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Every so often, there comes a time when gamers or time are not plentiful, and that time is known as a gaming drought. I happen to be in a bit of a gaming drought at the moment, in fact. Such droughts occur for me at the start of every school year. I run a one shot or two, but for the most part I have to sit the gaming scene out. Why? Mostly because there just isn’t time. Plenty of my friends and classmates find the time, but it is rare for me. But the subject of this post is about surviving a drought, not how one comes to be. So, read on, dear friends!
How do I survive? I have developed several strategies that help me deal. First, I play the aforementioned occasional one shots. A little bit of gaming here and there is far better than no gaming at all, and they are easy to organize and fun to play. Second, I read a lot. My iPod Touch and my computer are almost always with me, so I read a lot of blogs and PDFs. It’s also easy to carry around a game manual and reread it for inspiration. I rarely have time to read whole books during the year, but I try as often as I can. Third, I write and blog. I love creating stuff, so I use this blog and my multitude of notebooks to brainstorm and craft worlds, people, and game mechanics pretty much every day for a few minutes. It’s a good exercise that keeps me creative and on my toes.
And that’s pretty much it. It sucks, not being able to game, but I find that long breaks leave me refreshed and ready for more gaming every single summer. It does help avoid gamer fatigue, but it’s just not as satisfying.
My drought began in June of last year. We sorta trickled our way into it, our gaming slowing until is ground to a halt as I ended up in the hospital. A kidney disease I was born with was coming to a head. By July, I lost both of my kidneys and was not responding well to dialysis. I was too weak to play. My group simply stopped playing.
One of the players in my group, whom I likely would never have met if it wasn’t for RPG’s, donated a kidney. He wasn’t an exact match but we were put on the paired donation list meaning we were matched up with other people. In all, there were 10 people… 5 donating, 5 receiving kidneys in this circle on May 5th… about 3 weeks ago.
I am VERY lucky to have a friend who was willing to do this for me. Actually, I am BEYOND lucky because more than 5 people came forward to donate a kidney for me (including my wife). Various issues, as we went through testing, eliminated the first two of them. The one who ultimately donated his kidney was the 3rd to be tested. The wait time for a kidney was supposed to be 3-4 years. I waited less than one. I can honestly say I would likely have not made it the whole 3 or 4 years because of how poorly I seemed to be doing on dialysis.
As recently as two months ago, the thought to give up and let nature run its course remained nested in my mind… but I knew I could never stop fighting. My wife and children were my strength. Not wanting to leave her alone with our three kids (an 8 year old boy, and 5 year old twin girls) were my inspiration. My generous friend was my hope. They all helped me win my fight.
We’re planning to start playing again on June 4th… I’m not up to running a game just yet but I’m buying up Pathfinder stuff (specifically for the Kingmaker adventure path) like a fiend since I was sorta out of it and hadn’t bought anything for roleplaying in a while. I’m planning to start GM’ing this summer.
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