Balancing Gaming Life and Real Life
By Cape Rust
A few months back, a great friend and longtime gaming buddy wrote an article about quitting the hobby. He went through the normal laments about games that were OBE (Overcome By Events), the problems of keeping a regular gaming group intact, and worries about trying to add some future gamers to his household. He felt like he should just give up as he was tired of dealing with the normal headaches associated with gaming and worrying about not having the time to game if he confirmed his crits in the bedroom. Being the good friend that I am, I publicly flamed him on the comments section below his article and called him and gave him one of my famous “pep talks”. Based on my military background and normally abrasive personality, combined with a complete lack of inner monologue, you can guess how that went. Actually, it didn’t go as badly as you might think.
Family, work, relationships, and everything else in the world seem to be aligned against tabletop gamers. Our hobby takes time and effort and if not managed correctly, our fantasy spell slinging can affect our real-world pencil-pushing or code-pounding. Most great wise men from Jackie Chan to Yoda agree that the key to success in life is balance. Too much of anything can be bad! You might have forgotten that gaming, and in fact most hobbies, should be fun. But when they impede your real life, it is time to step back and take a hard look at how you are or are not taking care of business. Let’s look at the big three: family, work, and relationships.
At the end of December, I will have been married for 17 years. I write this article on my oldest daughter’s 16th birthday (Happy Birthday Mallie!); add my youngest daughter 18 months later and you can see a huge time sink. Families are a time sink when it comes to gaming, but in the best possible way. No matter how much you love gaming, your family must always come first. There have been times in my life where that line got blurred and those are times I try not to think about. Game groups come and go, games start and stop, and most Cons happen annually, but family events are often once in a lifetime. Is it really worth missing your child’s first steps to kill yet another rival vampire? If you said yes, you are a go proceeded by a no, making you a no-go! Missing out on too many family events because of gaming often leads to anger and resentment. Gaming is a way to escape from real-life, but it shouldn’t be an excuse for running away from it.
The best way to deal with this is to stop before you start. Before you commit to a game, talk with your spouse. Figure out what major upcoming events are going to happen for your children, your spouse, and events that will require the entire family. It sounds like common sense, but you normally don’t think about these types of things when everyone is discussing the next game. When you get through this projected family event, common sense check, think about family birthdays, major holidays, a few date nights for you and your spouse, and add in a few just in case dates. If you have extended family that live close by, factor their birthdays and other major events in as well. If most of your family events are happening on Fridays and you normally game on, say, Saturdays you should be good. If most of these events happen on Saturdays and that is game night, see if there is a way to change nights or shape the times of family events so that you will still have time to game. If you just can’t work around these events, you need to think twice about committing to a game. Remember, gaming is a team sport! I know there will be some conflicts and you will have to miss a few sessions, but missing every other session and coming in late for the rest is disruptive to the game and makes things difficult for the person running the game. To top all of this off, missing too many family events will cause tension.
After looking over the calendar, talk to your spouse and if you have children, find out what events are important to them. This creates buy-in from the family and lets you know when you are and are not expected to attend a family function. You might not realize it, but that game you missed might have been the most important thing in the world to your child.
Work and gaming do not mix, but they can co-exist. Work might just be the reason you have such a need to game, but for most of us, it is something that has to be done. The old saying, work to live and live to game fits well here. Don’t ever let a game get in the way of work. I only say this because normally that job pays the bills and allows you to purchase more gaming materials. No matter how much you might dislike your job, the money it provides enables gaming! One of my Game Masters had a job that allowed him to work on the game he was running at work. This had the secondary effect of giving him more time to be with his family. Only do this if you have the kind of job that allows you to. It is not worth losing a job, especially in this day and age, over trying to squeeze in stating out an NPC on the clock.
If you game during the week and have to work the next day, don’t game too late. I know that sounds like common sense, but I have made this mistake too many times. It is hard enough for me to wake up for church at 8:00 in the morning after gaming until 2 or 3 in the morning. Now I’m not pushing church or religion, but it is one of many family type activities you can engage in away from the table.
Finally we get to relationships. While relationships might seem like a catch all, I want to focus on boyfriends, girlfriends, and just regular friends. Most people game with friends, but hopefully you have friends outside of your gaming circle. If they are friends and not gamers, they should at least understand that you have a hobby that can take up a significant amount of time you might spend hanging out with them. Don’t take this for granted. It is healthy to have friends that don’t game. In fact, I recommend it. If you have friends that don’t game, let them know that you game and that it takes time, sometimes lots of time. Make sure you make plans with your non-gaming friends and don’t try to introduce them to gaming if they are not interested. Don’t ruin a good friendship by trying to push something a person isn’t into.
Boyfriends and Girlfriends are a tough subject. First, there are some people who never have boyfriend or girlfriend type relationships. Gamers are notorious for being anti-social shut-ins who possibly still live in their parents’ basement. Sometimes this is true but more often than not, gamers are sociable, at least around the table. If you are a gamer and have a non-gaming boy/girlfriend, don’t let gaming ruin your relationship. Be upfront about your hobby and plan for quality time you can spend with each other. If you have found the right one and they don’t like to game, your gaming group should understand. I have had fellow gamers that had boy/girlfriends that decided that game time was a great time to call and text at least 5 times an hour with all sorts of problems. This can halt a game quickly and takes all of the fun out of it for the unlucky recipient. If you have a relationship with a person who engages in behaviors like this, set up some ground rules or turn off your phone. Every relationship is different so I won’t tell you how to deal with this problematic behavior but however you deal with it, do it quickly.
This article is not a cure-all for achieving balance between the real world and your gaming life; however, I hope these words have gotten you to stop and think about the amount of balance you have. Remember, communicate your projected gaming times to the people who matter in your real life. Find time for work, family, relationships and gaming. Do it right and you can cast magic missile into the darkness or roll up a fire mage to avenge your fallen paladin guilt free.