I Blame Dan Abnett

I place the blame squarely on Dan Abnett’s head. I really do. As a grown-up geek, with a life filled with work, family and God knows what else, I had made up my mind to quit running roleplaying games cold turkey. I told myself that I could still dabble in the odd miniatures or board game, but roleplaying games were out. Why? In my experience, running roleplaying games requires just too much of a continuing time commitment.

While other games require a similar amount of ‘front loaded’ time getting prepared to play (I am looking at you Flames of War) nothing else besides running a roleplaying campaign requires such a continuing commitment of time and energy. In my experience, preparing for and running an exciting and interesting campaign on a regular basis too often turns into a grind. On top of that, you have to actually find a group, travel to wherever you are going to play, deal with no-shows, etc. It’s just generally a pain in the butt. I love RPGs, but my mind was made up. I was going to put away the dice bag for good.

And then I picked up Dan Abnett’s Eisenhorn omnibus on a whim. It was innocent enough. I was cruising Borders looking for something to read on my commute. The cover painting of inquisitor Eisenhorn caught my eye and I bought the book. Half way into Xenos, the first book of the trilogy, and I was hooked. Now I am not very familiar with the Warhammer 40,000 universe but Abnett’s vivid prose and pulpy action really sucked me in. Not even a week later, I was in possession of Dark Heresy and Rogue Traderebook

Back down the rabbit hole I go…