The vicious cycle of hereditary geekiness claims another victim.

So I'm teaching my kid brother to play Dungeons and Dragons, and I'll tell you why. When I was a kid, I played a lot of video games, way more than was healthy. But when I was done playing video games, I would take the stories and ideas in the games and do my own thing with them. I've found cartoons I drew in kindergarten based on watching my uncles play Ultima VII, and I'd write little stories about the characters. In my defense, this was before I knew how bad an idea "fan fiction" is.

Anyway, I played the games because I liked the stories. I guess that's a bit like saying you read Maxim for the articles. But if you get me started playing a video game, even if it's really terrible, I have to finish it so I can see how it ends. If I had the same persistence about real literature, I would probably have finished the two books I've been reading intermittently since February.

Here's my point, though: I'm having a difficult time seeing any redeeming creative merit to the stuff Alec plays. He's into the anime thing, so it's all pretty much rubbish. I don't think the Japanese even have a word for "hackneyed" or "hyperbolic" or "nonsensical"... unless that's what the word "anime" means.

So I'm getting him into D&D because if he's going to be a geek, he's going to be an American geek, dang it. And since he can't see the pictures and the game doesn't tell him what to do, he'll have to do something besides mash the "X" button all day.

In seriousness... I asked him the other day what he would wish for if he had three wishes from a genie, and he couldn't think of anything. I asked him what he would do if he had a million dollars, and he looked around the room, spotted his iPod, and said, "Um... buy... songs."

I love... lamp. It was exasperating. So we're going to grow him an imagination. It's going to involve the repulsion of kobold invaders and finding out who murdered the elven high priestess, among other things. I know you won't believe me, but I'm writing a pretty wicked story for this... we're going to tackle concepts like industrialization (they call it "going bad" in Narnia), contradictory moral obligations, individual and universal apostasy, political intrigue... the kids are getting impatient because they want to actually play, but I'm frankly having too much fun getting ready. And just because it's in the context of being a Dungeon Master does not make it stupid. It just makes me stupid for telling you about it.

--Kevin