{"id":190,"date":"2014-09-25T23:29:16","date_gmt":"2014-09-26T03:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/?p=190"},"modified":"2014-09-25T23:30:45","modified_gmt":"2014-09-26T03:30:45","slug":"archmage-rises-dev-blog-8-rpg-and-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/archmage-rises-dev-blog-8-rpg-and-divorce\/","title":{"rendered":"Archmage Rises: Dev Blog #8 Role-Playing games and Divorce"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m travelling this week to meet up with another indie developer about our games.\u00a0 I asked my Facebook followers what question I could answer for this blog while I was travelling.\u00a0 Someone asked about my first role-playing experience\u2014as I wrote my answer went way beyond just \u201cnostalgia.\u201d This is more raw and honest than I’m sure the asker expected!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

My parents divorced when I was 10.\u00a0 This family upheaval is traumatic for any child because the family is ripped apart, but I’ve learned that this age is a particularly sensitive one because of the attachment boysand<\/em>\u00a0girls have to their fathers around this time.<\/p>\n

As we sorted out new living arrangements, new visitation schedules, and all that mess, my dad got an apartment . . . and the new Tandy 1000 computer.\u00a0 Each weekend, I looked forward to playing games on this fancy new computer with its 16-color graphics and three-voice sound card.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

My first role-playing experience is actually made up of two that happened around the same time: one electronic, one tabletop.<\/p>\n

Every Friday night, my dad would pick up my sister and me.\u00a0 On our way to the adjacent city where he lived, we would first stop off at a local tabletop gaming store (Magic<\/em>,\u00a0Warhammer<\/em>, RPGs)\u2014and we\u2019d head a little further down the street to the computer store.\u00a0 Similar to other dads new in this situation, my dad would buy us stuff in a likely attempt to use material things to make up for failures of the heart.<\/p>\n

I’ll never forget when he bought me my first CRPG:\u00a0Ultima IV<\/em>.\u00a0 Before this, I always enjoyed sleeping in on Saturday mornings\u2014but now I would set my alarm to get up at 6am just to get to the computer and fire up\u00a0Ultima IV Quest of the Avatar<\/em>. I was too young and new to the genre to play the game properly. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing.\u00a0 So instead, I would just explore the 16-color tile world: see what towns I could find, fight random encounters, level up my characters Iolo and Shamino. (Great baby names, by the way!)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At a time of life when my world was unravelling and shrinking, the game world provided a place of vast exploration.\u00a0 At a time when I was personally powerless over what was happening in my family, I could feel powerful in a world.\u00a0 At a time when I felt like chattel being fought over for custody, I was the singular hero of another world.\u00a0 Richard Garriott made me feel important when my life did not.<\/p>\n

My first tabletop role-playing game was\u00a0Ghostbusters<\/em>.\u00a0 Many people might be unaware that there was a D6 RPG of\u00a0Ghostbusters<\/em>\u2014but there was.\u00a0 My dad bought it\u2014and I loved reading through the rulebook, seeing all the great art, reading the mechanics of how you trap a ghost, encountering levels, and just general game stuff.\u00a0 (This is a practice I still enjoy today. I just really enjoy reading RPG rulebooks.\u00a0 A few weeks ago, I got the latest\u00a0Shadowrun<\/em>\u00a0rulebook.\u00a0 I’ll probably never run a game, but I enjoyed poring over every little detail.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

My dad read the rulebook over the weekend so we could play on Sunday.\u00a0 My sister (8) and I (10) sat down\u2014eager to play this new “board game” without a board.\u00a0 My dad had no idea what he was doing. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Questions came up that we couldn’t answer.\u00a0 For every 3 minutes of play, there were 7 minutes of flipping pages in the manual.\u00a0 I don’t think a “successful” adventure was possible with this green group.\u00a0 But you know what?\u00a0 It didn’t matter.\u00a0 At a time when we were yearning to connect as a family, the game provided a mechanism (or excuse) to do so.\u00a0 We had fun.\u00a0 We had fun as a family.\u00a0 That is really all that matters and all that I remember.<\/p>\n

Actually, there is one other thing that I do remember\u2014and this is important, too:<\/p>\n

My dad tried.
\nHe tried.<\/p>\n

That’s all I really need to know.\u00a0 Both for then, and now 30 years later.<\/p>\n

SGD<\/p>\n

You can follow the game\u00a0I’m working on,\u00a0<\/em>Archmage Rises<\/em><\/a>, by joining the\u00a0<\/em>newsletter<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or chatting with me about it on the daily\u00a0facebook page<\/a>.
\nOr if you would just like to talk, you can tweet me\u00a0<\/em>@LordYabo<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m travelling this week to meet up with another indie developer about our games.\u00a0 I asked my Facebook followers what question I could answer for this blog while I was travelling.\u00a0 Someone asked about my first role-playing experience\u2014as I wrote my answer went way beyond just \u201cnostalgia.\u201d This is more raw and honest than I’m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14,19,64,62,63,4,8,37,16,65,6],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-archmage","tag-archmage-rises","tag-children","tag-divorce","tag-family","tag-fantasy","tag-game","tag-indie","tag-pc","tag-role-playing","tag-rpg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/defiancegamestudio.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}