While all D&D characters begin as a collection of numbers (on paper, my Eladrin Avenger is 14,12,14,14,16,12) those numbers don’t mean anything without a story to bring them to life. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, maybe it’s because I have an imagination that I’ve always had to actively keep under control, but as long as I’ve been gaming, creating backstories for my characters has been as much fun – in some cases, more fun – than actually plunging them into a dungeon.

This comes from the backstory I wrote for Aeofel Elhromanë, the Eladrin Avenger I played for the most recent Penny Arcade D&D podcast. Though I have created hundreds of NPCs and dozens of PCs in my life, Aeofel was the first character I’ve created in about twenty years. As you are about to find out, I spent a little bit of time fleshing him out...

Two days’ journey from Mithrendain, beneath a thick canopy of leaves in the Forest of Astranz, there is a school, where, for countless human centuries, Eladrin have lived and trained, under Melora’s watchful eye.

Aeofel Elhromanë lived in this school for his entire life, devoting each of his 142 years to the service of Melora. He trained beside monks and clerics, and though he never saw battle firsthand, many of his instructors were veterans of the war with the Drow. He never knew his parents, but his fellow students were his House.

Eight nights ago, during the Court of Stars, the school was attacked by Goblin and Kobold raiders, lead by a human warlord. The school’s alarm, which had been silent for a generation, shook Aeofel and his brothers from their daily trance, and they ran from their quarters, ready for battle.

Aeofel dashed across the training grounds, ready to push the invaders back, but all he found was a trail of bodies –– attacker and defender alike –– from the school’s entrance to its shrine. Near the gate, a few warlords skirmished with kobolds, and wild magic crackled in the field beyond, but the attackers had fled the grounds.

His master, the great Avenger Immafen, stood beside the shrine’s entrance. His sword was slick with Goblin’s blood, and he breathed heavily.

“Master,” Aeofel said, “what has happened? Why were we attacked?”

There was no war. There was no reason. The school’s wealth lay in the knowledge it gave its students, and its power was in their training. Why would anyone attack? What could they possibly gain?

“They have taken the Crest,” Immafen said.

Aeofel gasped. The Crest of Melora was a powerful artifact.

Hours later, when the few remaining Kobolds and Goblins had been captured or killed, the surviving students and teachers gathered in the school’s arbor, where Lady Caelynna, an ancient Sword Marshall who was the school’s headmaster, spoke.

“We know that this attack was well-planned, and our captives prove it did not originate in the Feywild,” she said, her milky violet eyes shining with righteous fury.

A murmur of concern passed among the students. Entrance to the Feywild from other planes wasn’t impossible, but it was infrequent. Whoever lead the invasion was powerful, indeed.

“We do not know who took the Crest or why,” she said, “but should it fall to disciples of Ocrus, it could provide a disastrous bridge from the Shadowfell - or worse.

“All schools guard and hold a different artifact of great power within their walls. We were charged with protecting the Crest of Melora,” she said, her musical voice darkening, “and our failure has placed all Eladrin at risk.

“Many of you have never left this place, but you are our most powerful warriors. The fate of the Crest, and perhaps the fate of us all, is in your hands. You will gather with your masters, and follow their instructions.”

The arbor remained silent long after she left. Gradually, the gathered students broke and found their masters.

Immafen put his hand on Aeofel’s shoulder. “You will travel to the mortal world, at a crossing in the Winterbole Forest.”

“The mortal world is vast, Master. How will I know where to look?” Aeofel said.

His voice was kind and reassuring. “You are Eladrin, child. When the crest is near, it will call to you.”

Aeofel self-consciously gripped the hilt of his longsword. “What if I do not hear it, Master?”

“You will,” he said. “At the crossing, you must open yourself to Melora’s grace, and allow her to guide you. She will tell you where your quest begins.”

He took Aeofel’s hand, and gave him a small implement fashioned from dark Sennalwood into the shape of a shell. “Take this, and carry your House with you as you travel, my student.”

Aeofel closed his hand over it. “By Melora’s Grace,” he said. 

Immafen gazed, unblinking, upon him, for a long while. “By Melora’s Grace.”

+=+=+

In the Winterbole Forest, far away from any path, there is a clearing among the oldest trees. At the center of this clearing can be found a trio of stones, just taller than a halfling. To those who are unknowing, they are little more than an anomalous monument, perhaps left by forgotten ancients, or deliberately built by mischievous children to confuse those who happen upon them. To those who would use them, though, they mark a fey crossing, one of many points where the boundary between the fey and mortal worlds is thin and passable to those who know the way.

