There comes a time in everyone’s life where your friends and family conspire to turn your life into a Boy Least Likely To song. (Just kidding, I’m an amorphous servant of the Great Old Ones, I don’t have to worry about that.) But sometimes, a mommy nerd and a daddy nerd shed their gametes into the surrounding water to attach to nearby plant life, at least I think that’s how it goes, and that’s how Wesley Crusher happens.
I’ll be frank, I’ve never understood parenthood, and not just because of the protoplasmic bubbles/eyes like pustules thing. However, what I do understand is role-playing games, and how everything in life— nay, life itself!— can be understood as one.
Protip for those entering the Mundane workforce: Fantasy Football is the golden key. It is a five-month-long RPG with the added benefit of giving you a default conversational topic when confronted with a work-based social situation. You don’t have to understand or care about football, though you’ll want to learn enough to understand the stats if you want to dominate. And you do want to dominate. Beat them at their own game!
If anyone could make sense of parenthood for me, then, it would be someone who could make sense of role-playing games. And by god, Andrew Greenberg does it! Greenberg’s experience designing computer and roleplaying games (including being the original designer on Vampire: The Masquerade and lead developer on the upcoming Fading Suns: Noble Armada mobile game) definitely comes out on his new blog, RPGDad. A recent father, he’s explaining parenting and infant growth in ways that make sense: level-based vs. skill-based systems, how birth is like a first-person shooter, and more!
Congratulations, Mr. Greenberg, and don’t forget: the family that cosplays together, stays together. Here are some of my favorite ideas:
(SexyFandom discovered this cool blog when Andrew Greenberg commented on a recent article here. –Ed.)
