You can also go the other way — zoom out from the subject while dollying the camera forward at the same time; this produces an effect like the finale of the film Vertigo.

And Tim, my sympathies to you and your family for your loss. It seems not so long ago we went through the same thing. Our silly little hobbies are more important to the healing process than we realize. Keep the faith.

But in college, my friends and I played the DC Role Playing Game and had a blast. Four of us played together as a team called Paradox 4. There was a player created psionic, a player created energy blaster, Guy Gardner, and my character – Wildfire from the Legion.

With a couple of energy people already on the team, I used my hero points and sub-plots to slowly mold Wildfire to more of the muscle of the team. He could still shoot beams but his raw strength was his greatest attribute.

After a couple of adventures on Earth, the GM realized the team was a bit too powerful and so made us head into space to fight more galactic threats.

The game was a complete blast and for us, as for you guys, the fun wasn’t in the dice rolling and more in the role playing. Our characters’ personalities didn’t always jibe and that led to some great interactions. Even after finishing playing (college ended and we separated), we continued to write stories about the team, snail mailing chapters to each other.

At one point, we even set up a second ‘no powers’ team with John Constantine (me), Ted Kord Blue Beetle, and a Zorro-like character.

We so enjoyed the character interaction that when we went back to D&D, we each had to write an ‘origin’ story, the equivalent of a Whos Who page. It helped move the game along.

Thanks for a great show and letting me wax nostalgic.

And you really don’t need to “know” how to “play”, just as it says in the Hero Points theme. Only the GameMaster really has to understand the rules.