Wyrm’s Turn: Calling It Quits

Sometimes I think about quitting. Sometimes I think that I should just put it down, step away and never look back. It’s hard, when you’ve been indulging in something so rewarding for so long to just let it go. Then I look around me at all of the paraphernalia that I’ve collected over the years, the papers, the books, the dice and it’s hard. Wait, what did you think I was talking about? Gaming, I’ve been gaming since I was ten. If you want a history, check out my first article. Otherwise just know that when you start something so young, and keep at it for so long.  It’s hard to give it up and not feel like a quitter.

The problem is diminishing returns, there are only so many plots, so many characters, so many twists and players that you can play with before the newness rubs off. Gaming can be an immensely rewarding experience. With each new story and experience, each turn upon the path of self-discovery you can learn something new about yourself, your friends, and your relationship to the world around you. I’ve created characters from real life heartbreaks that helped me to understand what it was I was really looking for in love. I’ve forged lasting friendships, created shared stories more exciting and complex than many of my real world experiences, and built worlds all my own.

At the same time I remember something an acquaintance of mine once said when asked if he’d like to join a game. “Role-playing games are like a circle jerk,” crude, but also apropos. Sometimes gaming feels like mental masturbation, a form of self-stimulation that ultimately gets you nowhere. Once you’ve done a game, some times there’s no reason to go back. Once you’ve told a story in one form, do you really need to trot it out and write it again? I’ve got so many worlds, characters, and plots spinning through my head that sometimes it’s hard to push through the fog and come up with something new and original.

Just like sexual self-discovery when you experience your first game you are elated. There’s also a bit of shame involved. You can tell your friends that have done it all about your minotaur cleric, but try explaining it to your grandparents, or your teachers, or that girl that you like. Then it gets awkward, and is probably ill-advised if you don’t want whoever it is to look at you funny. So it becomes your little secret, just you and your group, slaying dragons, saving maidens, getting drunk off dwarf ale and waking up having agreed to god knows what proposition that some creepy old man in the bar offered you gold for.

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Reality sets in years later when you have to actually adjust to talking to normal people. At your job, at your school, and in the dating scene. You can’t exactly tell that girl at the end of the bar about your twelfth level paladin. Geek may be chic now-a-days, but it’s still not going to get you dates outside of specific social circles. I hid the fact that I was a gamer from my wife for at least a few months when we first started dating. When I finally told her I felt like I was coming out, or admitting to having an addiction or fetish. She was actually cool with it, and after coming to the games a few times she even wanted to try. Now a few years later she even got to run her own game based off of Greek mythology.

Meanwhile I’ve played so many games that I’ve almost become desensitized. I have trouble coming up with characters any more. The feeling of infinite potential has folded in upon itself, and many of the friends I used to game with have moved on. RPG’s have started becoming a single player experience. World of Warcraft gives you the crunch, but honestly there’s not much role-playing going on there, all talk is tactical. Computer and console RPG’s like Fallout, Fable, Mass Effect and Dragon Age with broad stories, and interesting companions let you make choices, but hardly let you characterize your character outside of their specific parameters. Dialogue choice A or B is hardly a substitute for real role-playing.

Games become less and less frequent, deep role-playing where you inhabit your character for the majority of the game is gone. Maybe it’s just the people I play with, maybe it’s the lack of time, or the demands of real life stealing my focus. The most fun I’ve had gaming in a while is the snippets of the Red Box adventure that I’ve been running for my parents. We have a blast. They battle goblins, turn dragons into toads, and light ogre zombies on fire, but it only lasts an hour and a half, two hours tops before they get bored, or tired. Gone are the days of all-night marathon games, fueled by sugary drinks and salty snacks.

Soon my wife wants to have kids, I know that will be a new adventure, and maybe I’ll have to put away my minis and dice until the kids are old enough to play. Maybe I’ll enjoy parenthood so much I’ll never look back. My friends tell me I’ll have time to play, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t get much time until their kids were several years old and could entertain themselves. Only now that they are 7 and 9 are we able to game just after their 8:30 bedtime. Even then we rarely get passed 11:30 before mom and dad are dragging due to the constraints of their kid-centric schedules.

For now I’ll keep gaming in fits and spurts. I’ll run games for my folks, for my wife, for the few friends that still play. I’ll play in games when I can, hopefully attend conventions to keep my finger on the pulse. Till then I plan on keeping you up to date on my game musings. Hopefully providing useful tidbits of knowledge about the gaming world and my place in it. Until then I’ll let my geek flag fly for as long as I can hold on, but one day…well eventually all adventures must end.

About Stygian Jim

Stygian Jim was born in Missouri, but his family later settled in the Florida Keys. It is there that our benighted correspondent spent his formative years, and it is there he lives to this day. A consummate gamer geek he whiles away his life planning dramatic stories and plots for people and places that do not exist, and besting his compatriots at games of strategy.

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