Everyone has a story inside of them. That's what my father-in-law told my wife and I shortly before he passed away. He self-published a book that we helped him put together. He banged it out on a typewriter while living aboard his fishing vessel, and I retyped the whole story in electronic format. I feel I have a story too and have always loved writing. I also had a dream to do a voiceover in animation. While I may never accomplish that, D&D allows you to tell stories and by golly, if you want to talk in character, you can. I feel I can imitate the way dwarves speak pretty well. My gaming group may say differently.

So I've been playing Fantasy Grounds for about 7 years now, with some great players. Some have left because of life commitments or schedules and some have hung in there. The players I have now I'm particularly excited about because I feel we're on the same gaming page. Teamwork defeats evil, not a one man show. I fused two campaigns together, Dragonlance and Greyhawk and also injected my own mythology into the whole mix. I've played more D&D now than I ever did in the old days. It's just not feasible to get a group around a real gaming table anymore and frankly, after using FG, it would be hard to go back to a real tabletop.

So what has transpired in the geek world from when I first discovered FG to now? Let's see...I'm anxiously awaiting the Extended Version of the Hobbit to come out on DVD. I liked the Hobbit movies but they didn't grab me like the Rings. Don't get me wrong, they're good. The entire story of the Hobbit is in there, it's just all the excess that I grew weary of. Like my friend Sam told me, he didn't need to see any more scenes of Legolas defying death and gravity, leaping from crumbling embattlements.

Star Wars Episode VII comes out this year and my ten year old son is a huge Star Wars fan. What makes the upcoming movie so exciting is that he is almost my age when I saw the first Star Wars movie (episode IV) and the new one will have the original cast in it.

I always thought Wizards of the Coast dropped the ball when they announced they were coming out with their own virtual tabletop and then didn't deliver on it. Of course the virtual table they were working on was the 4e rules (not a fan). So when they finally teamed with FG and developed 5e, I was ecstatic. 5e is back to basics and really more like the game I started playing so many years ago.

So many of the comics I read growing up have been turned in to movies. I've liked almost all of them. I'm a bigger Marvel fan than DC. The Avengers especially stands out as the best of the best.

Meat Loaf has given way to another killer band that I just can't get enough of. A friend at work played me one of their songs one night and I've been hooked ever since. Meat Loaf had epic songs, but these guys have epic songs about epic things. All their songs have a part that you always walk away singing. Beneath all the bombastic speed riffs and double bass drumming is melodic bliss and of course being a D&D player, the lyrics always grab me. So when I first heard the strains of “So far away we wait for the day, for the lives all so wasted and gone, we feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days, through the fire and the flames we carry on,” I knew I was a Dragonforce fan for life. You just can't hear their new song, "Three Hammers," and not want to grab a sword and go an freaking adventure.

And now my new gaming group is just about ready to enter the Demonweb Pits, back where we left off so many years ago. Will Lolth fling them to another world as well? Time will tell...

So there you have it. Geeks rule the world. What was so nerdy so many years ago, is the new cool. But what is it about all these geeky things that appeals to so many, and to me still, so many years down the road? I’ve thought long and hard about it and the conclusion I’ve come to is this: Every day we live, we’re one day closer to death. All these things I’ve mentioned that make up the geek puzzle of my life make me feel one way...invincible. And isn't that an epic feeling? Now, what's your story?


Excelsior!

I feel compelled to write more about what was happening in the world of geekdom during the 15 year gap between the time when we stopped playing in Krynn around 1993 and when we started playing again in Fantasy Grounds in 2008. First, we were all able to go back a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...I snuck into the showing of a movie that I did not intend to watch to see the trailer to Star Wars Episode I. It looked fantastic at the time. My final opinion on it after seeing all three? I hung in there for the story arc to see how Anakin became Darth Vader, but after seeing them, I had no desire to re-watch them. And it had more to do than my intense disliking for Jar-Jar Binks. The movies seemed sterile. Too clean. Way too much CGI. The world didn't have a lived in look like the first movies.

I always told my wife, long before the movies came out, that if anyone could make a movie of "The Lord of the Rings" and do it right, they would be incredibly successful movies. So it was with amazement in 1999 when I was in a Blockbuster video store, I picked up a movie magazine and there was the announcement. The Lord of the Rings to be made by...Peter Jackson? My heart sank. The guy that made The Frighteners? This was sure to be a colossal train wreck. Oh, how wrong I was. Peter Jackson did make changes to the story, some I agreed with and some I didn't but I understand certain changes are necessary when translating a book to the big screen. But I was struck over how he captured the spirit of the books. The landscape of New Zealand WAS Middle-Earth. The cast was fantastic and the faithfulness to the books was undeniable. Good beyond hope.

Meat Loaf had come out with Bat Out of Hell 2 and 3. They were good. Three was more up my alley than two. But if I had all three of them before me, I would still reach for the one that came out in 1977. Although his duet with Marion Raven on "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" blows Celin Dion's version out of the water. All I thought at the time when I first heard it was, "Meat Loaf should be singing this". Same with Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart". But I digress.

The gaming landscape? Vastly changed. The gaming world was now the World of Warcraft. Not to knock MMO's, there are many wonderful qualities about them. The graphics of the landscape is breath taking at times. The customization of the characters is very detailed. But they seemed to follow a formula, thus: get quest, kill monsters, get treasure, level up, repeat. The roleplaying aspect is void in these games. Which is not to say I don't play them at times. I do and I like them, but they don't grab me like good old fashioned, roll the dice, theatre of the mind D&D.

Another series of movies came out which are near and dear to my heart. The Chronicles of Narnia. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is simply superb. The next two movies, Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader were good but didn't touch the first one. The gospel overtones were not overbearing, but I love the story because it is an allegory for the gospel. It's unmistakable as to who Aslan represents. This story in particular would also play a part in how I DM'd in the future.

"When I left you, I was but the learner, but now I am the master" -Darth Vader. But back to 2008 and our discovery of Fantasy Grounds. It didn't take me long to realize that I had to DM. I'd never been one, was always a player. I'm a completest. I hate unfinished business. And I have stories to tell. So when I took the wheel of the DM ship, where else was I going to go but back to Krynn? And I'd have to start over from the first module too. But looking at the modules 15 years later brought a very different perspective than when I first played through them. They are excellent modules but the first thing I started doing is incorporating my own story within the Dragonlance narrative. My imagination demanded it. Of course, Fantasy Grounds allowed my friend Randy to play from far away and reprise his role as Evro and my character Shandorf. And of course I had TJ and his son playing along with some others. But they were not there for the original Giant, Kua-toa and Underdark series that Gary Gygax created in the 70's, so I had to start from the very beginning. But I was content. Evro and Shandorf, gaming again.

So when the Dragonlance campaign ended two years later (we only played once a week), TJ DM'd for a few years. But when his schedule got complicated with his job, I had an idea to take my group's character's back in time to show them their origins. I wanted to revisit the old school modules, but they needed to be altered more than the Dragonlance modules. Don't get me wrong, they are great, but played through exactly as written? No. For example, in The Vault of the Drow, if the players find certain badges, all they have to do is show them and they have a free pass in the entire underdark. That wouldn't do. But where else could I go? I had to show my gaming group the old school ways. It had to be Greyhawk, retelling the story of the Underdark. Only, I had to make the stories my own. They were the framework, but I had my own ideas about the bigger story, incorporating other old school modules like White Plume Mountain, Tomb of Horrors, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Sometimes I would gut an entire module and just use the map.

Not only that, I chronicled all our adventures in narrative form each week, calling them "The Chronicles of the Crew", recapping the previous week's adventures. I made slideshows set to music and even put together a collection of songs pertaining to each character for a "soundtrack" to the campaign. Anything to make it more cinematic. I was happy. Friends old and new were playing back in the campaign where it all began. We had come full circle.

