It started when I put my computer game habit to the side and picked up my pen & paper games again. I'd never let go of PnP gaming, having maintained a place in Brodie's 3e/4e game as a player and 3e DM for the last 12 years, more or less. But I noticed, frankly, that I wasn't being the kind of husband, father, and man I wanted to be while fully absorbed in computer games. I started seeing clients whose marriages were falling apart due to computer and video games. It was time to let it go.
But D&D is a different animal, to me anyway. It's a hobby, theater of the mind, a creative outlet, and a social occasion. For me, computer games were a suppressant, a tranquilizer. D&D expands my real life and engages both sides of my aging brain.
So the box(es) of D&D materials beckoned, and the writing started. Once the writing (blogging, and campaign-building) began, a need for an audience formed with it. I suspect this is a partial reason why people blog -- the dual need to "get it all down on paper" and express oneself combined with the very basic need to communicate on a brain-to-brain basis with those of a similar bent.
And then the old feeling came -- the need to DM again. I suppose I knew it all along, but having written up Dunlyle, I needed to experience it, and not just to playtest it either. I wasn't ready to just file it away or be content to occasionally pull it out and tweak it. I needed to feel it and let it live. Cue the Dr. Frankenstein analogies.
It will also give me a chance to playtest Joe Bloch's excellent Adventures Dark & Deep.
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