Some People Just Won't Understand... (A Parents and Gaming Story)

by Raincrystal 

Greg Campbell's recent editorial challenged us to "try RPGaming with parents and grandparents." I am one who has tried such, and behold, it ended in catastrophe. Let me share my own experience.

Long ago, when I was but a tiny kitten and had just snagged a brand-new SNES, my mom actually played video games. In fact, she not only bought me FFIV, but also played it herself, often helping me when I got stuck on bosses. (This was my fourth video game ever.) She never got to the end, but I don't think she cared. At least she played it, and she knew who the characters were.

The rivers of time flowed. FFVI was released, and with it, my unbounded excitement at a new FF game. My mom also attempted it, but this time I was the one helping her because she never remembered where to go next. Granted, some of her difficulties did stem from the fact that she bestowed Edgar with the unfortunate name of Leo, thus setting herself up for reams of confusion upon encountering the general, but that didn't account for it all. She wasn't paying attention, and it showed.

More time passed. We went through reams of games. It was now always the same pattern: I'd play a game, finish it, and love it, and she'd pick it up for a week, get stuck, and quit. I asked her once why she liked to play my games, and she said she liked whacking monsters.

Uhh... okay. Now, granted, RPGs were the only games we owned in great numbers, because that was the only genre I was still really interested in. Maybe she would have been just as happy playing Street Fighter or Yoshi's Island. But surely she at least knew that RPGs had plots, even if she didn't pay attention to them. Surely she did at least have an inkling of the fact that I was so deeply into these games for a better reason than whacking monsters.

A month or so ago, I decided it was time to show Mom the virtues of RPGs. Maybe she always gave up just because she got stuck. Maybe if she had an experienced player like me along to get her through the game quickly and easily, she would be free to concentrate on the story and begin to see the complexity of these games. I approached her with an offer: we'd get a new RPG and play it together, using the same save file and always together, and make it a "quality time" thing. Yes! It would be perfect. We'd have inside jokes, we'd share thoughts and ideas and fun with an RPG. This was excellent, since I have few interests in common with my mother and had been hoping for some way to "connect" with her as an individual now that I'm away at college and my life happens mostly out of her sight.

Mom liked the idea; she even paid for the game. We went together to pick one out, and although she ended up choosing by the box, I wasn't unhappy with the selection. I wanted to start playing that evening, but she decided she'd rather put her feet up and watch the news. I tried not to push the issue. The next evening, I approached her yet again, and she agreed to play (although her tone of voice indicated that she felt it was a chore.) Trying to get her excited, I showed her the pretty character designs in the strategy guide, and we made fun of the characters' names. It started out so well, but then the conversation rapidly went down the tubes:
Mom: Now you know, you can't expect me to remember all this stuff.
Raincrystal: What do you mean?
Mom: Well, you know, I'm not going to memorize all the little details like you and your friends do, about what characters have what costume and what spells they all have.
Raincrystal: It's not like that, Mom. I don't remember any of that stuff either. But I would like you to try to at least remember a little bit of the story.
Mom: I can't do that.
Raincrystal: Can't you at least try?
Mom: Now look here, if I'm going to play this game with you, I want to play it my way, not your way. Don't tell me how to play.
Raincrystal: I'm not telling you how to play. It's just that if you don't even remember the beginning when you get to the next scene, how do you even know what's going on?
Mom: You are telling me how to play... you just said...

I'll spare you the further details, but this conversation spiraled downward into a huge fight, with Mom insisting I was trying to "tell her how to play." What she failed to understand was that to my point of view, the way she played isn't really playing at all. It's like reading a book for the sound of the words, but having no idea what happened in the last chapter. She probably thinks I just play it to whack monsters, too. I find it disturbing that my own mother thinks I spend most of my free time towards a goal as mindless as whacking monsters. (As I stated in my editorial about difficulty in RPGs, I happen to detest level building and high encounter rates.)

Converting my mom was a dismal failure; we only ended up sitting down to play the game once. I've been thinking about it since then, and I've realized that there are probably a frightening amount of people out there who really don't get the fact that RPGs have plots. I doubt that anyone like that would come to RPGamer, let alone read the editorial section, so we haven't been hearing from them or noticing them, but they must be out there. These are likely the sorts of people who say "hey can u help me bring aries back 2 life" and seem genuinely surprised when hardcore gamerz talk down to them. No wonder we feel like many game companies are playing down to us-- the lowest common denominator must be pretty scary. Logically, I don't understand how someone could play a good RPG and not even notice the plot. How could they fail to miss it? And yet, my mom does exactly that. Is it a complete failure of attention on her part, or are RPGs more complex than we realize? Does th! e stereotype of "RPGs as nerd games" actually hold some truth, if only in the fact that it takes intelligence to play one? What does the player have to bring to an RPG to make it work?

I'll leave you now to ponder these imponderables. (Why do we call them imponderables when they are very ponderable?) If you'd like to discuss the questions I raised, share your own stories about parents and gaming, say nasty stuff about my mama or just flame me indiscriminately, drop me a line. I'll be sitting here wishing I had Usagi Vindaloo's mom.