Beckett
Explorer
Let me tell you a tale of two spouses.
My wife joined the group before we were officially dating (although we were already pretty close). She worked hard at learning the rules, although she is not as enthusiastic about crunchy bits as I am. She can create her characters and level them without a problem, although she often asks me for help because she knows I have at least a general idea of every feat in every book I own (I'm not going to ding her for not memorizing every feat out of the Races, the Completes, PHB 1 and 2, and the Eberron books).
In combat and in play, she has a pretty good understanding of what her character can do and how to do it. She leans toward the role-play side of things, and is good about acting in character.
Special treatment? She loves to tell how I've killed more of her characters than I have of anyone else. During one game, she did get some private, 1 on 1 sessions. These were because her character had made friends with a rival group of adventurers, who the rest of the party prefered to ignore. She got some information out of the sessions, but no treasure or experience. She gets a share of the same experience and treasure as everyone else.
On the other hand, my friend's wife. Despite joining the group long before my wife did, she does not know the rules. She has to be led through character creation, and only allows my friend to help her on this (that is, if she doesn't just throw up her hands and make him do it all). She'd never make it through a combat if he didn't tell her what the bonuses and dice on her character sheet meant. It eventually became obvious to all that any interest she had in playing the game died long ago; she's there for her husband's attention, and you can see the storm brewing if she does not have it all.
In my games, she gets no special favors (except for not getting banned from my table, which is chiefly because she's my best friend's wife and they rent part of my house). My friend hasn't run a game in a while; the last one he ran, he created a prestige class for her. The Disciple of Boccob: it was like a mystic theurge, but it required 3rd level arcane and divine spells (oh and that was a joy, her having two spellcasting classes when she couldn't handle one- her great role-playing skills consisted of always having her character's nose stuck in her spell book). Oh yeah, besides boosting your arcane and divine casting levels, at first level Boccob rewarded your devotion with a Robe of the Archmagi and I think a Staff of the Magi. The last session we played, she got her hands on an item that turned her into a Solar for the duration of the battle (we were maybe 12th at this time, and I think the battle had been set up so that we pretty much needed a solar on our side to have a chance.)
So, I would say gaming with the DM's spouse is not always a bad thing; it just depends on the spouse.
My wife joined the group before we were officially dating (although we were already pretty close). She worked hard at learning the rules, although she is not as enthusiastic about crunchy bits as I am. She can create her characters and level them without a problem, although she often asks me for help because she knows I have at least a general idea of every feat in every book I own (I'm not going to ding her for not memorizing every feat out of the Races, the Completes, PHB 1 and 2, and the Eberron books).
In combat and in play, she has a pretty good understanding of what her character can do and how to do it. She leans toward the role-play side of things, and is good about acting in character.
Special treatment? She loves to tell how I've killed more of her characters than I have of anyone else. During one game, she did get some private, 1 on 1 sessions. These were because her character had made friends with a rival group of adventurers, who the rest of the party prefered to ignore. She got some information out of the sessions, but no treasure or experience. She gets a share of the same experience and treasure as everyone else.
On the other hand, my friend's wife. Despite joining the group long before my wife did, she does not know the rules. She has to be led through character creation, and only allows my friend to help her on this (that is, if she doesn't just throw up her hands and make him do it all). She'd never make it through a combat if he didn't tell her what the bonuses and dice on her character sheet meant. It eventually became obvious to all that any interest she had in playing the game died long ago; she's there for her husband's attention, and you can see the storm brewing if she does not have it all.
In my games, she gets no special favors (except for not getting banned from my table, which is chiefly because she's my best friend's wife and they rent part of my house). My friend hasn't run a game in a while; the last one he ran, he created a prestige class for her. The Disciple of Boccob: it was like a mystic theurge, but it required 3rd level arcane and divine spells (oh and that was a joy, her having two spellcasting classes when she couldn't handle one- her great role-playing skills consisted of always having her character's nose stuck in her spell book). Oh yeah, besides boosting your arcane and divine casting levels, at first level Boccob rewarded your devotion with a Robe of the Archmagi and I think a Staff of the Magi. The last session we played, she got her hands on an item that turned her into a Solar for the duration of the battle (we were maybe 12th at this time, and I think the battle had been set up so that we pretty much needed a solar on our side to have a chance.)
So, I would say gaming with the DM's spouse is not always a bad thing; it just depends on the spouse.
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