In The Beginning

Hi and welcome to Cthulhu Mom Games, a blog about my experiences as a gamer mom. I have learned a lot in my four short years of parenthood but am by no means an expert. Not even with my own kid. My goal here is to share my experiences, and hopefully in the future be able to interview others and share their experiences. I will be writing about how I squeeze gaming into my life as well as how we are including our daughter in our hobby.
As my daughter grows and changes so will this blog. Right now our biggest challenge is how do we game with an active Pre-schooler, who cannot focus through a full game of Candy Land quite yet. As a result gaming has to happen during naps and after bed time. Yes I am lucky enough to still have nap time. Our hope is that she will share in the joy of our hobby and one day join us at the gaming table.
When not gaming I am a professional video editor, actress, wife, and mommy. My husband and I have been together for ten years and married for eight of those. We are the parents to a singleton daughter. We all live in a small house in Pennsylvania with our tabby cat, an entire closet full of board games, and shelves of role-playing books with more lurking in the attic. And lest you think we’re completely behind on technology (we’re not completely behind, just mostly), our hard drive holds several more role-playing game books and we own a Wii.
I consider myself a fairly well-rounded gamer, however there are lots of games out there, only so much time, and frankly, only so much interest. I don’t video game. We own the aforementioned Wii and I use it for an exercising game (Walk It Out! – yes it’s cheesy, but it gets me off my butt!). I don’t miniature/war game. I don’t have anything against those game types, I just have no interest in them. My husband does some light war gaming/miniature gaming, so from time to time I may talk about his experiences from our cramped basement. I am terrible at building decks, so any of the classic CCG games are right out. I do however play a variety of board games, card games, table top RPG games, and I love to larp (so long as the system being used is a non-touch resolution style – for now).
I feel like I am a late bloomer in gaming. My husband has played games most of his life, as have a lot of our friends. I grew up playing Monopoly, Life, Parchesi, and Trivial Pursuit. I learned how to play Pinochle when I was in middle school (it was an actual elective class!). I didn’t discover larping until college when my RA introduced me to her gaming group (and thus my husband) based on a vampire poster I had hung up in my dorm room. Yup. Like many a larper in the early 90’s I played Mind’s Eye Theatre’s Masquerade. This is when I consider my gaming life to have begun. It was also when I found out that I was the daughter of gamer parents. As I tried to explain my new-found hobby to my mom over the phone (connected with a cord to the wall by the way), her comment was “Oh, it’s like D&D. I get it, we used to play that when you were younger”. I had no idea the weekly gathering of friends at our house was game night! I just knew I wanted to play with the figures on the table and wasn’t allowed to, but that we got out the air popper and made lots of popcorn.
The first board game that really influenced my current gaming mindset was Settlers of Catan. We played it a few times a week until we started branching out. It’s been years since I’ve played Settlers. I should get into a game next time I’m at a convention.
Since then I have tried Euro style, worker placement, asset management, deck building, party, and tons of other board game types that I cannot even remember or classify. I’ll give anything a few play throughs before deciding I don’t like it. My current favorite table top system is FATE, though I will admit this system has grown and changed a bit since my first introduction and I really only understand the basics of it. My favorite larp system so far is the Cthulhu Live system.
So that’s me in a nutshell. Or, more accurately, in one blog post. Going forward my posts will be on how my husband and I manage to get games in, how our AWESOME gaming group helps us keep gaming, and how we introduce our daughter to the world of gaming. I hope you enjoy the ride and are able to use some of the tricks we’ve figured out. Please feel free to respond with your own tips and tricks, as well as topics you’d like to have me chime in on. Until then – happy gaming!