This blog post is likely to meander. And it will likely have a fair amount of complaining in it around being an adult with responsibility. But it will also be at least somewhat about playing Table Top Role Playing Games (TTRPGs), because that's the thing I want to do more of that I can't. Specifically GURPS.
I'm going to estimate 6 years ago in 2013 as being the last time I was single. During my single years I was pretty miserable, socially awkward, and mentally unhealthy. It's not a situation I want to go back to at all. I love my wife, and I love my kids. I'm much better off, and much happier... even if I have to changed a poopy diaper pretty frequently.
I mention my time being single though because it had something that married adult life didn't: much less responsibility. I still had to work, but chores didn't have to be done if I didn't want to do them. I could put off laundry, dishes, trash, vacuuming... I didn't have to do any of that. Instead, I could binge watch shows and movies; play World of Warcraft or whatever games I wanted; buy tons of geek crap because I had money to spare; and make plans with friends whenever I wanted.
Now... I feel like I'm actually a grown-up now. I have my wife, my step-son, two dogs, two cats, and two babies (almost a year old now). I have to let the dogs out to go to the bathroom, clean the litter boxes, feed them all, and I generally do the vacuuming which is basically an exercise in finding all the places the dog hair has congregated. I try to do dishes... but my wife does them too. I make breakfast for my wife and I every morning. Now we also have a pellet stove which takes an incredible amount of tending. I help with the babies, changing diapers, feeding them, and playing with them (which is a wonderful experience, but is time consuming). I have my full time job too of course.
Beyond time constraints, money is way gone. Babies (especially twins) cost a lot. Home repair costs a lot (we had retaining walls fixed, and the most recent thing is having our windows replaced to help with energy loss which is costing us over $1000 a month to keep the house warm). The mortgage on the bigger house is bigger than my condo. And Christmas has become this crippling thing where you have to spend money on way too many people.
We're not keeping up very well with chores. And that drives my wife crazy. She can't relax when there's stuff that needs doing. I'll sit down in moments where I think I have a little time to decompress, and then my wife will start doing a chore, and I obviously can't just sit there. I have to get up and be productive too. So, we'll get through some chores and then there isn't time left. I didn't get to decompress. At all.
Weekends you ask? That's prime-time for chores, and plans for time with family. Nice relaxing Saturday? Nope. Never. Vacuuming has to get done, some project or another has to get done, and any of the 47 family in the area needs to see the babies, but not as a means for us to go do something fun... as a means for us get chores done because trying to do chores while watching babies is impossible... or we spend time with family just sitting there talking or playing cards or whatever, and that's nice enough, but we're still watching babies, and we're not getting chores done then, and it's still not a restful thing for me.
There's no end to it. It just cycles constantly. I'm running on empty, and I don't know when the fuel will run out or what it will mean when it does.
Getting more fuel I think would work best if I could do a hobby. I love imagination. And I love sharing my imagination. I write a little in terms of fiction, but haven't completed a novel yet. The thing I write most often is setting information for use with a GURPS campaign. I love GURPS, and I love playing a campaign where I have players who are interested in playing. I love when the game play feels like a novel we're writing together. I love when the characters have solid back stories and act in ways that I wouldn't have considered had I written the story on my own. I love when players have emotional experiences while playing. I love when players talk about the game even when we're not actively playing because it was so interesting to them... like it's a good TV show that has viewers wanting more.
But I don't get to do that. I can't steal moments to work on settings... but... my GURPS group hasn't played in a long while. It fell apart for a number of reasons, including that my wife and I had no time.
I do play in a Pathfinder group with some friends. And that's... well... it's nice to play with friends, but Pathfinder is designed to be played with published modules... either tiny episodic things where the story doesn't really matter, and the character-depth I like doesn't matter at all... or long adventure paths with story that doesn't really matter, and the character-depth I like doesn't matter at all. The rule set could work with a home grown campaign setting, and the GM could write their own stuff just fine... but that's not what we do. So, I'm not really invested in the characters or story, and I don't feel compelled to talk about it with the other players between sessions... it's not a good enough TV show.
We meet once every two weeks on Thursdays. It's nice to get out of the house to play, but like I said... it doesn't really scratch the itch. The role it does pay for me, is to make sure I see some friends regularly. But for role playing game fun, it would help if it wasn't essentially a video game on paper. I dislike class/level systems in general, and the d20 dice mechanic sucks in my opinion.
What I want is my depth of story back, and to use a system I like. What I want is my Saturday evening GURPS sessions back. And I want players who invest emotionally in their characters. I want time to spend working on my settings, and I want to share a story that gets modified in ways I wouldn't have predicted by my wonderful clever players who have really cool ideas of their own.
It helps me to sink into imagination like that. But I don't get to have that right now. Not only do I not have time, but I don't have enough players that want to get it going again.
And two of the players are very new to role playing. Two more are somewhat new. And one is an expert that loves this as much as I do. The expert is great, though we butt heads now and then. The two somewhat new players are good, and get into it a bit... but I think we still have a threshold to cross where they feel comfortable enough with the rules that they then feel comfortable with the choices they can make in the game.
The two completely new players are really nice people, and they have been trying, but I feel like either I'm failing to... well... as I think about this... I guess the highest probability is that I'm failing. I've been playing GURPS and TTRPGs in general since December of 1989, meaning that as of the writing of this essay, I have a bit over 29 years of TTRPG experience. And I'm probably considering things obvious that aren't actually obvious to new players. So, it's probably mainly my fault, but the new players aren't picking things up quickly, and seem to be making choices that result in purposely ridiculous characters for the sake of humor instead of taking things a little more seriously.
It's daunting to me. My wife told me I should run some Pathfinder for them to help them learn what they're doing, but my heart just sank. I started buying some modules, and trying to prep for it, but I couldn't follow through. I just don't want to run Pathfinder. It's not a system I like, and I hate that it would be pre-made shallow stories that don't care what the background of the characters is. My wife was trying to be helpful. But I couldn't clearly explain what was happening in my head.
Maybe if I set up an introduction campaign in GURPS. Instead of complicated widespread sci fi with technology that not everyone knows and too many choices... I make a setting that's more fantasy. Players won't have as much setting knowledge to obtain and the rules they need to learn can be drastically trimmed. But it would still be a primer for GURPS instead of PF/D&D/d20-Fantasy.
I think my wife would support it. And maybe I can get buy-in from players. And maybe I can help bring new players in, instead of expecting too much. Okay... I've written enough. I don't know that this post will be of interest to anyone at all, but I'm posting it anyway. Kind of a journal entry, and it helps me to have written it.
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