You are the Hero of Your Story.

Who is your favorite hero? From movies, to books, to gaming, we are surrounded by heroic figures in our lives. What is a modern hero? These figures that motivate, encourage and inspire us. Each of us has one that stands above the rest as our personal favorite. What do your heroes say about you?

There are many benefits to playing games. When we put down the controller or pack up our dice, the values we learned in playing games stay with us. From video games to tabletop roleplaying games, playing games teaches us about life. Here are the ten most important life lessons that I learned from gaming.

Whether it’s in a game or in real life, stress happens from the unexpected and things outside of our control. But when faced with difficult situations in RL, we can’t turn it off and walk away. What can we learn from video games and TTRPGs like D&D about stress management and dealing with anxiety in a crisis? Here are 14 techniques to reduce anxiety and stress management for geeks and gamers.

Quests in games provide goals, help us progress our story, and develop our character. What if we could do earn experience points and complete quests in real life? There are plenty of real quests that we can take to improve our stats and have some fun along the way.

Here is a list of 25 real-life quests for nerds, geeks, gamers, and would-be adventurers to get you started on your adventure.

Gaming has been blamed for a variety of negative impacts with studies showing a correlation between gaming and mental health issues. But as a gamer myself dealing with anxiety and depression, I’ve always felt that gaming made me feel better, not worse. More recent studies have shown that while there may be a connection between gamers and higher levels of anxiety, it is not necessarily causation. And in fact, gaming has been shown to be beneficial and help symptoms of anxiety and depression in many people.

We spend our lives wishing for adventure. But those wishes are in sharp contrast to our everyday lives of routine and often full of mundane tasks. But what if real-life adventures are possible and available to you right now? What's your ideal life of adventure and what's holding you back?