MovieChat Forums > Mazes and Monsters (1982) Discussion > I knew a few people who got "lost in the...

I knew a few people who got "lost in the game" when I played RPGs.

posted 2 years ago by whynotwriteme (7120)
3 replies | jump to latest

I knew three guys from my high school gaming days who got trapped in the game just as bad as Tom Hanks. In reality, it wasn't as dramatic as Hanks' character. These guys didn't actually believe they were living in a fantasy world, but they were trapped in it just the same.

While most of us in the gaming world at our school grew up and either moved on from gaming or kept gaming as an occasional pastime, these guys continued to be just as involved as they were at the height of their teen RPG obsession.

They either lived in their parents' homes well (decades) into adulthood, or lived in rooming houses or bachelor apartments on welfare or disability or perhaps a minimum wage joe-job now and then. Every spare penny they had went into gaming. They had no social lives outside playing RPGs and attending cons. They didn't really play with a group of actual friends, because they had none, but with people at gaming stores and clubs who were more or less strangers away from the game table. Romantic partners were totally out of the question for these dudes.

When you spoke to them, they would never, ever talk about their real lives, but instead give you elaborate descriptions of what amazing deeds their RPG characters were up to. Whenever I bumped into one of these guys and saw how obsessed and lost he was, I would get this really sad, sick feeling in my stomach.

2 of them are dead from health issues now, and I have no idea what the other guy is up to.

[–] Leodicaprio (6426) 2 years ago

shit really? thats a messed up wrenching story. like was this recent or in the 90s? I can see the appeal of staying in the fantasy world and never facing hard reality and using it as an escape

[–] whynotwriteme (7120) 2 years ago

Their problems started to become noticeable in the early '90s when everyone else was moving forward with careers, relationships, etc and they were still living like teenage D&D nerds.

It was glaringly apparent something was very wrong by the mid-late '90s. I'd encounter them at malls or in bookshops from time to time and chat with them a while. I'd be talking about my job or my girlfriend and they would be telling me about how they slew a dragon or acquired a magic sword.

As their parents aged and they were forced to deal with life on their own, their situations just grew worse and worse. Last I heard from them was when one guy was found in his welfare apartment days after dying in a diabetic coma about 10 years ago, and then learning of a second guy's death from pancreatic cancer two years ago. I totally lost track of the third. I would like to imagine he got his life on track, but I doubt it.

Sadly, I see this situation beginning to repeat with a couple of my son's high school buddies, but their obsession is with online video games instead of tabletop rpgs.

[–] Leodicaprio (6426) 2 years ago

I can only see it getting worse with technology.

when you see small 6 year olds screaming and shrieking to get their iPad back. not that kids throwing tantrums is new, but the studies showing how electronics can release endorphins similar to a drug rush is concerning.

I feel it myself when I check my phone and have new notifications.

but now its not just an on paper magic land. its a super immersive one, including VR.

I cant really blame people in shitty situations for escaping. but it may be a circular downward spiral. as you escape your shitty real life for your fantasy life, and never improve your real life because you keep trying to escape, and on and on and on