As you probably know, I am an openly nerdy man. These days, my nerdiest activity is being the Game Master for a bunch of economists who pretend to be super-heroes. No joke! We use my modified version of the Hero System role-playing game, formerly known as Champions.

For me, much of the fun of role-playing games is dreaming up fantastic mysteries, and giving the players a chance to solve them. Once I get going, I can become a little obsessive. With the help of google images, I cast all my stories with movie stars, living and dead. And… I also write fake news articles about the events in my stories to give the players clues. Which finally gave me my Big Break to write a fake article for the Economist. An imaginary article. A work of fiction. Parody, even.

False modesty aside, all the economists in my group were delighted to see what the Economist had to say about the Siberian Economic Miracle, the Kropotkin Corporation, the White Revolution in Arctic agriculture, and the secession movement in Yakutsk. If you like to think about economics and suspend disbelief at the same time, take a look.

Then tell me: Who is nerdier than I, that I may learn from him?