Aeofel Elhromanë appeared in their center, in a crackling flash of azure light. He clutched his chest as a cry escaped his lips. He had never been to the mortal world, and feeling his House, his people, his entire land ripped away from him was a pain almost too great to bear.

“If I do not retrieve the Crest,” he reminded himself, “I will feel nothing but that pain for the rest of my days.”

He reached into his robes. On a strap around his neck, he wore the implement Immafen had given him. He held it now, and spoke softly.

“Meloratoh Ancien Ethlochmir. Fea galena sindath.”

Where there had been silence before, he heard the thundering of a river, and knew that it he would find it, several leagues away, through thick forest that would be unpassable, even to Sylvans. A gust of wind blew into his face, swirling leaves into his long hair, and around his face. A voice heard only by him whispered, “Fallcrest.”

With his free hand, he touched one of the stones. He could see the feywild within, the way a footprint remains on the beach, after the sea has washed over it. 

“I will not fail,” he said. “I will return the Crest, and I will punish those who stole it from us.”

He walked into the forest, and began his journey.

***

Now I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the average gamer to write a fucking novel about their characters like I do, but I love that D&D makes it possible if they want to. D&D is all about engaging your imagination and encouraging you and your friends to build a world and tell a story together. Because I knew exactly where Aeofel came from and why he sought out Acquisitions Incorporated, I knew how he would act in just about every circumstance. I knew why he carried the equipment he carried, why he cared about ridding the world of evil, and why those basic numbers were laid out the way they were.

Here’s a little insight into how I designed him, and why:

All of these stats are at 3rd level, so there’s plenty of room for him to grow and develop as he gains experience. Depending on a whole host of different factors, we may see Aeofel develop a stronger constitution, gain deeper wisdom from his travels, or even become more charismatic as he adjusts to life in the mortal world. As his player, I have some idea of where I’d like him to go, but I prefer to let his actions (via the choices I make during the campaign) shape his destiny. It’s important to me that there is a logic to how he grows, so that he remains a “he” who I genuinely care about, instead of an “it” that’s just a collection of numbers.

It's easy to create a character these days, and much faster than it was when I was a kid, but if you have some time and your imagination is willing, grab some paper and dice, sit on the floor surrounded by your PHB, DMG, and Adventurer's Vault, and take some time to get to know your character while you're creating him or her. Speaking from personal experience, it's well worth the investment.

It was just Wil Wheaton’s imagination, running away with him.

Last week, I spent an entire day playing Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition with some of my friends. Big whoop, you say. So did I. Ah, but I played in Seattle. With Gabe and Tycho from Penny-Arcade. And Scott Kurtz from PVP. And, to really twist the +3 dagger in your back, our DM was Chris Perkins from Wizards of the Coast, who made an adventure specifically for us to play. For the crushed peanuts and maraschino cherry topping on this sundae of HAWESOME, I got to play a class from the unreleased Player's Handbook 2. We recorded the entire session for a podcast, which will be released early next year.

Did I mention this class is unreleased? Because it was. I played a class that you haven't seen yet. I just want to make sure I get full bragging mileage out of this. I posted a little bit about it on my blog and Twitter (I can't go into specifics, for obvious reasons *cough* awesome unreleased class *cough*). I should not have been surprised (but I was) to find out that a lot of people seem to want to know what I think of D&D Fourth Edition.

If you're not a serious tabletop gamer, you may be surprised to learn that this version of D&D was extremely controversial in the gaming community. Mr. Peabody, fire up the Wayback Machine . . .

In August of 2007, Wizards of the Coast announced that they were updating Dungeons & Dragons to a new, fourth edition. I was mostly happy with the current edition, but I was cautiously optimistic. "Maybe they've absorbed a lot of feedback from gamers who played 3.0 and 3.5, and they're cleaning things up accordingly," I thought. (Yes, there really was a third-and-a-half edition. That's a topic for another column, ideally written by someone else.)

By October of 2007, I had heard a lot of crazy talk. Nothing was sacred, they were saying. Magic Missile was going to require a to-hit roll and there would be some kind of dragon character race. As I absorbed each bit of new, my condition was downgraded, from cautiously optimistic to increasingly wary. "Nothing is sacred? Dragons are for killing, not for playing! What next, are they going to replace the swords with walkie-talkies?" There was a definite "WTF? Han shot second?!?" vibe in the community. Gamers, like hardcore SF geeks, tend to fear change. Especially change which we determine, sight unseen, to be stupid.

