So tonight I want to talk about gaming, or rather, the lack of it that I (and my fellow geeks) have had to suffer. We had a long running Earthdawn game that started way back at First Circle, new characters, mostly new players, and all the rest. Multiple years later, the characters had reached Ninth Circle, and we were working our way to some kind of grand climax.

But then, as so many things do, it suffered the doom of family.

As you may or may not be aware, I have a 19-month old daughter I will refer to here as the Fairy Princess, or “FP”. Our good friends Pat and Leanne (half of the ED player group in our long-term game) have a daughter of their own (“K”) about four months younger. We used to get together on Sundays to game for a few hours, have dinner, and just generally socialize.

Now that the babies are toddlers… not so much. With all the activity going on in the house, it is impossible to get FP to take a nap, and K won’t go down either — mostly because of the activity, but also a more unfamiliar setting.

We tried our best to soldier on, but it just didn’t happen. It’s a shame, because I really enjoy tabletop gaming, and I enjoy tabletop gaming with my crew. Much like my involvement with local theatre dried up when I started my job at Verizon seven years ago, real life has shifted a bit more, and I find that — while I enjoy much the same things I did in my ‘younger days’ — I no longer have the time to devote to them.

I comfort myself with the thought that, in another couple of years, the two geek-spawn will be able to entertain each other more, and perhaps we can get a new game going. Also, when they get even older, we can start gaming with them, which is a thought that cheers me up to no end.

(And maybe at that point I’ll be able to get back into community theatre… ’cause I’ve missed that as well the past several years.)

In the meantime, I’ll scratch the gaming itch as best I can with World of Warcraft. No doubt I will share some of my thoughts on that in the days to come.