and Dragons, the venerable grandaddy of all role playing games continues to lead the charge. Wizards of the Coast, the company who absorbed TSR, has relaunched the game with a snazzy, open source system, dubbed D20. The system could eventually serve as a skeleton for hundreds of games such as Star Wars, Call of Chtulu and Wheel of Time. I for one am excited to try the new Hellboy game (powered by Steve Jackson's Gurps). I will probably DM the Hellboy game to help pass the time until my good friend Bryan decides to revive our killer Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play campaign.

There are those (they number in the millions) who just can't get over the idea of a bunch of nerds huddled around a darkened table, telling fantastic stories with the help of funny dice and caffeinated soda. For the rest of us, I rally you. "Sally forth, friends! Sharpen thy swords and harden thy hearts, for evil abounds, and none but us can smite it. Huzzah!"