The hardest part first: Title

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone asks you to give a formless blog a title? 

The first question that should be asked is; “What is the blog about”.  Mostly it will be about role playing.   I’ve been playing various table top, pen and paper role playing games since I was about 12.  That was, at the time of this writing, about 17 years ago.  I’ve read cover to cover more role playing books from varying publishers and game systems than I’d really care to admit, some more than once, and somewhere along the way I’d like to think that I picked up some small amount of proficiency at creating and running enjoyable games.  Be they one shot adventures or long lived campaigns spanning months and years. 

             Over the years I’ve played under various DMs, GMs, and Storytellers some of which have done so at conventions and professional gaming events.  I’ve dabbled in the LARP world and have, myself, ran games for players of all ages. The point of it all is that I’ve picked up a few tricks here and there. Mostly I find myself wanting to write down these thoughts…and then it hit me.

 Jack’s Dialogical Self (Look up Dialogical Self Theory if you’re curious)

 These articles will most likely only be read only by me and the bored few who happen upon this blog after all.

     Back to the question: What is this blog about?  Again, at its heart, it is about role playing.  But what is role playing?  To me it’s simply a form of shared story telling.  The same sort of story telling that cavemen were doing with shadow puppets around a fire many moons ago.    So aside from my own longwinded, often circular, musings I’ll throw in the odd review here in there.  About a book, video game, movie, or comic that I might have read that I feel has, or will impact my games and/or story telling abilities.  Coming up with stories requires pulling information from somewhere and presenting it with the story tellers own perspective.  Imagination, personal experience, adapting an older story, or in some cases blatantly ripping off an idea.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

            The last little bit I’d like to ad before posting up my very first “blog entry” would be this: Grammar Nazi’s beware.  I’m a bit rusty in the world of writing and often times with internet posts, especially musings, tend not to edit too closely before posting.  It’s particularly awful within the social media landscape but I’ll make an effort to do a little bit of fixing and such before posting.  Oh, and if you notice anything too horrendous don’t be afraid to point it out, I’m sure you won’t anyways, Grammar Nazi’s rarely do.  This blog, aside from musings and trying to sound like I know what I’m talking about, is an exercise in writing and creativity.