I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about Fourth Edition until May, when I got a copy of The Keep on the Shadowfell, a first-level adventure with some pre-made characters and simplified rules, designed to be a teaser before the core rule books went on sale in June. I paged through it with as open a mind as I could muster, and though I saw that the rumors about Magic Missile and Dragonborn were true, I liked pretty much everything else I saw. In fact, it looked like it could be a lot of fun, and it reminded me more of the streamlined Red Box "Basic D&D" system I played when I was a kid than of the math-heavy, table-laden version of AD&D I traded for GURPS when I was a teenager.

I lucked into a set of core rule books a week before they were officially released. My world came to a complete halt while I devoured them. I'll eventually give each one its own review, but the short version is: The Fourth Ed Dungeon Master's Guide is the book I've wanted to read since I was 12. Everything you want to know about running a game Ñ and having fun doing it Ñ is in this book. I have a ton of experience playing D&D, but very little experience running games. I still wear a scarlet letter for several total party kills when I was a kid; this book gave me the confidence and guidance to sit behind the DM screen again. The Player's Handbook has a terrible index, and they made the mistake of telling us early on that something does "1[W] + Wis" damage without telling us what [W] is until the end of the book (SPOILER ALERT: it's weapon damage, like 1d8 or 1d12 or 2d4+6. Also, the monsters are calling from inside the castle!), but other than that, it gives you everything you need to create and outfit a character. The Monster Manual is full of Monsters. 'Nuff said.

I didn't actually get to play a game (stupid real life responsibilities) until last week, but reading the 4E core rule books inspired me to get all of my D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, GURPS, True20, Mutants & Masterminds, and World of Darkness books out and remember exactly why I started playing these games in the first place. I didn't have to look very long; it was printed right inside the cover of the Player's Manual in my very first Basic Rules Set (the red box that served as my introduction to the system). "This is a game that is fun. It helps you imagine." You'll notice that it does not say, "This is a game that helps you feel superior to other people because you can calculate THAC0 in your head before the dice stop rolling," or "This game is deliberately designed to exclude anyone who doesn't have a degree in higher mathematics." When I played Fourth Edition, it was like they'd taken everything I didn't like about D&D, everything that had made it overly complicated and cumbersome, and thrown it all away. All that was left was the best lessons taken from 3.0, and the philosophy that made basic D&D so much fun in the first place.

So now you know where I'm coming from, but I need to add one disclaimer before I describe my impressions of 4E: I've only played once. It was for 10 hours, and it was with people I really, really like, but it was just one adventure. Having said that, however, what I experienced fulfilled and even surpassed the expectations I had after reading the core rules, a couple of adventure modules, and talking to people who play 4E in their weekly game. In the briefest of terms, it was hella fun.

How does it play? I think the best way I can describe it is: simply, without being simplistic. Gamers who play an RPG have to decide for themselves why they're setting aside the time and making the effort to get together. Almost every time, whether people have fun comes down to the DM and the players. It took me years of gaming, and no small amount of frustration, to conclude that a system's rules should provide a structure and some basic expectations for the game, but that a campaign or adventure is more fun when it's supported by the rules, instead of being defined by them. (Caveat: No game is suitable for everyone. If you can't stand horror movies, you won't have a good time playing World of Darkness, no matter how much you like the system and your fellow players. Further caveat: There are some badly designed games out there. I'm not talking about games with design decisions you disagree with; I'm talking about games with contradictory rules, broken cross-references, poor or no indexing, and probably little to no playtesting.)

My 4E experience started with character creation, which I did sitting on the floor of my office with pencils and paper, the Player's Handbook, and the Adventurer's Vault. I know there are online tools available to do it all for you, but I couldn't bring myself to use them; I'm an original analog gamer, man, that's just how I roll. (4d6 and drop the lowest FTW.) It took awhile because while I had read the books, I had never tried to use them, and there was some page-flipping while I wrapped my brain around the system. However, and this is crucial, I never got frustrated or felt bored. The process took some time because I had a learning curve and because there are several decisions to make, not because I was confused or because the rules were disorganized.

