Creating Your Campaign Setting: Introduction

You might think the first step in getting the girl is finding her.

It’s not.

Before you get the girl, you must become a savvy and stylish domestician. What is a domestician? A domestician is someone who knows the art of making a house a home and knows how to handle his finances. A woman does not want to be your mother--and you don’t want her to be. But she will feel an irresistible urge to be your mother if your apartment looks as decorated as it did the day you moved in or if your idea of cooking dinner is pouring yourself a bowl of cereal. She will not want to become your mother, but she will. It’s biological. She won’t want to sleep with someone she thinks of as her little boy.

And no one wants to have sex with mommy.

In the coming weeks, I will tackle interior decorating, cooking and finances. For some of you, this will be unnecessary. I’ve known geeks who are neat freaks and like picking out towels to match the paint in their bathrooms. I’ve known geeks who were made to cook when they were kids by their working parents and consequently can cook Coq au Vin and Beef Marsala without a recipe. And there are plenty of geeks who are fascinated by numbers and do quite well for themselves in the area of finances. They don’t necessarily make a lot of money, though they might, but they do save, invest smartly and protect themselves financially.

For the rest of you, listen up.

They say your yard and your car are the self that you want to present to the world, and the inside of your home is your real self. A home reflects your personality, the self at ease. What statement does your place make about you? If you’re home, get up right now and go outside. Walk back in your house as if you were entering a stranger’s home. What would you deduce about the person living there? What do the objects tell you, the décor, the level of cleanliness? Which room seems the most important to this person? What does this person value?

If your house is like the typical geek abode, it’s an apartment or condo with not enough windows or windows that face the wrong direction or are covered by perennially closed plastic Venetian blinds. The walls are bare and painted off white. If there is art on the wall, it’s in the cheap, crappy frame it came with. The bathroom is the dirtiest room in the place or is completely spotless but has ratty or mismatched hand towels. The kitchen is stocked with a few bottles of acceptable alcohol but has a nearly empty refrigerator or a fridge that is filled with rotting takeout. The living room furniture is pushed up flush against the walls and the TV is the centerpiece around which the room is designed. The bedroom has a mattress that’s more than a decade old, no nightstands and inappropriate lighting (too harsh or too dim). All in all, the place has no sense of style. Sound familiar?

Questions is: What do you *wish* your home said about you?

Up next week: Your Home: The Basics