The Family That Slays Together...

Image by Lothar Dieterich from Pixabay

The family that slays together, stays together.  That was us and, technically, still is.  We coined that phrase in the early 2000s (if you coined it before us, forgive us, we didn’t know).  People have often complimented our family on the close ties we have, and that “slays/stays” thing was part of our response: we slay bad guys as a familial unit in the virtual world, and in the spiritual world too. ​

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Family Tree

I’ve mentioned before that we started MMORPG gaming with our mid-sized family (two parents, four kids) when Dungeons and Dragons went online in 2006.  At that time our kids ages ranged from six-thirteen years old.  But the story starts much earlier.  ​

Our Gaming Family Tree

Grandmas and grandpas that loved technology

Chappy, the “Dad” in this saga, had a dad (I know, right? Who knew?).  We’ll call him “Grandpa.”  Grandpa was a technical writer for HP (Hewlett-Packard).  And because of his work in the world of technology, Dad's household had the latest and greatest tech that their family could afford.

​Darcien, that’s me the “Mom”, had a mom (right?) who we will call “Oma” (you’ve met her before). Her mind never stops working. 

Family Gaming Tree by Darcien Balog

It’s in Oma’s analytical and creative nature to habitually grow in knowledge and understanding, which is a natural breeding ground for someone who needs to move through info faster and is completely compatible with advancing technologies. Mom’s household, therefore, had the latest and greatest tech her family could afford (not as much as Dad’s, but was still blessed with God’s provisions in the 80s). ​

Parents that Played and Worked

Enter Dad’s story.  Dad was way into the Traveller RPG game around ages 11-14.  Like way into it (I mean soooo into it that… well more on that in a bit).  At that time, he was also playing the Fantasy Trip (I know. I hadn’t heard of that game either until I interviewed him for this blog, but they are still a company).  I know too that he was into tabletop strategy games like World War II bookcase games—I know because our shelves at home are filled with nearly a dozen of them.  Strategy is, obviously, a strong suit of Dad’s. 
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Now Mom: Mom and her younger brother asked for an Atari console gaming system.  I mean like early 80s. What they got: a Bally Astro Basic console system. What’s that? Exactly.  It was a gaming system, sure enough. But you had to program each game yourself using a what looked like a modified calculator.  If you messed up even one character, you’d have to start all over.  We loved playing pinball, but rarely did.  The coding was long.  And if you messed it up, you were too frustrated to start clicking through the alphabet on the 0-9 number pad again.  We played pong a lot, though.  It wasn’t all loss and frustration, though.  It was a great introduction to coding. 
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The next branch on the family tree is when Chappy and Darcien–er, I mean Dad and Mom–got hitched.  From the very beginning we played games on our PC.  Like from floppy disks.  We learned eventually to access our DOS system to get our games to run faster.  The union’s prodigies were introduced to PC games (for their toddler level) at this time as well.  I played too, of course.  I mean they were fun, and I always won against the computer—booyah, my kindergarten diploma wasn’t for nothing!  Then came the Playstation (games like Packman World, ChronoCross, and Parasite Eve); then came the DDo MMORPG. (Finally, am I right?) 

Silent Partners

Image by George from Pixabay

The kids loved to watch Dad and Mom (that’s me) play games.  Actually, we all watched whoever was playing—anxiously awaiting our turn and conversely offering encouragements for the player’s success.  When DDo came out 2006, the family owned two computers.  While Dad was busy at work, we’d all take turns playing our toons (we homeschooled). But when dad got home, five people had to vie for the one computer. Because Dad was going to immerse himself on one comp, whichever of us won the coin toss (or forced those younger than us to bow to age-superiority) would play with him on the other.  Well, that lasted all of a month.  We bought a third computer.  At least half the fam could play at a time.  It worked.   
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The kids weren’t allowed to use mics for a couple of reasons: 1. We didn’t want someone catfishing, grooming, or stalking our children; 2. DDo adults don’t like playing with youth because of a stigma developed by other youth who had crappy attitudes.  It worked.  People never knew they were playing with a child as young as six. How is this even possible, you may ask?  Because the kids all picked up on the gameplay like fish to water. Like Dwarves to Dwarven axes. Like Bards to lutes.  Like… well, I think I’ve made my point. Oh, they had a lot to learn, of course.  But it was a first taste for them.  

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Next Branches on the Tree: The Kids

We’ll call them: Rogue, Paladin, Ranger, and Caster, in order of birthing.  Paladin took his love for role playing games to tabletop minis, like Star Wars minis and various others. Now he is taking on War Hammer.  He’s a very social person and loves the creating of armies. The other three turned to pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons then to Pathfinder.  Creation is such a huge part of all of our interest in games, that Rogue (you know her as Ashleigh), Ranger, and Caster (Nickolas the financial guru of T3) all LOVE their assumed roles as leaders and creators.  Their penchant for sandboxing is so prolific and well received by their players that we decided to create this gaming enterprise together. ​

Do we still shed blood together? ​

But, of course. Dad is currently referring a Traveller campaign hosted on Fantasy Grounds VTT–because our party is stretched over three households and two states. Our party consists of have a sniper who is always well placed, a guy with a pocket nuke (that he can’t use because it will radiate everyone, including himself), a just-fell-into-nursing spy, a nerd with the coolest ride this side of the Ancients, a sharp-witted-sharp-shooting-knows-how-to-roll fighter, and my toon: a big-nosed steam-punked fighter/astronavigator. Sometimes we get impaled by alien plants; other times we annihilate a flee-ridden dog race with some well-placed C4 suppositories. Always we laugh, talk over each other, argue with the ref, and share news. 
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My wisdom for those who seek it: whether it's eating at the dinner table every night together, taking evening walks together, reading a book together, climbing Mt Rainier every weekend together, praying each day together, or running around fantasy worlds preforming heroic deeds together: the family that strides together, abides together.  (See what I did there?)