Now, to address some of the things I worried about before I played 4E. I keep hearing people complain that 4E is just WoW on the tabletop. Quite tellingly, I haven't heard this from anyone who has actually played 4E, but I understand the concern, especially if you're only looking at the combat rules in the store and listening to people complain on the Internets. Many of us have a lot invested in our 3.0 and 3.5 books, and may not want to take a chance on something that's going to be just like a damn video game. Aren't we playing this to get away from video games? I haven't played WoW and don't really care to, but if Blizzard's combat system is this fast and easy to understand, and this much fun, I can see the appeal. Every player got to do something important to help the party, and all of us contributed to each challenge, whether it was solving a puzzle, disarming a trap, or actually fighting lots of monsters.

(Speaking of WoW, I wonder if WoW is, for some gamers, "the other woman," threatening to split the party with a siren's call that's taking potential players out of our world and never giving them back...could that be why so many hobby gamers hate it so much? And if so, wouldn't it make more sense to hate on CCGs, which sucked away RPG players ten years before anyone knew what Warcraft was? Hey, as long as I'm kicking over anthills today, I'm going to make sure I stomp on as many as I can.)

You may have heard that player characters are much stronger at lower levels and that it's harder to die than it used to be. That's true. I can only speak for myself, but I don't see the problem. I like that my character isn't going to die from one encounter at first level. I like that I can use cool powers and feats and feel heroic right out of the gate, instead of slogging through several rooms of kobolds or skeletons, with numerous breaks to rest and heal between each encounter.

Speaking of healing, player characters get to use a certain number of healing "surges" each day, sort of like guzzling down an energy drink when you're pulling an all-nighter and start to flag. This does indeed fundamentally change the game I grew up playing, but I can't believe I ever campaigned without it. I don't want to keep going back to town whenever I have a tough fight. I want to keep exploring the world and meeting new NPCs. I want a trip back to town to really mean something, either that we've made some major progress in the campaign and have something to report, or we barely escaped a Gelatinous Cube and had to follow Sir Robin all the way back to Winterhaven, eating his minstrels on the way. (Yaaaaay.)

I'm not going to attack people who can't stand 4E the same way I've seen some anti-4E people attack others for liking it, because that just reminds me of watching two guys with ponytails argue about which Linux distribution is better while they ignore the stripper grinding on the rail right next to them. (She's working really hard for those singles, guys. Show some respect.) I will say to the 4E haters, though, that Hasbro's idiotic handling of third-party 4E support (also a topic deserving its own column) has effectively alienated a huge portion of the indie publishing world, and there's going to be plenty of 3.5 support out there for a very long time. Paizo's Pathfinder and Green Ronin's True20 seem to make a lot of people very happy, too, and there are a ton of other systems out there, so it shouldn't be too hard to find something that fits your game and your circle of friends.

I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons for 2d12 years. I remember when magic-users couldn't wear armor, when edged weapons didn't hurt skeletons, and even when an elf was a class. I have more polyhedral dice than [SOMETHING NORMAL PEOPLE HAVE A LOT OF]. I routinely tell my wife and friends that I have to "save vs. shiny" when I go to my friendly local game shop, and I didn't realize that graph paper existed for a purpose other than making dungeons until I'd been in high school geometry for a semester...and even then, I remained skeptical.

Few things in the world make me as happy as gaming, and I have two shelves of RPG books to prove it. I have a lot invested in those books, not just money, either, but time and memories. Each time I hear that one of the systems I care about is in danger of getting the Jar-Jar business, I have to save vs. kill crush destroy. At substantial minuses. If you'd told me six months ago that I'd be sitting here today writing about how much I love D&D Fourth Edition, I would have laughed in your face and called you a silly person. It is almost certain that I would have taunted you a second time, called your parentage into question, farted in your general direction, and observed that you were best suited for a career in empty animal food trough wiping.

Yet here I am, anxious to go pick up my Fourth Edition Manual of the Planes, and counting down the days until Winter Break so I can take my kids and some of their friends to the Keep on the Shadowfell, where I will get to play Kalarel himself, and try really hard not to kill them all in their first few encounters. Remember, it doesn't matter what edition of what game you're playing ... a system is only as good as its DM and its players.

Wil Wheaton rolled a critical failure vs. make deadline this week. Sorry, Nicole!

December, 1983:

I sat on the floor in my Aunt Val's house, and opened up her Christmas present to me. It was a red box with a really cool looking dragon on the front of it. Inside, there were a few books, some dice, a map, and a crayon to color in the dice.

