Thirty Years a Gamer

Spring Break, 1986.

Thirty years ago, my mom took some work out on South Padre Island doing cleaning in the aftermath of the Spring Breakers who make it out there every year. As part of that process, she discovered something some university student had left there – the red box of Dungeons & Dragons.

I was twelve at the time, and already reading all the fantasy I could get my hands on, so she saw something she figured I would really like, and brought it home to me. I read through it, and was hooked immediately.

As of this year, I have been playing role-playing games for thirty years. It has been a focus of my creative efforts (written and visual), an escape for a queer kid trapped in poverty in a Texas border town, a source of hours of fun that didn’t involve drugs or alcohol in a time and place where there was almost no chance of getting out of childhood without a heavy dose of both, a place where I met some of the people I still cherish to this day, and ultimately, the focus of my vocation as an adult.

I’ve been a gamer longer than I’ve been a writer. I’ve identified as a gamer long before I identified as queer. It’s been a part of who I am for so long that I don’t actually have a good memory of a time when I wasn’t one.

And I owe it all to that red box my mom brought home, and to that forgetful (probably hungover) college student that forgot to check his bedside stand’s drawers and grab that red box when he was packing his rented condo room after Spring Break.

Thirty Years a Gamer

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