Dad

A meditation on inheritance.

My father’s addiction destroyed his marriage, tore our family apart, and guaranteed my sister and I grew up in poverty. As a young man, I swore I would not be like him. I’m old enough and wise enough now to know that the oath of a young man is often foolishness. We find our own weaknesses more troublesome than youthful idealism could have guessed and, if we are honest, we learn to forgive and to have more patience with the struggles of others. I hope I continue to learn. But I wanted to talk about Dad today because I see his addiction popping up in myself and in my online reading. See, my father wasn’t addicted to a substance, he was addicted religion, and more specifically, finding the right religion.

Seems a far cry from a hobby games, right? But the more time I spend online reading and listening to other hobbyists, the more I hear of my father. He wanted to find the perfect version of God, the uncorrupted truth (there’s a lot of talk of corruption when you start down these paths). He was convinced there was a true religion out there, but the more he searched, the more inhumane his own religion became, especially as it applied to his family. This is why I called his problem an addiction; his need for it bent and warped his priorities away from the needs of those closest to him. Everything else became secondary to the search.

We play these games for fun. We spend money on these games because we like them. And we become passionate about our chosen hobby. So far, so good. I like listening to people talk about their games. I especially like to hear designers talk about how they developed a game to do a specific thing they didn’t see other games doing or to solve a consistent problem at their tables. Even if I never buy the game or have no interest in playing it, the explanations are incredibly satisfying, like hearing a woodworker talking about a new planing technique or a painter talking about light sources. This is good talk, and I sometimes hear in it the best parts of my father’s inquiring mind.

But there’s another side to this kind of talk, the ‘one true path’ kind of language. ‘There is one way to play the game, and we have discovered it. Sinister forces have corrupted the hobby, but we embattled and persecuted few have access to special knowledge. We keep alive the flame of the true way forward. Those who are wise will join us.’ Now, this is gnostic nonsense. I heard it from my father enough to recognize even a hint of it and, like a stray whiff of the uncleaned grease trap at a restaurant, it will instantly banish any appetite I have for whatever product is near it. I’m confident in asserting that there are better and there are worse ways to be involved in this hobby. I’m even more confident in asserting that I like some aspects of the hobby better than others. But anyone who comes near to telling me that there’s only one way to run my table loses my interest and my respect.

Yet I remain my father’s son. I discovered adventure games because I was restless and discontent with the rulesets and play styles embodied in the editions and spin-offs of the Official Game. But even calling D&D the Official Game, as I do on this blog, places me rhetorically adjacent to the ‘one true path’ guy yelling at the clouds. And I can feel the certainty welling up in me at times, the surety that I’ve found the one, the true game. And with that certainty comes the disdain. I’m not going to play those other games. I pity the poor, deluded fools who do. And when I catch those thoughts forming in my mind, I hear the ghost of my father laughing.

We are put on this earth to serve others, and in the great, glorious, infinitely intricate picture of our lives, if the worst that can be said about us is that we were doctrinaire when it came to the proper disposition of our leisure time, then we may well be said to have lived worthily. And maybe you’re a better man than me. Maybe you don’t feel the pull to condemn that which you merely do not prefer. But I do.

And so this is a reminder, for myself as much as for anyone who reads these words: do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Do not let the quest for truth obscure the truth of the human beings around you. Enjoy what you can, while you can, and let be.

Rest In Peace, Dad.