Soccer Moms Make the Best Dungeons & Dragons Players
The stereotypical Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) player is a pimply-faced, teenage nerd playing in his mom’s basement with other pimply-faced nerds, right?
Yeeeah, not so much these days.
Recently, groups of women in role-playing games (RPGs) have popped up around the country. We’re talking adult women, moms even, taking up the game. Me, even.
I bought my son a Pathfinder (an offshoot of D&D) book a few years back because he is a writer and I figured he would have fun writing quests for his friends. So, my son and friends needed a GameMaster because they all wanted to play as characters. Who better than Mom? That’s how I found out about this large world of role playing games and began to find other moms who play it.
What's the Appeal?
The great thing about D&D is that it’s a role playing game. You can be anything; with whatever talents you want. You can do whatever you want. Think about it…role playing….Oh, the possibilities.
Instead of having mommy melt downs, we get to slay some dragons and save the day for some peaceful villagers. That sure beats tackling that ketchup stain on my daughter’s white shirt. I’ll slay some dragons any day.
Ok, I’ll admit, D&D got a bad rap in the 70s and early 80s. You can read about it here. Look, anything can be taken too far. Thankfully, gone are the days of fearing that our teenage boys are doing black magic rituals to live out their D&D characters. No more spending a Saturday night in a dark basement surrounded by Coke and Pizza. That was the old days.
photo courtesy of Flickr
In today’s games, the usual set up looks more like a gathering of men and women drinking wine and noshing from veggie trays. Moms are starting to join their teenage sons around the table and instead of being boring, bland mom, they are seen as beautiful tall elves with killer archery skills and the ability to speak five valuable languages; wily rogues who can quickly filch a necklace off of the local magistrate.
This is living out their inner BADDASS. We usually only get in touch with that side of ourselves when our favorite hair band comes to town. Now we can do it once a month with our girlfriends.
Hey, before we were moms and carpool drivers, we were the wild children of the 80s and 90s. We had lives before we were moms. Before we became responsible.
Using Games for Self-Care
Using a game as a harmless way to live out a fantasy. It’s actually a great alternative to other, more destructive choices. RPGs are an avenue to channeling the urge to grab on to our youth and baddassness without turning to less healthy ways like having an affair, smoking or drinking too much, insert your vice here.
Playing games, of any sort, is actually an important component of self-care. While the focus of this article is on soccer moms, self-care is essential for everyone. This is our foundation for taking on the world. We must fill our pitcher in order to nourish others.
The perfect analogy is offered by flight attendants. When giving instructions in the event of an emergency, they always tell the adult to put the air mask on themselves first, before their children. Why? Because if they pass out due to lack of oxygen, then they can’t help their child and they will both die.
It is the same in life.
As adults, we no longer have our parents around all day, every day, telling us to eat our veggies to be healthy and strong; to brush our teeth because they are evidence of the inner health of our body; to make our bed because we need a tidy space to exist in; to wear clean clothes because that is an outward representation of our inner self.
We are those parents now. Do we just want our kids to do those things, but not monitor ourselves so closely? We tell our kids to have quiet time each day to recharge, but do we have quiet time each day? How do we recharge? We must take the time to care for ourselves - including channeling our inner child, our younger self, in order to stay young at heart.
When you understand the importance of self-care, it’s actually not hard to see why role playing games are enjoying a resurgence among soccer moms. We find a break from everyday domestic responsibilities by pretending we are someone else for a few hours. If PRGs aren't your thing, heck, just institute regular Board Game Night at your house - for your family, your friends, or both!
We need this break. We need to get in touch with our inner baddass. We need to be able to play once in a while. To think about nothing else than rolling for perception. After a great quest to Hallow’s End, we don’t mind playing taxi to the mall quite as much.