4 Reasons To Play On When Even The White Mice Have Given Up

The world is not in a good place right now.

With all the pressures of the geopolitical/sociopolitical spheres, it can be really hard to find motivation to do things that can be seen as selfish or pointless - after all, we should all be doing what we can to improve the situation we are in. I’m not discounting that in the slightest. Do what you can, as you can, how you can, when you can, for as long as you can, until the situation improves.

If you’re reading this article, you are a player of games, someone who cares about the worlds we create around our tables and on our character sheets. People are going to be asking you how you can worry about your games when the world is beginning to take on a charming wicker-theme shape with a hint of picnic about it, and the temperature is rising dramatically.  

In the words of Freddie Mercury, the show must go on.
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We have talked a lot, as a community, about not shaming people - be it fat-shaming, gender-shaming, genre-shaming, class-shaming, what have you - and this is a time where we have to make sure we aren’t applying those same thoughts towards ourselves and our hobbies.

Here are four reasons why you should recognize your gaming time and keep it holy:

1)  Doing Something We Love Can Help Deal With Stress  
I’m no psychiatrist (far from it), but even I can tell that I relax more when I have something enjoyable to look forward to, a small oasis of sanity (or at least a reasonable amount of madness) in the midst of my daily stresses. I know when I sit down at the table with my dice and my tea and my character sheet, for at least the next few hours, the world will make sense.

This is a powerful thing and needs to be approached as such. You are allowed to carve out time for yourself and your hobbies, to recharge and detox from the world as a whole. As long as you aren’t neglecting things that are necessary for a continued comfortable existence (work, relationships, feeding yourself/your pets/your spawn, etc.), you are allowed to take time for yourself, and you need to protect that time and space.

For those of us who have flown commercially, there’s that bit during the safety briefing when they tell you take care of yourself before attending to those who may need your help. This is good advice in more than one way, because if you have worn yourself to the bone, there’s nothing left to give to those who DO need your help.

2) Routine Helps To Maintain A Balance   
In Making Money, one of Terry Pratchett’s final Discworld novels, the main character Moist von Lipwig says something along the lines of “When you don’t know what to do, brush your hair and shine your shoes.” Doing something small and routine helps ground you in a period of stress. “Okay, I have to get through X ordeal, then it’s time for game.”

Do you have a pre-game or post-game ritual? Maybe you always stop at the same coffee shop, or buy yourself the same once-a-week treat for game day. Do you listen to a particular song to get yourself into the headspace for a LARP game? Wear a certain perfume or cologne for your LARP character? Don’t stop doing that now.

In times of stress, I have known it to be helpful to be able to look at my LARP kit and check off the items I will need. Just seeing that I have everything laid out (or know far enough in advance to replace something that is missing) gives me a calming moment because things are as they should be.

3)  Assuming Direct Control   
We can’t control what a group of madmen do in the next state, nation, or continent. Hell, some of us can’t even control what goes on in our own minds. In a game world, we have so much more control than we do in this supposed “real life.” We can make mistakes and correct the consequences without any actual danger to ourselves or our situations. We can deal with crazed leaders, religious zealots, bullies, and existential threats - and live to tell the tale. We can create places where things MAKE SENSE.  

If you fail in your attempt? Respawn, revive, resurrect, or reroll. Repeat as necessary.

4) Challenge Yourself To Deepen Your Own Personal Immersion   
Stay off your phone during game. Really pay attention to what’s going on, and try to get deeper into your character’s head and thought processes. Attempt to distance/disconnect yourself from the modern world during the few sacred hours of gaming time. Ask your DM if they need you to play an NPC or two - anything to keep your mind on the game and not on the news.
    
Seize control of this part of your life. Acknowledge that there are stressors away from the gaming table, and keep those stressors away from there as much as you can. Talk to your group and your DM, make sure you are on the same page with the desire for escapism and themes that you want to avoid. Most people, when they walk into Creation or Azeroth or Golarion or the Galaxy Far Far Away, are more than happy to leave their day to day problems behind. Chances are, they are experiencing the same stress that you are (or their own variant thereof). Communicate what you need from your DM and your fellow players, and listen to their needs as well.

Most of us don’t play games to practice cost-benefit analysis - we play games to escape to worlds where we can be powerful archdruids or death knights or sorcerers or Dawn-caste warriors, capable of doing superhuman things and changing things that we need to see changed in the world. The purpose of every roleplaying game (that isn’t cooked up by some well-meaning but completely uninformed human resources hack) is to play a role - to be someone other than ourselves. Embrace that for what it is, and go be someone else.

As I have before, I will leave you with the words of the late Sir Terry, which I find particularly apt for this topic:

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” ~Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky



Georgia is a writer, editor, gamer, and mad culinary priestess who masquerades as an ordinary office employee who holds vehement opinions about Oxford commas and extraneous hyphens. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband and Feline Overlords. She can be reached through Facebook at In Exquisite Detail or on Twitter at @feraldruidftw.

Picture Reference: https://8tracks.com/explore/apocalypse

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