Fine, that’s a bit of hyperbolic exaggeration. I mean I don’t just kill. I mislead. I usurp. I intimidate. I destroy, rebuild, save, love, ridicule and so on. I do anything I please. Because that’s the beauty of role playing games.

Unlike most folks that are into D&D and the like, I got my start late. Because, and this is difficult to admit on a site like this, I was once a repressed nerd. Or geek. What’s the non-cool term to use these days? I feel like too many people have adopted the “geek” label because it suddenly means quirky or hip or some shit. Whatever. That’s another point for another day.

See I grew up as what some of you might angrily refer to as a “jock”. I played baseball, football, soccer, basketball, swimming, golf, and tennis. Competitively and for multiple years consecutively. Not “I played tee ball but didn’t like it/wasn’t good at it and then tried soccer with the same result.” I was a legitimate athlete. I got recruited to play baseball in college. Which I’m proud to admit I did.

But please don’t mistake this as braggadocio. Although fine, it is somewhat. What I’m aiming for is to provide a bit of context. Because the same way some “nerds” felt around “jocks” was the same way I felt around the geekier kids: somewhat desperate to fit in but afraid to admit it; afraid of being ostracized by my friends for consorting with the enemy; afraid I wouldn’t be accepted into the fold.

So I’d secretly stash away some comics here and there. I’d have to convince my buddies to go and see Star Wars when they re-released the special editions in the theater. I was too young to realize some of the horrible edits Lucas and Co. added in of course but I just desperately wanted to see those movies on the big screen for once rather than chopped up with commercial breaks on TBS. I liked board games. I liked Akira. I was, without really coming to terms with it, a somewhat bonafide geek.

Oddly enough it wasn’t until college that I let that freak flag unfurl. A kid a couple dorm rooms down opened my eyes to Alan Moore and Watchmen, to Grant Morrison and Garth Ennis, to the gorgeous art of Frank Quitely and the bizzare shapes of Rob Liefeld. I finally realized what I’d been missing. It was at once both sad and glorious. I couldn’t believe everything I had deprived myself of but was astounded that there was so much awesomeness still left for me to discover.

But the one thing I wanted to experience most of all upon introduction, my litmus test, was to roll a d20 and crit hit a motherfucker. I wanted to RPG.

My buddy JK, my dork prophet dorm pal, had plenty of gaming experience from his stints at summer camps.

“I never would’ve thought to do this at any of the summer camps I went to,” I may or may not be making up as something I said.

“Why? What did you guys do?”

“Practice lay-ups, 3 on 3 drills, free-throw shoo-”

“Okay shut up.”

I was still on the fence I have to admit. He had to explain the difference between LARPing and RPGs. After all, I was willing to run with this new-found blossoming but only so far, so fast. So we pulled another of his camp buddies in, hit up the convenience store for some snacks, settled in, and started.

This was in the fall of 2002. I’m GMing an original Savage Worlds and Dead Lands inspired game, my third stint overall as a GM, again this Sunday night. My group, which includes Andy Michaels (the Editor in Chief of this site) and our buddy JK, has been gaming almost weekly for nearly six years. So yeah, safe to say I enjoyed it.

But in recent years it’s been a goal of mine to bring in some of my less inclined friends to give RPGs a shot. Guys who have great personalities and are funny and who I know would be awesome additions and would enjoy themselves. So long as I could help them overcome the stigma associated with RPGs (undeservedly, yes, but it’s still there in plenty of circles). And while their longevity has been hit or miss (due to factors outside of the games themselves), overall it’s been a success. An easily accomplished one at that. Because there’s a simple common denominator I’ve used. I suspect others have used it too, not claiming originality here, but regardless it’s this: video games.

Video games are the crutches I fall back on because any generation born in the late 1970s and beyond has had some level of exposure. Only NES? Fine. Nothing since the Genesis? Only arcade games? PS One through Four? Doesn’t matter. There are plenty of parallels to exploit. My basic pitch would be to find out their favorite video game and then point out the road blocks: the game is on rails, dialogue is either predetermined or leaves you with finite choices, you can only attack this person or these people with these attacks… I’d go on like that. Then I’d ask what they’d think if those limitations were removed, what they’d do if their character literally had their voice, that they could travel anywhere, kill or torture or fall in love with or befriend anyone that they wanted. Success at these tasks may vary, sure, but the option is there. They all are. Where else can you get that?

