Overcoming the Spousal Bait-and-Switch

Show of hands - how many of your spouses or significant others changed something about themselves that was important to you in the years after you got hitched or moved in together?  For me, it had to do with Football and Gaming.  Ah, those were the days, when wifey curled up on the couch during Monday night football and got excited for hot wings and a Broncos game, or (gasp) actually played in my RPG games.  I'm here to tell you, those days are long gone, brother.  Gaming happens in the man-cave far away from the main activities of the house, and the only football game we catch as a family is the Super Bowl (and that's just for the commercials).

In the interests of full disclosure, she's quick to point out that "someone needs to watch the kids while I'm off pretending to be an elf and playing with my little plastic orc-men".  Oh, and apparently I used to have long hair like a hippie, which she misses, and I cared more about theater and did more improv theater back in the day, as well.  Touché.

So there we were, enjoying a quiet moment the other day, when I popped the question.  "So, I'm thinking when M- (our new son from Ethiopia) can read and write pretty well, of starting up a family D&D campaign.  For the whole family".  That sounds good, she says.  "Really?  Because it would be the whole family - both boys, our daughter, and you.  The four of you can be your own adventuring party".  Okay, she said.  No problem.

I had no tape recorder and no notaries were nearby to witness an affadavit, so I'm doing the next best thing - I'm putting it on the internet:

On or about 4pm, on Sunday July 24th, while sitting around the dining room table and holding casual conversation with her husband, Mrs Beedo did formally agree to play in the family D&D campaign.

Once it's on the internet, it's true.  I figure the youngest will take about 2 to 2 1/2 years to get to gaming age, so I'm probably looking at late 2013 or early 2014 before the family game will be a reality.  Muhahaha.

Meanwhile, kid's gaming has been partly successful.  You may recall, last year I was running two games - a weekly adult game and a bi-weekly kid's game.  It was eventually too much to keep up with, and not all of the kids were really ready for gaming, so we brought two of the older kids (now 9 year olds) over to the adult game.  One of the other dads picked up running a second (just for kids) game a few months ago, so now we've got a Senior circuit and a Junior circuit running in the neighborhood.  And there's a crop of younger kids in the 4-5 year old range that are just biding their time until they get to play.  Some of them are fooling with the Dungeon board game.  Good stuff.  Like I tell my kids - read, read, read some more - turn off the computer, turn off the TV; table top gaming is a literary activity and kids that can read well will have the attention span and imagination to make it work.

I figure I have two years before I need to get a campaign together that my daughter will love - a mash-up of knights, princesses, witches, elves, and tough fighting chicks with big swords like Eowyn.  I'm sure it will have to be part Hogwarts, part every kid's series they've read - Prydain, A Wrinkle in Time, Fablehaven, Narnia, and Percy Jackson.  But Eowyn is far and away my daughter's role model of what an adventuring girl should be like.