This guy sounds pretty cool to me:

Clark Allen Peterson is more than just a devoted fan of tabletop role-playing fantasy games.

He has been an entrepreneur and publisher who mentors game designers, heralds product releases from a company he founded, judges design competitions and posts online comments about the intricacies of this make-believe world of monsters, mythical creatures, magic and good vs. evil.

Many know him as the demon prince Orcus, Lord of the Undead.

Others know him as the Honorable Clark A. Peterson, a state magistrate judge in Coeur d’Alene.

Apparently not everyone thinks a judge should be gallivanting about mystical realms doing, uh, whatever it is people do in role-playing games (I’m supposed to know this stuff, but I really don’t.) I mean, as long as he doesn’t start ordering people to go on quests instead of performing community service, what’s the problem?

While the past two years have been tumultuous in his personal life – a divorce, bankruptcy filings and thousands of dollars in overdue income taxes – Peterson has remained caught up in the world of role-playing games.

Okay, all of those things can be distracting, but we all need some source of joy in our lives, right?

Parties in two civil cases that went before Peterson believe that his hobby, coupled with his financial and marital problems, distracted the judge from his duties, drew out their cases and cost them far more in legal bills than necessary. They also contend that the amount of time the judge spends on message boards and the content of some of his posts – from playful digressions to sexually suggestive banter – fall short of the high standards of conduct expected of judges.

So the issues are that cases take a long time to resolve, and that the judge communicates a certain way outside of court? I can’t say for certain, obviously, but the role-playing game stuff sounds like it might be more of a distraction for dissatisfied litigants than for the judge himself. But I could be wrong. Anyway, the whole article is worth a read.

Photo credit: By Sabbut from es [GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.