Yearning to Campaign
Below is a guest post by my very good friend (and co-blogger over at LizSquared) Liz C. She’s a pretty awesome person and, like me, struggles with the balance between being a parent and being a gamer. Read all about it!
–Lizzy B.
My child is 8 years old.
This is relevant because it has thus been about 8 years since I have done any serious gaming, and y’all, I am MISSING. IT.
This isn’t to say that before I had kids, I was a deeply intense gamer. My husband rediscovered gaming because his younger son expressed interest in the hobby, and his rediscovered passion re-ignited my own from my teen years. (Remember Beast Riders? So flippin’ cool. Especially to 16-year-old me.) So we had a gaming group and we gamed fairly frequently, but we only got into an actual campaign twice. Once for Forgotten Realms, and once for Eberron. In both cases, I had a character I was really excited about, whose background I built with care, and whose storyline I knew how to follow. It was those two campaigns that really made me feel like I could say that I was A Gamer For Real (TM). But then we had a baby.
O, Internet. Parenting and gaming. It is possible to mix them, but I just never tried – when our daughter was born, my gaming life effectively died. At the time, I was okay with letting it, because dudes, babies are INTENSE, and being a breastfeeding mom meant that The Sainted Husband could only do so much before It Had to Be Mama (TM). So I didn’t game, and was content for him to run a group without me while I took care of the munchkin. More and more of late, though, I’ve been feeling the pull of the dice, and I don’t mean for a one-off Dread or Lady Blackbird type thing, although those kinds of games have nicely scratched the itch over the past 8 years. No. What I want — need — YEARN for — is A Campaign.
A good, old-fashioned, same-character-throughout gaming campaign. The kind where you develop an insanely detailed backstory that nobody else knows or cares about, complete with appearance reference photos and motivations and god-knows. The kind that drags on for months and months, where you’ve got time to develop a serious grudge against that one person in your gaming group for not getting the cue in that last diplomacy check to just SHUT UP ALREADY! The kind that provides you with years of argument with your DM over magic mechanics and howcome that one time when you tried to cast a spell in two directions at once it was TOTALLY within the defined parameters for your character.
I need a campaign.
I want to get emotionally invested in a character story arc. I want to know where my character’s trying to get, and be able to use his or her arsenal of skills and items to try to get them there. I want to sit around the same table every other week for six months or a year knowing that the story is To Be Continued.
So. Who’s in?
Just hung up my dice recently after having our first baby. I’m hoping it won’t take 8 years before I can get back into a campaign again!
I ended my Ptolus campaign a few months before my son was born, to have more time to prepare the house, etc., and have not gamed since. Would really like to get back to it. Not sure if it will happen with the same group. Of my gamer friends, one had a kid a month before me, one had one exactly 4 months after, and one is expecting one in the fall.
Wow, this post strikes home for me. I’m a dad and not a mom, but there have been a number of factors that dried up my regular gaming (or much gaming at all) and kids have been in the mix. I have a 12 and 14 year old, and that is old enough to involve in games, but they are also so very busy, and I’m busy, and games and campaigns that can include me are pretty rare to nonexistent.
The children cannot take all of the blame, of course (though what good are they really if you can’t constantly scapegoat them a little, I mean really!?). My life’s path took me out of grad school, the last place I really had campaign level play, and eventually into law school. That environment was a bit of a desert as far as gaming, and once I got a job as a government lawyer, even more so.
Not to say that law students, lawyers, etc. aren’t, or are not interested in gaming, but personally, I just met few to none who had experience or time to game.
So, that’s been something like 17 years without any regular games at all.
Also, I have over 21 years of marriage with my lovely wife, but she did not come to gaming until after we married. And she has a very strong preference for Call of Cthulhu, and that’s about it. Now, having been out of the main gaming world for so long, I am sure there are other things she would like to try, and probably, if we had the right group of friends, she would be happy playing all sorts of games and settings.
