Sometimes I stop and just wonder at it all.

How can I have connected so deeply, so completely, with stuff other people made up?  To the point that I write about them?  To the point that I want to make up stuff as well?  Even to the point that I am more knowledgeable about events and people that never existed?  Is it all about escape?  About being anywhere else but here?

Naw, its about power.

Yeah, that was my long-winded way of saying that in the next few weeks I’m going to try my hand at running an rpg with some friends.  This is referred to as being the “Game Master.”  Back in the old days, the all or nothing days it was called “Dungeon Master.”  But that was back when the only game in town was Dungeons & Dragons.

And though that’s where I can trace the lineage of the new mantle that I mean to take on, its not the exact game I’m going to play.  No, I mean to take on a game and story very close to my heart: The Dresden Files RPG.

Right here, in this GUARDicle, in this moment, you should be experiencing pre-deja vu.  Because The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher, is in my Top 3 favorite book series of all time.  The latest book was called Cold Days, and it was, and I kid you NOT, the 14th in the series.  Yeah, this series of books, that follows a Wizard Private Eye named Harry Dresden, is fourteen books deep, with the 15th on the way.  That may sound intimidating… right until you start reading and realize that its the equivalent problem of having too much money.  NOBODY COMPLAINS ABOUT HAVING TOO MUCH MONEY.  This book series is exceptionally good.

Pick up the first book in the series, Storm Front, and be totally absorbed.

Okay, okay, so read the book blah blah blah I have a book boner, please don’t stare.

So the plan is to grab some friends and practice this strange venture into a new avenue of geekdom.  Thank goodness Agent Aaron is going to help me out (since he is our role playing Agent) and my amazingly talented artist friend, Amy Watson (oh hey, we made a comic book together, which I’ll get into at some later date), and they shall join their collective energies to help me navigate the unknown Game Master waters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So far I have no idea what I’m doing, and feel quite sure I will end up looking like the most stereotypical, magic missile throwing feeb this side of the Never Never.

Side Nate Tangent: I’m fairly sure Agent Aaron is going to punch me in the back of the head for that last pic.

But what’s actually going to happen is that I’m going to have a lot of fun.  I mean, I sit around with make believe worlds spinning around in my head anyways, why not have some fun and share what’s in my brain?  Especially in a way that doesn’t take drastic surgery.  How will it actually go?  One can almost guarantee a future GUARDicle about the experience.  And who knows how many other doors it will open?

Next Up!: