The Need For Escape

Happy F'ing New Year.

Man, there's a lot of stuff I could (and would like to) write about. Most of it has fuck-all to do with gaming, however, and much of it is probably "too political" (and too partisan to boot)...things that many of my readers find tedious in the extreme. And I do have a few (fifty or so) gaming topics in mind for the New Year, though precious few are specific to Dungeons & Dragons, let alone B/X.

[though rest assured, I am compiling a list...for YOU, gentle readers, all for you]

In fact, my original plan for the day was to sit on down at the local cafe and bang out a couple-four posts to schedule over the coming week. This didn't happen as I ended up spending much of my morning dealing with the police and my delinquent brother and his asshole-ness. Which...trust me, I know...I could go on and on about and elicit all sorts of sympathy for, but fuck, there's not much one can do with sympathy, besides appreciate it and get on with the effort required for dealing with life's realities.

Thanks anyway. Everyone has problems, and my personal ones are pretty small compared to a lot of folks out there, even those of my fellow Americans.

So, instead I'm at the bar attached to a local game store, blogging like this. I bought a beer and a bowl of chili and a game (the newly re-issued Adventures of Baron Munchausen...a beautiful book with new rules for Sinbad the Sailor-type storytelling) and I'm calming my nerves and getting ready to be a fucking parent again with my two darling children who deserve so much more than their uncle's bullshit and the future inheritance we, as a fucked up society, are leaving them.

Games, especially role-playing games like D&D, are a fantastic cure for the various ills that plague us. Don't get me wrong: I use lots of escapist means to deal with my mental stress and suffering. But alcohol (one of my favorites) has a lot of downsides to it, and video games contain few of a tabletop RPG's virtues (like requiring literacy, engaging your imagination, and forcing you to interact with fellow human beings). Thank God for games...I can only wonder at what I might have done with myself over the years if I hadn't had them for an escape outlet.

That's it. That's all I've got for the moment. Seriously, no one wants the sordid details. But I'll try to get back to posting here in the next few days. I do have other things to write about, after all.