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I have had one driving passion in my adult life, and that has been role-playing games (these days called ‘face to face’ or ‘paper’ role-playing games to differentiate them from the computer type). Role-playing, for me, has been a highly successful career, an avocation, and the most pleasurable and rewarding pursuit, as designer, as player, and most of all as game master.

Without Gary Gygax the guiding activities of my life would not have existed. Period. He was the inventor of the form, and the entrepreneur who popularized the activity to the masses.

I have never known him personally, but my admiration is boundless.

Thanks, Gary, thanks for giving me the greatest gift I’ve ever received. Thanks, Gary, for creating my personal playground, my personal philosophy, my personal passion.

Thanks to Gary Gygax for creating RPGs.

Erick (San Rafael, California)

BILIRUBIN, TOTAL: 0.4
Normal: 0.2-1.3 mg/dL
Collected: 1/19/2008 2:30 PM

For those of you keeping score on these things, this is a sign that my liver is responding with astonishing speed to the ‘aggressive’ chemotherapy. Just seven weeks ago the Bilirubin was a horrific 3.4 (and believe me, it didn’t feel good). Now I’ve got a number (0.4) that would be happy in a person half my age. I’ve got a couple of other test results that aren’t quite so rosy, but my health professionals assure me they’re all improving enormously, and that the chemotherapy is definitely a success. What can I say but, ‘cool,’ and I’m happy to be looking healthy!

Again, I really want to thank everyone for sending so much positive energy in my direction. I feel like I made a very lucky ’savings throw,’ but I don’t want to discount all the prayers that went into tipping the dice in my direction!

Speaking of role-playing metaphors, I’ve been lucky enough to be Game Master three times in the last week. Twice for a super-secret play-test where I work, at Totally Games.

The other role-playing event was Wednesday Night, at the GameScape game shop in downtown San Rafael, California, with six incredibly talented role-players, including the store owners and operators. I threw then an interesting challenge; to each create a character who is older than they appear, who would be introduced on New Year’s Eve, 1899, and to also invent two abilities for the character that ordinary humans do not possess. Each of the players came up with awesome characters, incredible backgrounds (everything from a wayward time traveler to an immortal Native American, from a eternal vagabond to an 18th century drug lord, from a Fairie-abducted Medieval Lord to a beautifully twisted Southern Belle) and wonderfully well composed eldritch talents. It was my pleasure to meld all this into a (somewhat) coherent storyline. My thanks to the players; I’m really looking forward to our next session, set New Year’s Eve 1924!

Erick (San Rafael, California)

Kind of crazy, but my biggest, most audacious wish is to create a book on my life’s greatest passion; the pursuit of role-playing, about the design and production of role-playing games, and the pursuit of excellence in the practice of role-playing and Game Mastering. If all goes well, the result will be a thick volume titled, “On Role-Playing.”

Success, if I can achieve it, requires that I make a wish, and a pretty big wish. A wish that can only be granted by many of you reading this blog.

You see, a huge portion of the book will be the description of many of the experiments I’ve conducted in role-playing. Far from finished or completed role-playing games, or even completed role-playing systems, my experiments have been just that; wacky experiments. The gathering of friends, or strangers, and the playing through of my of my little ‘notions’ of one odd role-playing scenario or another, often in direct violation with the accepted wisdom of what constitutes role-playing, or at very least interesting twists on the role-playing possibility space.

Those who have participated are the ones I need to find because the biggest thing I need is their participation in the creation of the book. Bottom line, if you’ve ever participated in one of my experimental gaming events, I’m soliciting your help.

What kind of help?

I need player-level descriptions of the characters, events, backgrounds and experiences from my various role-playing experiments. They can take the form of character diaries or logs, of player recollections or reflections, or plain old essays on what happened in the course of a bunch of people getting together to role-play one of my strange ideas.

The first step is getting in touch. So, if you are someone who has played in one (or more!) of my experiments, or if you know of someone who has played, please e-mail me and get in touch. The more people I can contact, and the more background notes, recollections and memories I can collect, the closer I’ll be to fulfilling my fondest wish.

Thanks!

Erick (San Rafael, California)

I’m coming to discover my own personal pace of chemotherapy. It seems that the day following, likely because of the use of steroids in the overall mix, I’m strong and high energy. Unfortunately, the following three days are marked by weakness and a non-stop need for sleep. The treatment was Monday, and it wasn’t until midnight Friday that I felt myself recovered to my usual energy level.

Happily the weekend was marked by a visit from old friends, down from the Seattle area, and Kate and I had joyous times (and meals, yum!) together. Sunday was even better since I had a chance to try my new ‘Theory of Everything’ role-playing experiment. Awesome game, mostly because the players were aways a couple of steps ahead of the Game Master, creating a truly remarkable set of theories (based on entirely new classes of particles, including ‘Entropons,’ ‘Observons’ and ‘Enigmons’). Thanks guys! See the picture for the whole group assembled.

Erick (San Rafael, California)