Gamers have less time away from the table?

[Ralif Redhammer]

As a DM, mostly just working on the next adventure. The funny thing is, I'm currently running Out of the Abyss and finding it more work to do so. I find I have to read and re-read the section for the upcoming session to do it justice, for it to live in my head and be able to react and improvise to PC decisions as well as if I was just running my own adventure.

I also write and send out recaps of the previous adventure. It generally takes me one-to-three days to do so.

I do use the internet (including EN World) to try to improve my game. It's a wonderful resource for continual learning and improvement.

I grew up with a twin brother. As a result, I always had someone to game with, or just talk about gaming. We still game together, happily. And we still blather and ramble on, albeit via messaging. But I think now, more than ever, it's easier to immerse yourself in geek culture.

 

[Cristian Andreu]

Oddly, as we've grown older and our lives become busier, the seven of us that make up our regular gaming group have started dedicating more time outside the table to the game. We keep detailed campaign journals filled with timelines and referential pictures; the players are constantly sharing information between themselves and coordinating future plans; the group's artist regularly draws both characters and important scenes; another maintains a storyboard of the game as it progresses (she studied cinema, after all); yet another regularly comes up with referential cards and tools to be used in our games. And a long etc.

I'm pretty sure this has a lot to do with out desire to keep connected to the game, even though we rarely manage to squeeze more than 1 session every 3 weeks (plus a full weekend of roleplaying once a year in January). And the result has been a very healthy group that manages to maintain interest and focus even when regular life forces us to stretch the downtime longer than we'd like to.

Within our bigger monkeysphere of 20-30 close friends (our personal social groups overlap quite a bit, considering we've been playing together for almost two decades), the trend is pretty similar. We're all in our early 30's, with lots of marriages and children showing up (we're a very Catholic bunch, after all. Some of my friends have up to 12 siblings) and, though there seems to always be a chronic DM deficit, whenever there's a game running people are starting online journals, gathering for lunch to talk about background stories or long-term events, coming up with new houserules, making maps, etc. And now that one of those friends decided to open a tabletop restaurant within convenient distance of pretty much all of us, out-of-the-table RPG stuff has gone through the roof as the place quickly became the nerd HQ for the aforementioned monkeysphere, so there's always at least two people with whom to discuss campaigns and game-related stuff.

My older friends in the 40+ range with bigger kids are now entering a particular kind of roleplaying renaissance themselves, as several have taught their children about the stuff and, as one of them exclaimed, "We're growing our own custom-made DMs! This one even looks like me!".

 

[Psikerlord#]

When I'm a player, I dont tend to do too much outside the game, occasionally think about the PC, some good one liners, or a new custom feat or something.

When I'm DMing, I regularly think about the next session, what new hooks to throw in, finding new cool art to use from the interwebz, new monster or item or other surprise, etc.

I like to check in with EnWorld each day, see if there's anything interesting to discuss.

Recently I've taken to writing a blog, and am also working on a "low magic" OSR/modern dnd hybrid system (dubbed "low fantasy gaming"; sprang from trying to modify 5e to fit Primeval Thule, but after a few tweaks, and then a few more, and more.... I thought, ah hell, might as well have a go at modifying everything I dont like. Currently playing (playtesting?) the system with PT, early days, but seems to be working well).

 

[GMMichael]

So, to the point. Other than the actual at-the-table stuff, what are your tabletop RPG activities? Do you write house rules? World build? Design your own game? Write a blog? Sell PDFs? Run a message board? Start Kickstarters? Review adventures? What are the things you do which aren't actually playing the game?

I was spending an hour on weekly game prep time, which really should have been two hours. I'm spending some time working on a hybrid board game/roleplaying game, which is now a pretty common weekly allotment that should fall under "game design." Besides that, I tend to visit Tamriel for inspiration and, ahem, research. World building is on my list of to dos...

 

[fjw70]

Outside of actually playing the game I enjoy keeping ip with the message boards and learning new systems that catch my eye. However, I rarely play these new systems since very one I know just wants to play D&D/Pathfinder and to introduce a new system the burden is on me to learn and teach it. It's easier to just play D&D (which I love).

It's partly a time thing for me (4 kids) but I really don't want to spend time building characters, worlds, and adventures. As a DM I would rather just take something in existence and modify it on the fly as I run it.

 

[SkidAce]

Design house rules/world stuff. Tinker with my maps. Read the forums here. Listen to Critical Role or other podcasts while running or cutting grass.

And play video games.