"I hunt vampires for a living."

I love telling people that. Their reaction is always somewhat peculiar as they look to see if I am serious, deranged, or just plain weird. With the kick-off of Hunters Inc. I thought I might explain a little bit exactly what I mean.

The fact of the matter is that I'm quite serious -- in a particular sort of way. Hunting vampires is unbelievable, of course, and that's why I couch it in those terms. People, I have found, are all too often disposed to believe in the small evils of our society. But when it comes to the unspeakable atrocities -- the Evil as opposed to the evil -- they tend to treat them as if they were as unreal as vampires themselves.

I work a sex crimes desk for a small police department in southeast Los Angeles. Over half of my cases involve sexual assaults against children. Thus, as far as I am concerned, the criminals I pursue are monsters, in the truest sense of the word. It is very rewarding, if frustrating work. I have have often asked myself what led me to it, and why I would choose such a profession in the first place. That contemplation has always led me back to gaming.

Role-playing had always been a love for me, and to this day I still feel the desire to pull out the dice bag and rock and roll. It may seem strange, but I guess I never stopped gaming. Granted, I now do some of the most intense live-action role-playing there is, but when it comes down to it, I still think of myself as going off the slay a vampire. Or battle an ogre. Or destroy any other such creature that society somehow never quite realizes is out there.

I am constantly surprised that so many people attach a stigma to our hobby. After a recent encounter with a beligerent non-gamer, I went away feeling sorry for the people who can't see gaming for what it is: a creative, fun hobby that builds the intellect and teaches people not to fear their imaginations. Many question the usefulness of such skills, but consider the advantages gamers may have in the workplace if they learn to put their problem-solving skills to work. All new technology is creatively driven, and draws from the same source that gaming taps into. To scoff at gaming is to scoff at the same abilities that have pushed the human race forward for thousands of years.

The stereotype gamer image is one of someone unable to detach himself from his hobby.

In my experience, nothing could he further from the truth. I have met gamers who are chemists, engineers, physicists, lawyers, and others. In my conversations with them, they almost invariably point to some positive aspect that gaming has had on their life and career. Many no longer have the the time to game, but still long for the good old days when they could crack the manuals and run amok, and almost all of them have mentioned how some skill or focus developed in their early gaming years has helped them succeed in the "outside" world.

The problem is that many of them appear to distance themselves from the hobby they love so much. They seem skittish and quiet about it until they determine that I, too, am a gamer, and therefore can be trusted. When they learn that I don't think negatively of gaming, then they are quick to talk of the adventures of yesterday. But until that point, they invariably try to set themselves apart from an activity that has contributed something very meaningful to their lives.

Which brings me to my point: we as gamers are in good company. I feel that gaming give much more than it takes; the very nature of the medium is geared towards it. I for one am not only proud of my hobby, but feel that I owe a large part of who I am today to those endless sessions spent in Blackthorne's castle. Seeing first hand that yes, you really can throw four dark zeros in a row. Seeing that, sometimes, like life itself, the improbable not only can, but often does happen. That in spire of the odds and the danger, I can succeed, and that I should never, ever give up.

So whe you sit around the familiar table with your good friends and a bag of chips, clutching your dice and preparing to do battle with some fell thing from the pits, you may not be fully aware of what you're getting into. The adventure may start on that table-top, but there's no telling when or where it will end.