Theo Dudek, Ultimate Game Master

The other night I had a dream that I was playing a tabletop RPG. I was at home and it was nighttime and all my friends were there — Shesh, Mike, Jen, Vartan, Hawwa — and they all wanted to play a game with me. I got out some old 3.0 adventure, a dungeon crawl with goblins and ogres and ratmen — the adventure had a brown cover, the whole dream was very brown- and red-colored — and I could feel my heart beating faster with excitement at having all my favorite players from L.A. and Escondido in one place to play a game. But unfortunately, the dream ended there and we didn’t actually get to play… we just made characters and then things sort of puttered out inconclusively.

I often have dreams about RPGs. Sometimes I even dream of years ago, the first time I ever played roleplaying games. Maybe I’ve spent so much time gaming that it is an essential function of my brain that even happens in my sleep. All kinds of monsters and scenarios float through my mind (Shadowrun, Warhammer, Cthulhu, D&D, Exalted, different science fiction and fantasy homebrews…). Unfortunately, these dream games, like the dream I had last night, often end before the game really gets going. More often than not, I dream that I am *about* to run a game, but then everyone is late or they want to watch a DVD instead or someone flakes out or something like that. :( I guess I’ll have to take comfort in the fact that I dream of gaming, but not be discouraged by the fact that so many of my dreams are dreams of frustration. In the end, I’m confident that the good games, the satisfying games, will outweigh the bad.