Hey, raging creative underclass! Remember playing pencil-and-paper role-playing games in high school college? I don't, because I was cool and played real-time strategy games on my computer instead. But my friends did! And they were among millions who played Dungeons & Dragons, the first commercial role-playing game. My friends weren't stereotypical nerds (they were unique and unpeggable nerds); they loved plot and character, and in addition to writing and drawing, they told each other stories through RPGs like D&D and Mage. So after the death of D&D creator Gary Gygax this week, I asked my friend Mark Beall to talk about his experience as a literary RPG fan.

As a gamer, I tend to gravitate towards running the show. I've participated in a number of games, but the vast majority of the time I find myself "behind the screen." Different games have different titles for the guy in charge — D&D calls him the "dungeon master," while a lot of other games like to use "game master." My personal favorite, and the one I feel best describes my approach, is "storyteller," used by the White Wolf company in their WoD games.

I come from a wildly literate family. Both of my parents are incredibly well read, and be it genetically or enviornmentally, the habit was passed on to me as well. I knew how to read well before kindergarten, and was fighting my way through chapter books in very early grade school. My personal library at this point numbers close to, if not in excess of, a thousand titles, and ranges everywhere from history texts to cheap fiction. If I had to pin down a favorite genre, it'd likely be sci-fi/fantasy, which I'm sure is what lead me to gaming in the first place. Well that and my high school mentor, a man who has been at various points in my life my track coach, my game master, my computer programming teacher, my stage director, my prayer group advisor, and eventually my father in law.

Anyway, the point is that I love stories. Call it a healthy desire to enhance my mind, call it escapism, call it whatever you want. Since I've been old enough to understand them, I've digested nearly every story I can get my hands on. Novels, comic books, radio dramas, even video games and tv shows — give me intriguing characters and a halfway interesting plot, and I will soak it up. And that's what gaming is for me; a chance to create a story. Which is why I adopt the term "storyteller" over "dungeon master."

As a storyteller, I'm rather atypical. I don't tend to push my gamers in any direction, and I try very hard not to insert my own will into the adventure. For that reason, I don't tend to run modules or depend heavily on pre-meditated plot devices. As far as I'm concerned it is my responsibility to create a compelling world, introduce a compelling story hook/major plot line, and let my gamers run with it from there. I put them into the world, and let them choose where to go. It takes a bit of effort, largely because you have to create as you go, but it is such a rewarding method. If I create a big enough world, with enough things in it, I'm ready for my gamers wherever they turn. And in that manner, we craft a story together. Numbers are important, but not imperative. The point of my game is never to get to the next level, or to increase your personal stats. I'll flat out lie about dice rolls, or not even make them, if I feel the story is better enhanced by a different result. Because of this, I seek out gamers who are more interested in stories than numbers to sit at my table. It's not me dictating a story upon my gamers so they can hack through it and gain another level; it's a team of creative minds cooperating on a joint storytelling adventure. I'm just the guy who has to keep things spinning.

And to counteract that humanizing story, here's the classic Dungeons and Dragons skit by the Dead Alewives: