Does your spouse/significant other game with you?

[jtone]

My wife has known gamers since high school at least. For some reason, they didn't let her play in their games. I finally started up a game this summer with a couple who are friends of ours. Their eldest (9 years old) intermittently joins us but sometimes gets distracted by the other kids' activities. I'm looking forward to the kids getting older so that hopefully the players can get into character. It's hard to get into charcter when you keep having to break up fights, boot the kids back outside, take care of bumps and scrapes, and so on.

 

[RuminDange]

I'm in the introduced the wife to gaming crowd. Although she already knew of the game due to her older brother years ago who played and had an awesome mini collection (in a glass shelf lighted bookcase) she had never played before.
After we started dating and just before 3E came out I started a 2E game and she became a player. Almost 5 years later and that campaign is still going strong...Her epic Druid/Ranger/Wizard/Hieophant/World Guardian doesn't leave a stop unturned on story lines, plots. or side-treks. The other players tend to wait for her to collect the informatino and tell them what to kill. They are the kill it and take it stuff types mosty.

RD

 

[CarlZog]

Not likely to ever play.

My bride and I met during a period when my work made it impossible for me to do any gaming, and she knew virtually nothing about my old hobby for several years. Now life has settled down and I been able to get back into it, and she does not like it.

She generally hates science fiction and fantasy, and she claims to find the whole rpg concept "creepy". Part of it has to do with the violence in the games (She's very disturbed by the idea of pretending to kill somebody -- even a fictional monster.), but she also thinks its just weird for a group of grown adults to sit around a table pretending to be somebody else.

If it wasn't about sci-fi or fantasy, or if the hobby itself was generally viewed as being more "mainstream", I think she'd find it more acceptable. (She showed interest at one point in doing one of those murder mystery dinner parties, but she doesn't seem to get that this is no different.)

We haven't had many real deep discussions about it. I'd still like to change her mind, but it's not a serious issue between us. For all her distaste, she knows it makes me happy, and accommodates my weekly game night, regular purchases and occasional convention trips.

zog

 

[qstor]

My wife doesn't game and doesn't want to. Saw a fair number of gamer couples at GenCon.

Mike

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

I actually met my wife through gaming. She was a friend of my college roommate and I came home from class one day to find her flipping through my PHB. Apparently she had played some in high school and wanted to start again. She was a regular in my group until we graduated and then for about a year or so once we entered the "real world." She stopped playing because she wanted to spend the time doing other things and now that we have a little one and another on the way, it's obvious where that time is being spent. She has slipped into the "tolerates" my hobby, she understands how much a part of my life it is so she doesn't nag me about it. Besides, I'm a stay at home dad and I need a few hours a week for myself.

I consider myself fortunate, we've an aquaintence (we went to school with him and now he works for the same company as my wife) whose wife despises the fact that he is a gamer. Of course she completely controls every aspect of the poor guys life (to the point of rationing the time he isn't at work) and is a master at extortion (I believe that's the right word). For example, he went to Gen Con when 3E released (2000?) in order to do so he had to pay for her to spend a month in Germany, without him.

Moral of the story, if you've got an SO that even tolerates your hobby and occasionally nags you about it, consider yourself lucky.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

My husband didn't so much introduce me to gaming... he took my previous experience with it and enhanced it a billion-fold. I had role played with a pretty bad GM (d6 Star Wars and 3e D&D). I enjoyed it aside from the fact that my crappy GM and his game group were just walking hormones that acted as if they had never seen a woman before...

Every session would start out fun... but, eventually turn into one big disrespect fest with the staring at boobs and disgusting sexist jokes. My ideas would be ignored and mocked even if they were good. Moreover, they just didn't want to *teach* me to play... they were happy just rolling the dice for me..

So, despite the fact that I really did enjoy the game, I quit.

Then, I was invited by that same bad GM to play in my now husband's game. In that game, I found some respect and the tolerance to teach me to actually play the game.

Now, we play together... and love it. It is a huge part of our life and our relationship... In all seriousness, I don't understand how serious gamers survive relationships with non-gamers... It must take a lot of compromise.

 

[eryndel]

I started gaming with the Moldvay Basic when I was 7. She started gaming with the Holmes Basic when she was 8 (she's older than I). It's a match made in heaven.

She's my editor now!

Werner

 

[Patlin]

Now, we play together... and love it. It is a huge part of our life and our relationship... In all seriousness, I don't understand how serious gamers survive relationships with non-gamers... It must take a lot of compromise.

I'm totally on board with that thought. I love to game and I hate spending time away from my wife, and I'm really glad I don't have to pick. I was actually GMing a game when I met my wife, as our group had gotten kicked out of our normal haunts and we wound up playing in a kitchen in a college dorm. She lived there, and came in to fix a snack.

She had gamed before that, and in spite of finding me immediately anoying (for stealing her kitchen) she eventually started gaming with us. A few months later we were dating, and now we are married with two kids. And yes, both kids have their own sets of dice. The giant ones are perfect for the 9 month old, as they are in theory too big to choke on.

 

[Buttercup]

Both my husband and I had been playing computer games since we bought our first computer in 1990, and we both liked CRPGs. I however, had also been suffering from a low-grade longing to play D&D since the mid 1970s, but never knew anyone not-scary who I could ask to teach me.

So anyway, when 3e came along, I stumbled onto Eric's old board, and got so interested that I went out and bought the PHB a week after it was released. I read it cover to cover and taught myself the rules.

Eventually, I found a group of people who wanted to play, and convinced my sceptical and shy husband to give it a try. He's been playing ever since, but honestly, if I were to stop, I don't think he would seek it out on his own. He enjoys it, but not as much as I do.

 

[mikedidthis]

Eventually, I found a group of people who wanted to play, and convinced my sceptical and shy husband to give it a try. He's been playing ever since, but honestly, if I were to stop, I don't think he would seek it out on his own. He enjoys it, but not as much as I do.

I have a similar situation with my wife. I introduced her to the game early in our marriage, and at the time we had several friends (all couples) that we gamed with fairly regularly. My wife really liked it, but more for the social aspect than the gaming. As time went on, many of the friends moved away and the regular games dried up.

These days, most of my gaming is done on-line via pbp, but my wife has no interest in playing via the computer. She'd be more than happy to play a single-player campaign if I asked her, but it's not something she'd start up on her own. Right now, I'm slowly working on a Harry Potter-style campaign to introduce my kids to D&D, and once that's off the ground I think she'll join in the fun as always.