I met my fiancé at a gaming store, so it’s only fitting that we game together. We have played every type of game in every configuration. I have killed him more times than I can count, for that reason I feel more couples should game, and in a competitive manor. When we are angry and game we use that to RP or play harder.

Most of my female friends don’t really do any form of gaming and if they do it’s in a passive sense or it’s because I have led them to the dark side. Most of my girlfriends have the “-itis”, they follow around all of my higher level characters as I say thee and thou and kill dragons, but they have a hard time killing each other or me. The first time one of my best female friends killed off my slave half elf, I had to talk her into it and then hug it out after. She felt as if she had killed a real person, and though I did love that character and put a lot of work, time and effort into her, at the end of the day it was a great fight and even more fun.

I find I have never had that issue with the future hubs, also known as Rerow. We talk a big game, we shit talk and we play hard, but at the end of the game it is just that, a game. Currently we are creating characters that will be brother and sister, before that my character detested his; I have never played a maiden to his rescuer. In real life I am a bit of a mess, I can’t open jars or lift heavy things, and he is there to do that, in the game I want to be a physical equal, and more often a dominator. I game to play pretend, it’s the same reason I read ravenously, I want to experience something other than real life (it’s why I imagine Farmville is not big with farmers).

I understand how it can be easy to take things personally and I would be lying if I said that sometimes my vision doesn’t go red, because it is all too easy to get caught up in the moment and want to be the best and punch things. Then I am reminded I am rolling dice on a table in a dining room, moving around a mini on a piece of paper with a grid and drinking cocoa, not actually swinging a battle axe.

That being said there is also that pull to want to use your sex to influence, well everything. I find that breasts can be a powerful tool and the power can go to one’s head. Now I don’t mean wearing low cut tops and flirting with everything in hopes that they will go easy on you. I mean if you just so happen to be dating the GM or the character fighting you, the urge to threaten lack of quality naked time will rise up like the tide inside of you, and threaten to crest out of your mouth, and monsoon the whole gaming mood. Fight it, with all that you can, and breathe deep this urge will pass and you will feel silly. It is only a game, not stupid nor a waste of time, but a game none the less.

The “don’t go to bed angry” view has always suited my relationship very well, I like to adapt it; don’t let it leave the dice. Not all sessions will end angry or with a fight but if they do, leave it with the dice. Have a cup of tea and relax. A game will always only be that and nothing more, if you make it more it loses the fun, and makes you look a tad crazy.

-Pepper