If there’s one very simple truth about myself and the concept of gaming, it’s this: I don’t actually get to ‘play’ that often. It’s actually very rare. I run the games, set the scenes and challenges, craft the outcomes and rewards.
To my players who are fanatic looters of downed enemies looking for items, yes you do get rewards in the campaign, they’re just intangible or are set aside until the adventure is over.
But how often do I sit down with the intent of actually playing? Rarely, if ever, especially these days. Not just with tabletop RPGs, but also console/computer games. Up until a year ago, those were a prime means for me to decompress, but my Xbox has a fine layer of dust on it (dusting is on the chore list, I swear, I just hadn’t noticed it until recently) and my Steam account hadn’t been used in months and months.
This isn’t a complaint, really. I’m a nightmare to run RPGs for, namely because I’m so used to being at the helm that I don’t know how to function if I’m not always in control of the scenario (which is ironic, considering that ‘being in control’ of an RPG session just doesn’t happen) or proceed as if I know everything. I harp on my players about meta-gaming (acting with knowledge their character wouldn’t possess) because I know exactly how tempting it is to use said knowledge and how difficult it can be to not use it.
The console and computer games, however, mostly just fell by the wayside. I work most of the day, and though I do sit at my desk for a majority of the evening, I prefer seeing and being with my family more than a screen. I give myself enough anxiety over how I barely get time with my wife and children already.
But I’ve found myself with a late evening to myself. My family was already in bed and I was at my desk, but I wasn’t really wanting to write or plot or craft something. I wanted to react to something rather than make the cause of a reaction. So I booted up Steam and sat through the updates needed to go back to Stellaris.
This game has bittersweet emotions to it. I love RTS games; being able to direct giant-scale battles and oversee the chaos of large governments appeals to my feeling of controlling the scenario. There are also the long, quiet moments when I can simply watch a society develop and come up with stories about them. Stellaris is actually the base I’m using for an upcoming novel I’m working on.
But it’s also a world that I was introduced to by my friend Brady. I could expect a deeply involved conversation about the game every day, but as he died last year, I’ve not been able to step into this game without remembering my lost friend.
In a way, it’s also comforting, going back to such a large-scale strategy game, even if I don’t have my friend to bounce socio-political ideas off of. I still get to think of a story, and I can easily suppose his reactions to my ideas.
All in all, I think he’d enjoy what I’ve come up with, and if that story ever gets published it’ll be dedicated to his memory. For now, however, there’s an enemy fleet that needs devastating.
Stay safe out there, readers.
-JB Swift
Swift's Corner 