"That's a game that I hear lots of kids like to play, Willow," she said, "It's dragons and wizards and those things you liked from The Hobbit. The back says you use your imagination, and I know what a great imagination you have." My brother played with Legos and my cousins played with handheld electronic games. I felt a little gypped.

"Wow," I said, masking my disappointment. "Thanks, Aunt Val!"

Later, while the other kids played with Mattel football and Simon, I sat near the fireplace and examined my gift. It said that I could be a wizard or a fighter, but there weren't any pieces that looked like that. There were a lot of weird looking dice, but I had to color in the numbers. That seemed silly, but at least it was something to do, so I grabbed the black crayon, and rubbed it over the pale blue dice, just like the instructions said.

Aunt Val (who was my favorite relative in the world throughout my entire childhood and right up until she died a few years ago) walked into the living room. "What do you think, Willow?"

"I colored the dice," I said, and showed her the result. "But I haven't read the book, yet."

She patted my leg. "Well, I hope you like it." She moved to the other side of the room, where cousin Jack played with a Nintendo Game and Watch.

I opened the Players Guide, and began to read.

February, 1984:

It was afternoon PE in fifth grade, and I was terrified. I ran and jumped and ducked, surrounded by a cheering crowd of my classmates. The PE teacher did nothing to stop the attack, and in fact encouraged it.

"Get him!" Someone yelled, as I fell to the asphalt, small rocks digging into my palms. I breathed hard, and through my adrenaline-fueled flight-or-fight response, the world slowed, the cheering faded, and I wondered to myself why our playground was just a parking lot, and why we had to wear corduroy pants in the middle of a Southern California heatwave. Before I could offer any answers, a clear and loud voice spoke from within my head. "Hey," it said. "You'd better get up and move, or you're dead."

I nodded my head, and looked up in time to see the red playground ball, spinning in slow motion, as the word "Voit" rotated into view. Pain exploded across my face and a mighty cheer erupted from the crowd. The PE teacher blew her whistle.

I don't know how I managed to be the last kid standing on our team. I usually ran right to the front of the court, so I could get knocked out quickly and (hopefully) painlessly before the good players got worked up by the furor of battle and started taking head shots, but I'd been stricken by a bout of temporary insanity—possibly created by the heat—on this February day, and I'd actually played to win the game, using a very simple strategy: run like hell and hope to get lucky.

I blinked back tears as I looked up at Jimmie Just, who had delivered the fatal blow. Jimmie was the playground bully who spent as much time in the principal's office as he did in our classroom, and was the most feared dodgeball player at the Lutheran School of the Foothills.

He laughed at me, his long hair stuck to his face in sweaty mats, and sneered, "Nice try, Wil the Pill."

I picked myself up off the ground, determined not to cry. I sucked in deep breaths of air through my nose.

Mrs. Cooper, the PE teacher, walked over to me. "Are you okay, Wil?" She asked.

"Uh-huh," I lied. Anything more than that and I risked breaking down into humiliating sobs that would follow me around the rest of the school year, and possibly into sixth grade.

"Why don't you go wash off your face," she said, not unkindly. "And sit down for a minute."

"Okay," I said. I walked slowly across the blacktop to the drinking fountains. Maybe if I really took my time, I could run out the clock and I wouldn't have to play another stupid dodgeball game.

January, 1984:

Papers scattered across my bed appeared to be homework to the casual observer, but to me they were people. A thief, a couple of wizards, some fighters; a party of adventurers who desperately wanted to storm The Keep on the Borderlands. But without anyone to guide them, they sat alone, trapped in the purgatory of my bedroom, straining behind college-ruled blue lines to come to life.

I tried to recruit my younger brother to play with me, but he was 7, and more interested in Monchichi. The kids in my neighborhood were more interested in football and riding bikes, so I was left to read through module B2 by myself, wandering the Caves of Chaos and dodging Lizardmen alone.

February, 1984:

I washed my face and drank deeply from the drinking fountain, and by the time I made it back to the benches against the playground's southern edge, I'd lost the urge to cry, but my face radiated enough heat to compete with the blistering La Crescenta sun.

I sat down near this kid Simon Teele, who, thanks to the wonders of alphabetization, ended up with me and Harry Yan (the school's lone Asian kid) on field trips and fire drills, and in chapel. Simon was taller than all of us, wore his hair down into his face, and really kept to himself. He was reading an oversized book that sort of looked like a text book, filled with charts and tables.

We weren't officially friends, but I knew him well enough to make polite conversation.

"Hey," I said. "Why don't you have to play dodgeball?"

