"For myself, I learned a great deal at the gaming table, and it has served me extraordinarily well. I'd been a Dungeon Master for over a dozen years by the time I entered the workforce, which meant that I had copious experience bringing people together around a table, gently guiding an argumentative team to the conclusion I wanted, running meetings and giving presentations with virtually no advance warning, and looking poised and in control when dealing with wildly unexpected situations.

"Years later, sitting in Dave Kenzer's office at Motorola as we worked together on a complex investment scheme, I put my feet on his desk and confided, "You know, I've negotiated to buy companies for a quarter of a billion dollars. I've started a few companies, and been on the Board of Directors of more. I've managed teams of salesmen. I studied English in Canada, and got a Ph.D. in Engineering in Illinois. And none of that — none of it — has prepared me for this job as much as being a Dungeon Master."

"That's the first thing you've said about this deal that's made complete sense," said Dave.

But then on the third hand

Oh, now I'm lost in my imagination again, am I at the end or the beginning?

So off we'd go with our players and companions

Allied NPCs who were sometimes even cooler than we were

Into those strange new worlds

We'd unfurl our banners

Take weird or impractical weapon in hand

And go explore an impossibility (or at least an improbability)

Where a failure could often be more exciting than a success

And you'd meet people and things you'd never get a chance to see in real life, and probably wouldn't want to

Sometimes we'd fight

Sometimes we'd run

We'd change things wherever we went

And eat enough junk food to choke a unicorn.

But we usually made it to the end. Sometimes we'd even be shocked.

Even if the GM's description left a little to be desired.

We'd invent way cool stuff

Newbies would learn a few hard lessons

But we'd teach them how the world worked (or how to work the world)

Just when and how to deal with a trap

And more importantly, to expect a trap exactly because it doesn't look like a trap

Improvise your way to victory

By exploiting your opponents' weakness, be it obvious or no

With creative use of the carefully chosen abilities

I said, CAREFUL

We'd accept slightly weird outcomes

Or definitions of a reward

As long as it kept to your character's alignment

We'd cheer on great bits of roleplaying

And laugh in the face of failure.

And fall on the floor and hyperventilate over a truly epic failure

And learn to roll with the punches

Because after midnight you never know what a tired DM might come up with

We assimilated a little bit of our characters, sometimes even took bits of them into the real world

Some of us even ended up with people we met gaming

And saw life in RPG terms. Maybe for the better.

'

Some might benefit by working a few things out on tabletop where they wouldn't bother the rest of us.

We sometimes wish we had some of the skills our characters do

Or their balls

But even if we don't let out a battle cry and draw sword, we're at least suspicious of stuff that looks or sounds too good to be true

And we're good at forming our own ideas and philosophies, thank you very much

We make sure we've got the right tools and a plan before sitting down to an important task

And have definitions of beauty and possibility that don't come out of a glossy magazine

It all comes down to you and your friends having a good time, not hurting anyone but a few bags of Cheetos.

For all we've learned, for all we've laughed, for all we've won and lost and become.

Thanks, Gary.