How has Gaming Changed You? #RPGaDay

So let’s get back to the list of #RPGaDay 2018 questions, shall we? Today’s question is How has gaming changed you?

This question is a very hard one for me to be honest. I imagine that it is intended more for gamers that that who may be relatively new to the hobby. For me gaming has always been a part of who I am. I discovered the hobby at around eight or nine years old. I first discovered roleplaying games at my local library and instantly fell deeply in love with the hobby. Even before discovering dungeons and dragons I had a deep love for the Arthurian legends. So the chance to play a game where I and my friends could be knights of legend ourselves! Shortly after I found my first group and from that day forward gaming has been a part of my life.

So I have to think hard to decide in ways gaming changed my formative years. I know that gaming made me more accepting of others. When I was younger there was no internet to assist anyone in finding groups, and satanic panic was in full swing a few short years later. Needless to say, if we found gamers we were not very picky. We would work with them to help make them better gamers. Another way that gaming changed me would be my reading habits. The hobby turned me into a voracious reader for many years, sadly this is a habit that I have fallen out of and need to embrace once again. I know there are likely more ways that gaming changed me over the years.

The reality is that I have been gaming for so long that it has had an influence on far too many things to list in one short blog. Either way, if you ask me all of these ways that gaming changed me were for the better.

So how has gaming changed you?