Missives from the 6th Floor

I started playing D&D as a pre-teen, and with very few exceptions - mostly taken with people I played with, rather than the game itself - my parents encouraged the pass-time.

As I changed, the RPGs I found interesting changed with me. Over time I got rid of my original boxed sets, my veritable legion of AD&D (and AD&D 2nd Edition) books - all purchased with money earned as allowance, or doing odd jobs around the neighborhood. Games like Star Frontiers, ROBOTECH, Twilight 2000, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, GURPS, and a parade of others occupied my afternoons and my bookshelf.

But D&D was the first. And you never forget that first glimpse.

Of all the lessons D&D taught me, perhaps the most significant, and long lasting, was giving me insight into the power of words.

While sitting around a table, or during the occasional brief flirtation with play-by-email, words were all there were. Player and DM alike were limited only by the vivacity of their descriptions. The group day dream was as detailed, as compelling, and as rich as the words used to describe it.

In a very literal sense, words were creation. By the act of describing a thing, the thing was. By evoking the sights, sounds, and smells of a place, the group was transported there - to that place.

If that's not power, I don't know what is.