Dungeons & Digressions

My thoughts (let me show you them) all turn to D&D lately. Everything makes me think of D&D. It's like the Tootsie Roll commercial, except with elfs instead of painfully chewy candy. Here's what's been happening:

• I reinvigorated my long-running D&D game, and everyone's enthused.
• I fired up an RPG campaign wiki about it.
  
• I'm suddenly hard at work on a nearly abandoned wiki about a D&D fantasy setting with all the random details that, heretofore, had been in a long, long text document. It's like wikis were MADE for keeping track of Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, and the wild growth of a real-world encyclopedia using the format is just an over-elaborate offshoot project.
• Practically accidentally, I'm running a one-shot game for old skool D&D-ers at work this week.
• Last week, an old associate emailed me out of the blue and asked if I'd like to write some D&D material on a short deadline. (I said yes.)
  
• I have wikipedia entries on castles open on my browser at home, because I'm frequently referencing them.
• I downloaded Sketchup, a 3-D modeling program, because I thought, "This might be a good way to slap down some dungeon maps." (Jury still out.)
  

Any time my brain gets 10 consecutive seconds off, I'm thinking about making up D&D stuff. It's fantastic and strange.

In the past, paid game writing has been an invitation to tour all the terror and self-doubt I can dredge. This time, it's fun. I think I can see the difference... I think I know the trick now. I think.

As the Tick once enthusiastically opined, "Now to retain it!"