Hello. I’m Donny, and I’m a great big ol’ nerd. From, like ever I guess.

I’d always been a fan of video games, but the first real immersive gaming experience I had was with pen and paper RPG’s. Specifically, Dungeons and Dragons. I was probably in the fifth grade when I was approached by a kid in the sixth grade. He’d been scouting me for some time, paying attention to my lack of social skills coupled with a vivid imagination and a love for fantasy and sci-fi books. “Have you heard of D&D?” he asked.

“No…” I felt like I was getting set up. I was, in a way. He told me that one of the high school kids was trying to get a group started, and we would play during lunch break. He borrowed me a few Xerox copies from the player’s manual so I would have a clue what I was doing. I took them home and started reading.

That group fell apart. We never played a single game. However, I was hooked.

I managed to get my younger brother and two cousins into the fold, and for the better part of three decades we played – D&D, AD&D, Marvel RPG, DC RPG, RIFTS. Epic characters were created, as were moments that are still laughed about today. But Real Life, as it does, gets in the way and our gaming time pretty much ended.

Then, two things happened that got us all back on the horse – my cousin’s insistence that we give this new Pathfinder game a try, and the Glass Cannon Podcast.

The GCP is an actual play podcast of the Pathfinder adventure campaign, “Giantslayer”. The players are comedians and actors, entertainers who not only make the listening fun, but infectious. You want to have the kind of fun they’re having. So once my cousin dangled that carrot out there, the rest of us bit and bit hard.

We were back. We started setting up “boys nights”, and although none of our significant others were interested in the game and tossed the “nerd” tag around freely, they all admitted it was better than the four of us hanging out in some bar somewhere. For us, it was a chance to not only play together, but reconnect with each others lives. Sometimes the nights were game heavy. Other nights, it was doughnuts and chips and laughter.

World of Warcraft has me in a bit of a “meh” right now. I’m stoked to be going to Blizzcon and meeting some great people, but I just don’t feel that desire to log in. I’ve spent the last week rebuilding a Pathfinder character that was giving me fits, and I got more enjoyment researching builds for that than I did planning gold-making runs or gearing selections. The new patch, the new planet, isn’t doing much for me.

So, for the next little while, I think my focus is going to be more MMORPG. Less RNGesus and more shitty d20 rolls. Because you gotta blame something, right?

I never see this number on my die.