Concluded in Part V

"The world is changed. I feel in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost." -Galadriel. So Krynn is where Lolth flung us, and it was an epic world indeed. It took us a long time to travel through Krynn with my character Shandorf playing the part of Flint Fireforge and Randy's character Evro taking the place of Tanis Half-Elven. We didn't make it all the way through Krynn however. During this time, Randy got married. You might be inclined to think that it was because he got married is why we didn't finish. Not at all. His wife Anne was a great host, bringing us platefuls of sandwiches and brew as we played. We made it all the way to DL6 before we stopped. Life just got busy and D&D once again faded in to the background of our lives.

But a strange thing was happening at about this time. The gaming world was beginning to go concave. Galadriel's future monologue above began to echo through time to this point of the story. What was this profound change? Computers. I remember going to Randy's apartment to see his new computer, a lovely monster of a machine. "Listen," Randy told me, as the dial-up modem emitted electronic beeps and the modem connected, making sounds only R2-D2 could decipher. "I love that sound." It was intriguing. He showed me a new game he was playing. Ultima Online, a top down view D&D type game. It included a cloth world map that Randy had tacked to the wall. It was incredible, but I missed the feel of a 20 sided die in my hand. Another invention began to come out at that time called the Playstation.

Now with life being a bit too busy to tabletop game, we both took separate paths, Randy embraced computers and I embraced the console. I always gravitated to the RPG's, Randy was bit more flexible, venturing in to sci-fi and flight simulators. But different gaming platforms would not be the only separate paths we would tread. Randy moved to Boise, Idaho. I got married in Seattle and stayed there until 2005. But during that time, I met another kindred spirit in the gaming realm. We went over to the house of my wife's best friend Robin to visit. Her husband TJ was not home but it didn't take me long to find his man cave. The first thing I saw was a model of the Starship Enterpise hanging from the ceiling. And amongst all the other various geek items, I saw them. A library of D&D books. I didn't know this guy, but I knew this guy. I knew we would get along just fine. And we did. Hit it off right off the bat, and it seemed we never had a lack of things to talk about. But our D&D adventures didn't begin for awhile.

We ended up moving to Spokane, Washington. It's hard to game at a table top when you're spread out between Spokane, Boise and the Seattle area. 15 years had passed since that last Dragonlance adventure. With no one to game with, I remember buying the 3.5 D&D Basic set, my wife was game to play. But over all, it wasn't her cup of tea. Then around 2008, we discovered virtual tabletops. We tried some free ones with corny names like RPG Tonight that operated right in your browser. And then one day TJ discovered it..."Hey, there is a virtual tabletop with interactive record sheets and 3D dice. The interface looks awesome..."
"What's it called?" I asked
"Fantasy Grounds."

Did you see and hear that? The bright light and angelic choir again...

Continued in Part IV

"Like a bat out of hell, I'll be gone when the morning comes. When the night is over, like a bat out of hell, I'll be gone, gone, gone." Everyone's life has a soundtrack. This song was one of the songs on my soundtrack. I love Meat Loaf. Not the food, although meat loaf is pretty good. The singer. And not 2015 Meat Loaf. 1970's, big, sweaty, hair falling in his face, singing like his head is going to explode Meat Loaf. And those fantasy artwork album covers were fantastic. I know Meat Loaf doesn't have a lot to do with D&D. His music however, is just one more piece of the geek puzzle.

Years later, long after we had hung up our armour, my friend Randy moved from Montana to Los Angeles and from there to Seattle. He worked in the airline industry. I was still in Montana. On one of his trips home, he asked me if I'd like to move to Seattle and try to get a job in the airlines too. We could fly free wherever we wanted. I was just spinning my wheels in Montana. It sounded like the next big adventure for me. "I'm gonna hit the highway like a battering ram, on a silver-black phantom bike. When the metal is hot and the engine is hungry and we're all about to see the light." So like a bat out of hell, I left Missoula, Montana for Seattle, Washington.