And it usually works. But it took a while for me to figure that out.

I have one old high school baseball chum who still ragged on me for years despite my numerous attempts at trying to convince him to give role playing a shot.

“Har har. You beat those dungeon trolls yet with your wizard’s spells?”

“Dude that was, like, three sessions ago. Besides, what about that sentence doesn’t sound awesome?”

This is how our conversations would go when the topic came up for the longest time. Until a couple summers ago when I was in Chicago, where he lives, for work. We fired up his NES to play some RBI Baseball the night before I gamed with my group. That’s when it hit me: how could he indulge in this fantasy but ridicule me for indulging in mine? Not that I was offended. On the contrary. I wanted him to realize the worlds he’d been missing out on, like I had once upon a time.

I knew he was (and still is) big into heavy metal. So when the subject came back up and he continued on his normal condescending trajectory.. I Game Mastered the shit out of him. I threw a scenario at him I knew he would like. It went something like this:

“Okay, buddy, indulge me for a moment. We both like to play video games, pretend from time to time that we’re someone else doing something more amazing then we’ll ever get the chance to, right? Now imagine yourself in a band like Metallica, okay? You’re playing Soldier Field to a sold out crowd. You’re like James Hetfield, I’m like Lars, and our other mutual friends are like Kirk and that other guy whose name I don’t recall. In any event, we’re fucking rocking the joint. Everyone’s screaming, panties are flying up on stage, pits in the crowd, topless chicks up on some poor saps’ shoulders… wet dream come true right? Okay so we finish our #1 hit and the crowd is roaring.

Suddenly there’s a huge sprout of flame in the crowd, four stories high. Charred bodies fly through the air. The crowd starts to scream and high-tail it for the exit as demons crawl forth from this magma-coated crater. Then a few figures start to rise up from the depths. As the smoke clears you see the foul creatures who are responsible for this abominable tragedy: the band members of Death Cab for Cutie. The lead singer starts monologuing about how they made a deal with the devil to become the top metal artists the world has ever seen, which means our band has to die in order for that to happen.

In response you narrow your eyes, grit your teeth, and strum a guitar solo so sick and so fast and so mind-blowingly awesome that it calls forth a bolt of lightning that strikes the lead singer, who goes flying 50 feet back and skids another 20 in the dirt. An axe blade sprouts out from the neck of my bass and I leap into their midst, roaring and blood-thirsty. There, in the middle of this newly-formed hellscape, we battle to the death in the name of true metal with these pussy charlatans.

“So tell me: does that not sound fucking awesome?”

Rhetorical question of course. Because shit yes it did.

Beyond the creative freedom these types of games offer, you can’t discount the social aspect either. Dirty Jenga? Power hour? Quarters? Flip cup? Try pre-gaming over a battle map. Chug on crit fails. Whatever. Some of my fondest memories in recent years are recounting the crazy antics our characters have gotten into. And, maybe more importantly, how we all bonded when they were getting into them. I’ve got a couple fellas I’m proud to call friends who I’ve never actually met in person as we live on different coasts and game together over Skype or Google Hangouts. And why do I consider them friends? Because we shared an amazing adventure together. In our collective minds, sure, but those memories are no less tangible than any other.

Still, the problem might remain with some folks in that they may not have an imagination as active as they once did. Or they’re a bit too embarrassed to access it. But it’s easy to remind them it’s there. Maybe stuck in neutral, running idly, but it’s there: this powerful force that can transport you to a new world and involve you in epic conflicts against unbelievable foes. They just need some help to re-ignite it. RPGs did that for me and I’d like to think that I’m a better, more fun-loving and creative person for it. And I bet they will be too. Just give them a push. And maybe a 20-sided die.

All original art in this post by Sam Tung