All I need are good friends, a sharp sword, cold ale and a barrel of pickled fish.

I normally write blogs about my writing projects or the struggle within their crafting. Oh, trust me, there is one brewing, but this time around, I wanted to try something a tad different. I've been a RPGer since I was around twelve or thirteen years old. I've played a plethora of different gaming systems over the years (thank you Dave Somerville!) but mostly it's been Dungeons & Dragons, in it's varied editions. I was burned out for a long time with gaming and especially fantasy. After all, how many times can you save the beautiful maiden with the 20 comeliness, the city, the world from demons, dragons, even fellow players. (Darrell, John, yeah, you!) It tends to get boring and predictable. But the fact is, as we've all gotten older, our individual lives have taken us all in our own directions. Which is normal of course and a wonderful thing. Sadly, that makes it tough for old friends to find time to hang out and have fun. Especially when we all had young kids. So, we still get together whenever we can, mainly to have a night of old geeky fun. To me, it's become our version of “poker night”. Only more fun. (in my humble opinion.) I still game with great friends that I played with in high school and that in and of itself, is a miracle and a blessing. Not many people can say they still hang out with a fairly decent number of old school chums. We are lucky indeed. It's with the nostalgic thought that I am writing this blog. As I sit here, (warming up for my night of fiction writing)and cranking Iron Maiden, it strikes me just how many of my fondest memories of my youth and adulthood have happened around a gaming table. Some of my closest friends came from a silly game where you roll plastic dice and pretend you're a brave fighter or a crafty mage. It just boggles my mind just how powerful and important that silly little game has been to me and I am sure to others, as well. My friends started yet another gaming campaign over the holidays and even though we've only played a few times (see the busy life statement above) I haven't laughed so hard and had such a great time in quite a while. There's just something about being with old friends that takes you back and in a way buts aside all the negative crap the world can levy on you. While you're at the table, books, dice, character sheets in front of you, (cold beverages too.) everything is just...cool. Carefree and comfortable. There's no concern about bills, the cost of gas, politics, or writing projects due (well, that's not totally true, I always worry and think about them.) It's like a pocket dimension for those six hours or so. And, it's not imperative to solve all the mysteries of the plot, or kill the bad-guy, what's imperative, is to have fun, forget the bullshit and laugh and enjoy the amazing company you're in. A great example of the power of gaming has on you, just happened recently. Let me ramble on a bit. As I mentioned, we started up a game recently and we're always looking for new folks to come and game, sometimes it works out, sometimes...not so much. (that's a whole blog on its own.) Well, one day I was surfing Facebook and received a friendship request from an old friend I hadn't seen or spoken to in a very long time. I had met him through my best friend at the time and of course, it was at a D&D game. We became fast friends and then as always, life sent us in different directions. I gladly accepted his request and quickly we were shooting the breeze and catching up. To make a long story longer, I asked him to game with us and he was stoked to join us. After hanging out with him and talking, I had forgotten how much I liked the dude and just how many amazing memories that only he and the others that gamed with us during time, knew about. Golden memories that not even the darkest moment could take away. And the older I get, I find myself truly cherishing those times and memories in my life. On a side note, my friend's first night of gaming was a bit....chaotic.. I'll leave it at that. But, hey, he is coming back. So in closing, I've been lucky to have the friends I've had and participated in, some amazing campaigns and created and played some really fun and deep characters. In fact, I've recently started my first ever, fantasy story, based on one of my favorite gaming characters. But most of all, it comes down to the friendships. Yeah, our “poker night” is still pretty fun. Here's to all future characters, gamers and campaigns. All brought together by a silly, little game.