It didn't take long for us to discuss playing D&D again. It was 1988 and we hadn't played in a long time. We didn't need a group, just me playing Shandorf, Randy playing Evro and whatever other NPC was needed. It was always that way. For awhile, we did have one of his cousins playing in our group back in Montana. He played an evil character, Gondor, a dwarven fighter. But he didn't last long and fell to the status of NPC. We went to the local gaming store and there were the books. Different artwork but the same format: Dungeon Master's Guide, Player's Handbook and Monster Manual. It was 2nd edition. We bought them up. But what campaign setting? The old modules were long out of print. And then I saw it..."When the day is done and the sun goes down and moonlight's shining through..." And when I think back on it, I think there really was a shaft of light shining down on the modules I saw in front of me, and probably an angelic choir singing somewhere off in the distance.

The artwork was fantastic. I've always been a sucker for great fantasy artwork. Like on album covers, comic books (big collector there, too), Lord of the Rings calendars done by various artists, the Hildebrandt Brothers were my favorite. They also did the original Star Wars movie poster. But I digress. Back to the light and the angelic choir. Even the name captured me...Dragonlance. Every module was there, DL1-16. But these were different than the modules we played before. I was used to one off adventures that had nothing to do with the next module we played. Here was an EPIC story. One where each module led in to the next, with an overarching storyline. I'd never seen anything like this before and it changed the way I would always think of D&D from that point forward.

So here we were, sucked back into the game that Gary Gygax had started back in the 70's. "And like a sinner before the gates of heaven, I'll come crawling on back to you..."

Continued in Part III

"Boys, go down to the hobby store. I want you to pick up a new game called Dungeons and Dragons. We'll take it home and play it tonight," said my friend's mother, Joan Cox. Joan was a published author of two science fiction novels, Star Web and Mindsong. She handed us the money and away we went. There it was on the shelf. A blue box with red lettering that said Dungeons and Dragons and an intriguing picture on the front of a fighter and magic user about to face down a dragon. The year was 1977, the same year a movie came out that also set me on my path to geekdom, Star Wars.

As a 12 year old in 1977, my mind was ripe with imagination. D&D really hit home with me. I just read "The Hobbit" in an English class in school and just learned there were more books in the series called "The Lord of the Rings". Combined with the aforementioned Star Wars, my mind was always in the clouds dreaming of adventure. Lord of the Rings allowed me to read about adventure, Star Wars allowed me to watch adventure but D&D allowed me to live it.

So we played that game at my friend's house that night with my friend's mom and dad, and some friends of theirs. Looking about the table, I noted that my friend Jamie and myself were the only kids playing. There wasn't even dice back then. There were "chits" and they were perforated cardboard squares with numbers on them. You put them in a bag and drew a number. Joan was an excellent DM and took the game in extraordinarily detailed directions. She set up local and national governments within her world which all came in to play. It was mind boggling at times. As an experienced author, she just naturally thought that way. She had an idea to take our adventures in D&D and turn them in to a book as well. That never materialized, but I remember fondly those first D&D sessions. But of course, I had other friends that I simply had to share this game with. It wasn't long before every Saturday night was spent at my friend Randy's house playing into the wee hours of the morning. This campaign did not have the all the details of Joan's campaign, but it was a blast. Back then it was simply, go on quest, kill monsters, gain treasure, level up and repeat. And we loved it. We couldn't get enough of it. We stuck with the game for years. My character was Shandorf, dwarven rogue. My friend Randy's character was Evro elven fighter and Shandorf and Evro's friendship mirrored our own. Like Gimli and Legolas. Adventurers through thick and thin and all for the power and glory.

We played for years, devouring each and every module TSR came out with. But while dragons may live forever, not so little boys. We were growing up and more and more, our D&D sessions were further and further apart as we discovered other adolescent adventures, like cruising the drag and discovering girls. But still we played. Our final adventure was the Demonweb Pits, fighting the Drow goddess, Lolth. We defeated her but not before she flung us into another world within the Demonweb. But we stopped there. For awhile, our adventures were over, our swords and daggers hung above our mantles, our armor hung up in our closet and our adventuring boots retired. But where did Lolth fling us? We didn't find until years later and you will too in Part II.