Only Children and Gaming

 

I will say that I am a proud only child. When I was seven, my mother sat me down and told me about boat children from Cambodia. They had no homes, and they needed to be adopted. She said we could adopt one so I would have a brother or sister, my choice. I started crying and said “Give them my clothes! Give them my toys! But I don’t want a sibling!!” My mom left, going to the other room. I thought that I upset her, but it turns out that she was laughing her ass off.

 

The irony is that skip forward a few decades and I have a large extended family – my gaming family. I have siblings I love, a few that have driven me nuts, but we are all there for each other at each and every crisis and life point. Recently, when Jason and I talked about starting a family, I evaluated a local birthing center. I found myself making sure that the immediate waiting area for family would support a game of Lords of Waterdeep or Cthulhu Munchkin. Sometimes my Mother-in-Law talks about ‘family only’. Not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but when your biological brother does not invite you to the Christmas party and your friend on 30 years shows up the instant he finds out you need help picking a lock at your own house at midnight, how do you define ‘family’?

Now learning how to game late in life and as an only child has not been without its own challenges. Sharing is something I still struggle with at times. I have always been unique – a fact I pride myself on. I am unique for a few reasons: being an only child, having red hair, being a female comic book nerd in my youth, and knowing Star Wars front to back while still being able to ‘pass’ in society as my mother calls it… all things that are rare. I LIKE being rare. I LIKE being unique.

 

This does not always work in the RPG world. I play with people I think of as siblings. We think alike. We act alike. This means that if I come up with something that is cool and ‘unique’… well, Solomon said a hell of a long time ago that there was nothing new under the sun, and we was right then and now. Does this sometimes cause me ‘chaos’ as we say in my group? Yes. Have I learned to live with it a hell of a lot better? Yes. At 30 something I have learned the concepts of sharing (most things) with at least an air of grace… and now those in my group can stop laughing at me making that statement.

 

At the same time, I would love to hear from all of you. Do you care if you have something who creates things very similar to you, or do you think that there should only be 1 ranger in a party of 4? What do you think?

 

-Madelyn