Dungeons & Dragons and Drinking

On 1st August this year I will be one year sober, and while a lot of my own hard work has gone into this achievement, I also recognise the role table top gaming has played in helping me make the change.

I was once a prolific drinker and even more so at social gatherings. Having a drink while playing TTRPGs seemed like the most natural thing to me. Alcohol is a social lubricant, and in a situation where you were required to lower inhibitions and get into character, or many characters if you are the GM, drinking felt like the obvious choice. For a long time I felt like having a drink, or several, while playing, kept me loose and relaxed. It made me feel like I was better at getting into the flow of the game and unleashed my creative side on the fly when responding to the actions of the player characters.

I used to pair my drinks with the games I was playing, not just TTRPGs but board games too. A glass of wine for Horrified, a strong grog with Pirate Borg, and a pint of foaming ale with Dungeons & Dragons. Each game seemed to offer an opportunity to have a drink. Table top gaming was a relaxing pastime so why not share it with a relaxing drink?

I have always had a difficult relationship with drinking and have struggled to keep things in moderation. I always used to say that drinking was thirsty work. One drink would lead to the next and while I was happy and enjoying myself, through gaming I slowly started to realise that my drinking was more of a problem than I realised.

I have discussed before the importance of GMs to take time to decompress after TTRPG sessions, even if they are fairly relaxed. On top of this, there is always something to be gained from seeking some reassurance from your players that they had enjoyed what you had planned. However, when I was drinking, regardless of how much fun was had during the session, I had trouble decompressing and trusting the feedback I was being given from my players. My decompression time would become a spiral of negative emotions as I doubted any evidence before me that I had been entertaining enough. I focused on any and all negative points that my brain could give me. The session was too boring, or I was too intense (usually as a result of my drinking). I found the time I needed to decompress and adjust back to normal life increased the more I had been drinking. Sometimes days would pass and I would still not feel like I had entirely processed the experience.

This emotional hangover was difficult to deal with, often on top of your more traditional hangover. Of course, with hindsight I realise that the solution was simple, but at the time I internalised a lot of the emotions I was struggling with. The extended periods of recovery I needed after each session had me believing that I was not a good GM, that my players were just humouring me, that I should hand over the reigns to someone else. Despite all this I still was unable to come to the conclusion that drinking and DMing was affecting the whole experience for me in massively negative ways.

In the end, however, it was GMing that helped me recognise that my problem was not with the game, or my abilities, but with my drinking. I was getting too generous with magical items for my players and not remembering who I had given what. I was handing out game-breaking spells and magical artifacts that were completely throwing planned encounters. While I don't mind that my players probably enjoyed these boons, it made things very difficult in an almost entirely home-brewed world when I could barely remember what had happened each session. It really made me feel like I could be offering my players a much better experience if I avoided drinking while playing.

There are few better examples than that which transpired recently during a game of Pirate Borg we experienced a character death at the hands of a Sentient Fungus. The killing blow was made and the table fell silent as it became clear that there was no coming back from this for Luca the Zealot, the team's Glass Cannon. It was a truly sobering moment, which was only stopped when Luca played his Charon's Obol allowing him to return to life with 1HP. What troubled me was that I had absolutely no memory of awarding him this relic. The player informed me that I had handed it out many sessions ago when I had been drinking.

Don't get me wrong, it was still a fantastic moment of collaborative story-telling, but it really highlighted to me how much of a problem it was for me to not be remembering our sessions, or even to take notes. This all took place after I had quit drinking but stayed with me as a reminder that I was a better GM now that I had stopped. Drinking was making me sloppy.

Tabletop games didn't just help me realise that I had a problem with drinking, they helped me readjust my life to accommodate my sobriety. Gaming sessions began to revolve around coffee and cake rather than drinking, and our regular meet ups at Fruitworks Coffee Shop became a staple of my week. I found my life shifting away from the pub and towards bright, open cafes instead. Where I used to use alcohol as a social lubricant, table top games began to provide me with the relaxed atmosphere and aid to meet new people. 

During the week when I wasn't able to play with a group, I invested more time into solo board games as a means of unwinding and relaxing, rather than pouring myself a drink. The almost meditative nature of solo gaming was a cornerstone of my mental wellbeing. Through playing games I was able to enter a flow-state where I was completely unconcerned by the outside world and my inner demons. They gave me a rest from thoughts of drinking, as the structure and puzzle-like element of these games kept my mind satisfyingly occupied. 

It has been a journey for me but looking back I can really appreciate the role that table top gaming has played in helping me reach sobriety and providing me with a safe space to continue. This is a personal story for me and I am not using it as a way of saying others should do the same. Drinking is not inherently evil, and most people will never experience the same problems as I did. I just wanted to share my experiences so that if anyone happens to find themselves in a similar position to me, they might gain some encouragement to make the necessary changes. 

Snacks. The Ultimate Table Top Taboo?

In all board gaming communities there is one question that seems to get people riled up more than anything else, and that's the question of snacks at the table when playing board games. There is little more that causes the collective blood to boil, apparently, than the inclusion of any type of food or drink at the table. But is this really justified?

I appreciate that people are protective over their game collection and don't want to see the carefully crafted assets damaged or stained. There are, of course, steps that can be taken to help reduce this by way of card sleeves, but is the risk of some minor damage worth it to increase the social element of the hobby?

Multiplayer games exist specifically to be a shared experience with friends and other hobbyists. In many respects they are perfectly suited to combine with food and drink to enhance the experience. They are primarily in-door activities, they usually involve sitting together at a table for extended periods, during which time people will get hungry and thirsty, and they are both social experiences that we use to bond with those around us.

Commensality is the term anthropologists use to describe the act of eating together, and it is recognised as one of the most commonly shared practices among human beings. However, there is some debate as to what the term actually refers to. Does it mean sharing the food, the table, the place, or the moment? Jonsson et al state that commensality "is first and foremost a matter of sharing the table and, thus, the place and the central material object." In this way, eating together is viewed as a way of creating or maintaining a group, "a way to assert or to strengthen a 'We'". By eating together and sharing food, we are reasserting our connections with each other while also reassuring our brains that we are safe, satisfied, and loved. This naturally floods our bodies with positive hormones. 

If we are looking at commensality as Jonsson et al described it, we can see a strong overlap between board games and mealtimes in the sharing of the table space and how this increases our bonds with each other.

As there is such a clear link between gaming and food, it is entirely natural that we should look to combining the two pastimes. I understand that the owners of board games don't want to see their collections marked or damaged, but by rigidly denying the incorporation of eating and drinking to accompany games, are players losing out?

I don't mean to sound dramatic and morbid but everything decays. We cannot keep everything pristine forever, and to what end are we attempting to do so? Resale value is one thing, sure, but in removing such a perfect partnership as games and food, are players limiting their enjoyment of an activity just to maintain a value that is as much at the whim of the market as it is in the quality of the product?

All game owners must make the decision for themselves about what they will and will not allow at their tables, but I for one will always allow food and drink . In fact, pairing food to the type of game, much like we find thematically appropriate music, is all part of the fun. Let's not forget that publisher Pretzel Games supposedly got their name from their desire to design games that can be comfortably played with a pretzel in one hand!

There is already enough joylessness in the world, let your players eat and drink at the table.