Taking a break from the character and campaign-based commentary this month, let’s talk about something else. I started gaming with the early boxed set Dungeons & Dragons with the execrable dragon on a horde of gold artwork in what must have been 1979, based off of the lack of dice in the box. (It came with two cutout cardstock chits — hence the specific year.) So, doing the math, I’ve been gaming for 46-47 years! (F***, I’m getting old!)

I credit roleplaying games with a lot of the positives in my life. It taught me interpersonal skills when I desperately needed them. It taught me how to tell a story well — something used in several careers, not the least being a professor and historian. It taught me how to appreciate good storytelling, and how to build a character — something that was useful in government service. (Don’t ask.) But mostly, it brought a lot of good people into my life — including my wife.

It was a privilege to be able to play most of my life. To sit down with friends, have fun telling a story together on a regular basis. Like the religiously held-to poker night of the past, Nerd Night has rarely been preempted; it is a thing to be protected and cherished because it brings folks together and allows escape from the world in a way the movies and sports don’t. There are characters, storylines, group dynamics that are long gone, but still live in our memories.

Of those people — from my high school gaming friends, the Jims and Eric, whom I still miss decades later from time to time; to the two long-lived groups that have kept Thursday’s Nerd Night alive from the early 1990s to 2010, when people scattered and divorces happened; through the rapid changes of players to the most recent and stable iteration from 2016 to today, I’ve had the privilege of knowing and playing with some truly fine people — every race, men and women, gay and straight, what have you. (The 400 lb “ninja” was not one of them, but that’s a different story…) The current group are all professionals: historian, engineers (three!), an acupuncturist (and former fellow history grad student); but in the past there have been movie crew, writers and mathematicians, wannabe actors, scientists, military of every stripe, cops…and lovable losers. Most came and went in that two-four year window that most game groups that survive the first few months seem to exist for. To have had not one, but two, groups that hung together in some form for 10 and 18 years, respectively, is a near miracle — especially with having to move about for work.

When you consider that for a 100,000 years, most people were born, worked their asses off just to subsist, and died young, to be able to get through most than a half century with the luxury of play, to have the comfort of work that doesn’t kill you (although some of my careers that was a risk) and a place to meet up — that’s truly miraculous. i don’t think we realize how unbelievably lucky we all are to live at this time, and for me in the Western world, where sitting down for an evening a week (or more when I was younger) is something you can get away with. Hell, you can spend a 1930s fortune to go play games with strangers for a weekend at a convention!

It’s something I truly love sharing with people. Once my daughter was old enough to be interested, she would join us at the table and roll dice for me. She was the harbinger of doom; her ability to roll well for the bad guys led to many a near TPK. Eventually, I ran games for her Avatar, ‘30s pulp Broken Compass, most recently Dune. She now has an online Saturday game group playing Pathfinder — dad is no longer the cool GM, but the love of the game has been passed on. I miss being her GM.

I introduced students to RPGs at the high schools I taught at not just to have fun, but to help them deal with issues in their real life in a fantasy world where they could have agency. (Something one of my former group does as a counselor in Texas. He’s a truly fantastic guy that I miss.)

This hobby is a wonderful. Spread the wealth.