When Sposes hate your hobby

One very consistent problem with the gaming world is the consistency where spouses hate the hobby. Now I don’t mean a dislike, or an “I don’t enjoy what you’re doing”. I mean an absolute hatred for whatever game you’re in—be it SR, AD&D, Magic, Vampire, etc. You get the idea. While I admit they cost money, it’s better than sinking every dime you make into beer and pretzels. Now to me and several non-gamers this doesn’t make the least bit of sense. Usually it’s a bunch of guys sitting around a table drinking carbonated drinks filled with a hefty dose of sugar and caffeine. While there are extremes where players game almost every day, this isn’t the norm. For the most part the most I’ve ever gamed was two days a week and that was if I was lucky or I felt like it. I’ve seen and participated with people on a number of worse ideas to spend an afternoon or evening. An example would be to go down to the local nudie bar and spend fifty bucks on beers and topless dances. While a great diversion, it’s eminently cheaper and a spouse-friendly idea to spend it gaming with your gaming buddies to get involved in a story and spend the night at a game store or the group’s gathering place instead of the local bar. As I’ve put it, be glad your spouse isn’t out drinking themselves silly and going out and trying to pick up a partner for the night. They’re out with a group of friends in a tame environment where the closest piece of tail they’re going to find is the NPC in the game who’s only a sheet of paper.

The best way to battle this problem is to explain to your spouse. With enough information maybe you can change their minds or alleviate the misunderstandings about a role-playing game. Explain that first of all it’s fiction. The story you are involved in doesn’t have any real bearing on the real world. Nothing you do in the game can affect your mental capacity in the slightest. Now I can already hear groans and moans from the audience, harking back to the times when some messed up kids either got themselves killed or did something equally stupid. One thing you have to remember is that the majority of these people were on drugs at the time and all of them had one form of mental illness—usually delusional schizophrenia—which means the sufferer has lost a good portion of their contact with reality. These poor individuals were already heading for a fall. They just happened to play games and incorporated that into their delusional world. They could have just as easily fallen into a cult or the local drug addicts. Their delusions could just as easily have been based on comic books, violent TV, or the latest horror movie. Secondly, explain that whatever actions you or a companion may take in the game is not really who you are. Right now I’m playing a drug dealer in SR, but that character is so far removed from my real personality it’s ludicrous. In real life I’m a college student who has aspirations of joining the FBI. None of the actions he takes are real or are anything I would dream of doing in my worst nightmare. He’s fiction. He only exists on a piece of paper and was drawn up from the depths of my imagination and law enforcement training. Also add the aspect when the game is over that piece of paper is placed in a folder and put away. It doesn’t affect my day to day life. When I’m at school I’m there to learn. When I’m on the job I’m there to do what I’m paid to do to pay for school. When I’m with my girlfriend I’m there to be with her. My character only comes into my mind when I’m at a game session or discussing role-playing. Not at any other time.

Role-playing also serves as a creative outlet. When I’m creating a campaign I write a basic story with multiple paths it can take. This allows me to create a world filled with the darkest evils and the highest examples of heroic deeds. These stories take many different forms and directions. For the most part they center around the group needing to stop some ancient evil that has decided to surface again in the world of Shadowrun 2056. Most are based off the Call of Cthulhu game as the main supernatural evils aren’t very well explained and every SR player already knows how to combat them most effectively. Other things include their arch nemesis Mistress Maggan, a very powerful vampire in my world who on the Highlander scale rates between Rameriez and Kurgen. She has without a doubt made the team’s decker a nervous wreck playing havoc with his life every time he turns around. For the players they get to act out a fantasy where they are powerful enough to do many impossible things. Most have a good depth to their characters which make role-playing encounters interesting and different. I’ll have to elaborate more on this at a later time.

But most importantly, it’s a chance to get together with friends and shoot the breeze and have a general good time. With a showering of bad comments, runs to go and get sustenance and numerous trips to the bathroom. But most importantly it’s usually a lot of fun. But things can get out of hand but these bad spells are short lived and for the most part easily rectified. But as I said 9 times out of 10 it’s all good. People get together and have a chance to have fun and socialize without going to a bar or a dance club and spend large amounts of money.

I do however have to add a negative warning. Vicious things have been known to happen, when spouses aren’t happy. I speak from experience.