In which the blogger forgets what she was writing about in the first place

The wedding reception was one of the most fun I've been to. It didn't hurt either that I met a boy. Oh yes, there was a boy. My friend Sarah, the bride, sent him over to ask me to dance (Here single friend, go ask other single friend to dance, ya bunch of losers, lol), but hey, we talked whilst we slow danced, and he was pretty cool (and pretty hot). Then he said that Sarah had told him I was her DM, and he asked if that meant I was her district manager. Oh, lord, I thought. I had to say no, that wasn't exactly it.

You know, you might think that the words "dungeon master" would be the coffin lid slamming shut on this situation, but he was unfazed which earned him super awesome points in my book. I was still slightly aghast at the fact that my friend proudly introduces me to other people as her DM. I don't care if people know, but it's nice to soften the landing a little first. Maybe, you know, use alternate phrasing like "story teller" because I'm not ashamed of my dork-tacular status. Do you even know how much work goes into running a really good role playing game campaign? No, you don't because you think that all of us dice rollers are sad social freaks. Well, I spent quite a lot of effort crafting a proper world as the setting for my campaign. I applied my not unconsiderable knowledge of everything from mythology, language families, world history, meteorology, and geography to plate techtonics, cosmology, technological and social developement, political systems, and D&D 3.5 to create as realistic and textured world as I felt possible with out overburdening the game with the actual complexities and humdrum details of the real world. Then I have to engineer a plot that will entertain the players (and myself) without being a series of tropes strung together and create orignial, three dimensional characters to populate the world and for the players to interact with.

Next comes the actual running of the game. I have to take this world and its characters and events and bring them to life for my players through words alone. (Okay, I usually have a few sketches and maps to throw out.) I have to role play all of the characters they will encounter, and please let me not have forgotten to name someone or some town. I have to get information to the players with out giving too much away. Sometimes gently steering them, othertimes breaking out the plot hammer. All the while I have to be constantly ready for any curve balls the players might throw, like taking off to some distant land and completely ignoring my carefully prepared plans and contingency plans. Or maybe killing off some important character, like a major baddie. So, all in all, a lot of work, but a lot of fun.

...

Great, now I've completely wandered away from my original story.