This past Friday I turned 40. It was an eventful sort of birthday, full of...interesting happenings. I did get to play some games, and that got me to reflect on my life as a gamer so far, and also what the future may hold. I hope you will indulge me as I share some of those thoughts with you. If the ramblings about a gamer's life don't interest you, I invite you back Wednesday for our regularly scheduled gaming content.
I started fairly young as a gamer. My family played all of the traditional family games: Monopoly, Scrabble, The Game of Life, and others. To me, it was part of growing up. Family game night laid the foundation for my gaming future. I learned how to play with others, how to follow rules and, when necessary to further group fun, how to make the rules fit our play style. The biggest lesson, though, was also the simplest: have fun, and help others have fun at the same time. Though we could get competitive, my family always made sure we had fun first. Perhaps that made me less of a competitive style player, but it definitely made me aware of everyone at the table, and how my playing affected them.
In junior high, I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons, my first real roleplaying. Our school had an art club, and my art teacher at the time had a large collection of books to help stimulate our artful musings. In that collection I found a set of first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons books. I was fascinated and he caught on pretty quickly when my art took a decidedly fantastical turn. He mentioned that the school used to have a gaming club until concerned parents shut it down. The books hadn't been touched since then and he asked me if I would like to take them to keep. I was beside myself with happiness. My brother had a roleplaying game that we tried to learn and quickly gave up on (Tunnels and Trolls, for the curious). That was my only contact with roleplaying games until this point. The frustration of that attempt almost made me turn the offer down, but the lure of those pages was too great.
I was enthralled by the books and their potential for magical stories. I found others that were interested and we began learning the rules and playing the game. I spent my junior and senior years jumping from group to group, learning first to be a good player, then eventually trying my hand at running a game, the role that found myself preferring, since I not only could help tell a story, but also had a better time ensuring that the group I was playing with had fun. In college, I played to an almost hedonistic degree, playing all-night games, campaigns that lasted years, and trying out any system and roleplaying world I could. Roleplaying has been a hobby and a love that has lasted into today for me, and will continue to be a part of my life as long as I can roll dice.
In my life, I have played a wide variety of games: roleplaying games, board games, video games, live-action games, text-based games, and more. I love games of all types, something I hope to share with you as we move forward with this blog. Roleplaying holds a special place in my heart, however. It is what cemented gaming in my life and also where I made some of the greatest friendships I have ever had, and continue to have. Being someone who suffers from diagnosed social anxiety, it has always been difficult for me to meet new people. Yet gaming, and especially roleplaying, has allowed me to overcome that mental constraint by leading me to like-minded people who share common interests and have been welcoming and receptive to this shy, awkward goofball. I love telling stories with people, and I love that this activity works so well to bring people together.
Gaming in my life has evolved from the first taste, through the hedonism of college, to the more mature version of gaming I experience today. I am a parent, as are many of those I game with. Schedules are packed and erratic, so regular game time becomes harder to find. Instead of giving up on gaming, though, we try to find new ways to game, to figure out how we can adapt gaming to our lives without sacrificing the fun. I will talk in the future about some of those ideas (my "Adrift: Fantasy Boomtown" post is a good example of an attempt at adaptation) in order to help others with similar issues. But the overriding idea is that I refuse to give up on gaming because it is more than just a hobby. It is ingrained in who I was and who I became, and I intend on making sure it helps me as I figure out who I will become in the future.
Gaming today for me is more than just the act of playing. It is creating ideas and worlds to potentially play. It is creating this blog with a friend in order to get these ideas out there in hopes of connecting with others and moving our gaming in new directions. It is teaching my kids and their friends new games, and also how to play games with others (not just to win). It is in looking at how I can use my love of gaming to help others through charity work. It is in trying to create, and not just consume.
I am not sure much of that made sense. I hope it shows you a bit more of who I am under the fez, though, and my passion for gaming. As I enter the second half of my life, I am reflecting, but I am also looking forward to the coming years. There is quite a bit I plan on doing, and gaming is at the heart of much of it. Hopefully you can join me on part of that journey.
Cheers.
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