But, coming back to the kids, we are so busy, and the friends you make through your kids, the parents at schools and from teams, etc. are friends more of happenstance than the kinds of friends you maybe made in school. The common thread is parenthood. And gaming is just rare enough that I have not ever met anyone who has a gaming background who seems interested in starting again, or who is currently playing, and most folks don’t have any idea, still.
And then, there is the fact that 7 years ago, I picked up the family and moved us across the country to Maryland from California. Job opportunity and duty called me to DC. So, the college and high school friends who I could still sometimes see, are now a continent away. Life happens, you have to put on your big boy britches and do what you can.
But boy do I miss having a regular game, a regular group of friends, and that creative flow going. I was the designated GM, in my last years almost exclusively. And I loved it. It almost seems like I am so out of practice that I am not sure I could do it the way I used to.
So, still, there is hope, though not without some concern.
Of course, the internet does provide me with communities to frequent. I was really out of touch with gaming for probably eight to ten years, but in the last seven to ten, have allowed me to ease in somewhat. I do find myself more of a “groupie” than a participant. Of course I still buy games. I have shelves full of them. I love reading them and following discussions and watching what others do with them.
I am fortunate that the area I am in has turned into a hotbed of brilliant game designers and I have followed the folks at Evil Hat and such with keen interest. Also, the opening of Labyrinth Games in DC has been great. I don’t get down there nearly enough, but my son and I have been to three events, two of them for RPGs, and had a great time.
But still, going from something I used to do every week, to something I observe and get to play a bit every few months, it is hard to be okay with that still. I really empathize with the feeling of lack or loss you express.
Really, really.
The key that you have I think, that perhaps I lack, is the connection to a wider community. You husband (hi Tom, I stalk, uh, I mean, follow you on Twitter) obviously continues to cultivate an active RPG group or groups, and that is the first step (assuming you like those folks) to getting back in.
I, though you might not think it from my long and meandering internet posts, turn out to be not only highly introverted, but also socially totally shy. The idea of putting myself out and trying to find a new group and build the relationships from the ground up, is almost to frightening to tolerate.
As a lawyer and government official, I have to put on my armor, and I have faced crowds in court, and that is not a problem. But then, I know my role there. I have my armor and mask firmly in place. I have made my way and I deserve to be there and can demand what is needed.
But gaming is so close to my core, and in some ways so intimate, that outside of a few safe demos (again, thanks Labyrinth DC!), I am at pains to put myself on the line to make it happen.
So, definitely don’t be like me. Go at it. You want it and deserve it. Find that group and do that/those game/games. A campaign is thrilling, satifying, maddening, wonderful.
I’d be down for it too, but finding the time, and courage perhaps, is still an enigma for me.
Thank you for sharing. You have really made me think (even if conclusions yet escape me).
I find this interesting, because I have pretty much the reverse experience. Having a baby is largely what got me back into gaming (also after a 8 year hiatus).
Much easier to find a sitter for gamenight every two weeks, than for the miriad of hobbies I used to pursue. Also, it’s dirt cheap, since that baby business really dried up our boozing budget.
Of course, I know that stateside it’s not uncommon for people to live hundreds of miles away from their extended family and support system, making babysitting a more complex (and costly) affair.
When I had my two kids I took long breaks of 6 to 9 months then started small with games that only meet 1/month. Starting off slow really helped give me time to balance my life and gaming.
Gaming is my favorite hobby so I decided that other hobbies can be dropped if I can keep gaming. Maybe that could help your time budgeting as well.
Take care…GREAT post.
Me me me!
Everything always seems to fall on a day my parents have ganked. Like unit meetings and my workload…
I have been DYING to play something with you and Tom for months!
I married a non-gamer, and so gave it up for 6 years, until my son was born.
I then Played and DM’d PbP for 5 years, until he (and then my daughter) became involved in Scouting.
I have found that D&D Encounters is a great way to play.
I play on business trips, and just played in Rockville, MD.
Since my son and daughter are still Scouting, I think that this will have to suffice until they are both in college.