![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/images\/dnddice.jpg\" "\\"Dungeons")
I was playing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) with a friend when the US Olympic hockey team beat the Russians. We paused for a moment to watch the Miracle on Ice unfold — then we promptly returned to slaying orcs and kobolds…<\/p>\nI was playing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) with a friend when the US Olympic hockey team beat the Russians. We paused for a moment to watch the Miracle on Ice unfold — then we promptly returned to slaying orcs and kobolds…<\/p>\n
I grew up in northern Illinois. When I was a little older and went skiing at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, I was more excited about being in the town where TSR Games<\/a> was based than skiing for my first time. (TSR was the company behind D&D…)<\/p>\n Later, I discovered other games: Gangbusters<\/a>, Top Secret<\/a>, Gamma World<\/a>, and Boot Hill<\/a>. But it always seemed to circle back to D&D…<\/p>\n When I moved to Texas, I found new friends through a shared love of D&D. Friday and Saturday nights were spent playing the game instead of getting in trouble. (Well, mostly <\/em>not getting in trouble…)<\/p>\n Other role playing games followed: Twilight 2000<\/a>, Traveller<\/a>, Champions<\/a>, Shadowrun<\/a>, and GURPS<\/a>…<\/p>\n My teen years (and a little bit of time on each side) were spent lost in stories controlled by rulebooks and the random rolls of dice.<\/p>\n While I’ve never turned a role playing game into a story, I owe my ability to adapt as a writer to all those hours running games.<\/p>\n So many times, I had an outline for a game: all the people and things players would encounter, places they’d go, and things that would happen to them along the way. Sometimes it was a one-shot adventure, but most times it was an ongoing campaign.<\/p>\n I quickly learned that things rarely went as planned.<\/p>\n No matter how much I planned, inevitably, the games I ran changed as we played. To see my friends coming up with something I didn’t expect and force them into my plans would have ruined the feeling for them that the games and worlds I created were open places where they could do what they wanted. So I rolled with it.<\/p>\n The first few times things changed, I had a tough time adapting. But the more I ran games, the more I was able to make up involved stories on the fly, based on my friends’ actions in the game.<\/p>\n Today, there are times I’m deep into an involved story and better ideas come along. Instead of sticking to my outline, I roll with it and find a more exciting and better story in the end.<\/p>\n As a reader, I like to be surprised. I don’t like twist endings or other things some writers do to manipulate their audience, but I like when a story unravels in a way I didn’t expect.<\/p>\n As a writer, I also like to be surprised. Just like running role playing games years ago, I use a rough outline, and I’m not afraid to have it change after I start.<\/p>\n With a fistful of dice and a head packed with ideas, I learned years ago that sometimes the best stories often unfold along the way…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was playing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) with a friend when the US Olympic hockey team beat the Russians. We paused for a moment to watch the Miracle on Ice unfold — then we promptly returned to slaying orcs and kobolds… I grew up in northern Illinois. When I was a little older and went […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Role Playing Games and Writing<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Outlines Are Just That<\/strong><\/h2>\n
A Writing Lesson Learned
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