Reply To: Have you managed to detach yourself?

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I went from school, to the military, to the police. Basically I’m 32 years deep and far too gone to not see violence and misery as every day events. I got into gaming at about age 12. It was an escape then and it’s an escape now. I bought into a gaming business about 5 years ago to justify the amount of time I spend on it (, though I doubt I’ll every be able to justify the money).

I see the hobby as the last vestige of hope for many people. This is going to sound sad or mean but that’s not my intent, but I’ve seen so many broken, hollowed out people, reduced to shells of humanity over the years that it would be easy for me to assume they are all just wasted people waiting their turn to die.

What I have also seen, and it has a lot to do with why I love gaming, is the way that gaming restores them and fills them with  life. Want to see some pimply self-concious teen come to life? Watch them play D&D and get them to tell you about their character, their hopes for them and how they describe the character like a real person. Ask that fat, bald sweaty guy about his army and how awesome his general is. How he never loses and how it’s all the fault of the dice if he does. They can, because it’s them, Or it’s who they would be if life wasn’t so shit

The hobby is my zen. When I’m at my hobby desk or at the gaming table with my friends, years of dealing with misery, with bodies reduced to numbers, the crying, the heartfelt wailing, the predators and their abused prey I’ve had to deal with, the ruined lives I haven’t been able to repair, are nowhere to be heard or seen. And I’m damn thankful for every second of it.

Long story short, keep your hobby and your businesses and the rest of life apart. Compartmentalise them so if one turns to crap you have the others to fall back on. The day that gaming’s a chore, it’s time to get out. Luckily, for some of us it’s a gift, worth far more than we will ever pay for it.