"What do you do?"

It's the all-important question in any role-playing game. Your freshly minted character sits in front of you - statted up on a character sheet, personality coalescing in your mind, perhaps in the three-dimensional form of a miniature. The GM establishes a mood, a situation, a scene. Then asks, "What do you do?"

Which, of course, takes the activity in which you're engaged from the world of story and into the realm of game. It can be daunting to imagine the entirety of the fictional setting your avatar is standing in. A whole universe of possibility: what do I do?

At some point you're likely to be shoehorned into a series of events at least partially pre-determined by the GM, however altered by the vagaries of chance. But in that moment, before he or she takes your response and weaves it into whatever has been planned for that inaugural session, you have the reins of narrative power.

So here I am. Semi-recumbent on my bed, listening to With Teeth, ears full of water from the shower, coffee wending its way through my system, head swimming with its usual chatter.

What do I do?