"Asthma," He said.

"Lucky," I said. "I hate dodgeball."

"Everyone hates dodgeball," he said. "Except Jimmie Just."

"Yeah," I said, relieved to hear someone else say out loud what I'd been thinking since fourth grade.

"Hey," I said. "What are you reading?"

He held up the book, and I saw its cover: a giant statue, illuminated by torches, sat behind an archway. Two guys were on its head, prying loose one of its jeweled eyes, as a group of people stood at the base. One was clearly a wizard, another was obviously a knight.

"Player's Handbook," he said. "Do you play D&D?"

I gasped. According to our ultra-religious school, D&D was Satanic. I looked up for teachers, but none were close to us. 100 feet away on the playground, another game of dodgeball was underway. I involuntarily flinched when I heard the hollow pang! of the ball as it skipped off the ground.

"You're going to get in trouble if you get caught with that," I said.

"No, I won't," he said. "If I just keep it turned upside down, they'll never see it. So do you play or not?"

"I have the red box set," I said, "and a bunch of characters, but I don't have anyone to play with."

"That's basic," he said. "This is advanced."

"Oh."

"But if you want, you could come over to my house this weekend and we could play."

I couldn't believe my good luck. With a dodgeball to the face, Fate put me on the bench next to the kid who, over the next few months, helped me take my first tentative steps down the path to geekdom. He had a ton of AD&D books: the Dungeon Master's Guide, which had a truly terrifying demon on the cover, and would result in certain expulsion if seen at school, the Monster Manual which was filled with dragons, and the Fiend Folio, which not only had demons and devils, but a harpy and a nymph, accompanied by a drawing of a naked woman with boobs!

Simon's parents were divorced, and he lived with his mom in a huge house in La Canada. His room was filled with evidence of a custody battle: too many toys to count littered the floor and spilled out of the closet, but even though we were surrounded by Atari and Intellivision, GI Joe and Transformers, we had D&D fever, and the only prescription was more polyhedral dice.

Though it was just the two of us playing, we stormed the Keep on the Borderlands and explored the Isle of Dread. We spent all our free time at school making new characters, designing dungeons, and unsuccessfully attempting to recruit other kids to play with us.

March, 1984:

My babysitter Gina's older brother was an experienced dungeon master, and he let us play in one of his custom-made dungeons. My fighter walked into a room, got trapped behind a portcullis, and died when I sprung a trap trying to escape. Simon and I decided later that it would be okay to resurrect him for our own adventures without penalty, because Gina's brother's dungeon was really too hard, and it wasn't part of our world, anyway.

June, 1984:

Simon and I finally got two other kids to join our group: Robert and his friend David. The four of us were officially declared "the nerds" by the cool kids at school, and the four of us played almost every weekend. I started carrying my dice, a couple of pencils, and folded-up character sheets with me everywhere I went, stored in a pleather Casio calculator case that my dad gave me.

The Satanic Panic, fueled by Jack Chick's Dark Dungeons and some "investigative" reporting on television news magazines reached our suburban school, and a letter was sent home warning our parents about the dangers of Dungeons and Dragons. My parents laughed it off, but Robert's did not; he was prohibited from playing with us any more, and since he brought David into our little group, he left too. Then, right when school was about to get out for Summer, we were dealt a total party kill: Simon's mom was moving the two of them to Indiana.

July, 1984:

With Simon gone and the Satanic Panic at its peak, I didn't have anyone to play with. My books and character sheets slowly made their way into my closet, as Atari began to creep further and further into my life. Then, for my birthday, Aunt Val gave me a book called Lone Wolf. It was like Choose Your Own Adventure, but you had a character sheet, and rolled dice for combat! It wasn't D&D, but it was close enough. That series of books carried me all the way through middle school, and guided me farther and farther down the path to geekdom.

1987:

I was a freshman in high school, and gained admittance to a group of geeks via my friend Darin. We played tons of geeky games together, watched Holy Grail at least once a month, and argued the finer points of Sci-Fi. I was finally surrounded by geeks again, only this time I was proud to be counted among their number.

One day, sitting in Darin's house and playing Illuminati, I said, "Hey, do any of you guys ever play D&D?"

There was a collective snort of derision.

"What?" I said.

"We play GURPS," one of the guys said.

On the path to geekdom, I crossed another Rubicon.

Wil Wheaton has a +20 shirt of Smiting. He would gladly trade it for +5 vs. Dodgeball.