Your worst dry spell

[Walking Paradox]

I suspect that one need not go very far into a forum like this one to find someone who has stopped gaming, or someone who knows someone who has stopped gaming. What about people who have stopped gaming for a long while, but suddenly got back into it?

Has something like this ever happened to you? Did you ever stop gaming for such a long time that you couldn't even imagine starting again? What caused your dry spell? How long was it? What made you get back into the hobby?

 

[innerdude]

Well, let's see......

I played BECMI from around 1983 until 1990, from the time I was 8 until I was a sophomore in high school, as well as some Top Secret / Top Secret S.I. Also played quite a bit of Battletech, and I LOVED all the Mechwarrior video games.

I then literally didn't play a single organized tabletop RPG for 13 years, until 2003, just after 3.5 came out, when I was nearly 28 years old.

Why did I stop playing?

Lots of reasons, mostly that I just liked to do tons of other things. I was never the type of kid/teen to just throw my whole life into D&D (and let's be frank--by about 14/15, it's not exactly the "thing to do" to impress the ladies). I played basketball, volleyball, golf, and tennis, got into acting in high school (and did it in college and semi-professionally), learned to play the piano, and generally just enjoyed high school life.

I should also mention, though, that I kept all of my original gaming material--Battletech stuff, my original Basic/Expert soft covers and my Rules Cyclopedia, all my dice, my character sheets.....

I also played D&D video games regularly, from the SSI "Gold Box," to the Heroes of the Lance early PC title, to Baldur's Gate I and II.

I came back to the hobby because I had a friend I worked with who had an adult gaming group. As soon as I got an invite, I fell right back into it, bought 10 or so of the 3.5 hard cover books, FR and Eberron campaign settings, minis, maps, etc.

Now it's just part of my daily lived experience. My wife has played with several of my groups (though she really only does it because she knows I enjoy it), and I'll always have a bookshelf area lined with my RPG stuff.

 

[Super Pony]

In college I could only play during breaks from school. Having to go from playing at least once a week from age 9 - 17 and then switching to playing twice a year was brutal. I suppose that doesn't really count as a true "dry" spell though. More of a moist spell...

I only get face-to-face game time with my local group once a month now, but I play online with some pals from back in my home town more regularly.

 

[DumbPaladin]

I stopped playing D&D from about 1999 until 2008. Almost a nine-year gap: I do not recall what month I stopped in 1999, but I suspect it was summer, and I started again in earnest February 2009, but played in a very brief Twilight campaign in 2008 run by a truly miserable, unskilled DM that ended abruptly when he killed his girlfriend's character due to his rolling a very lucky string of 20s.

That saw our two newest players -- the girlfriend and a friend of mine -- give up on D&D all together. The other remaining player and I decided the next year to form our own D&D group, and excluded the horrible DM. We currently have 7 in our group, including the DM, and we are setting aside our 2-year D&D 3.5 campaign to switch to Pathfinder this summer.

The end of my 2nd Edition D&D game in the late 90's was truly abysmal. The DM was one of those kind who just really hasn't had fun unless he's nearly killed or actually killed numerous people each session. I don't know how many times I ended combats in negative hit points, but I do recall that even more common was my being the sole person left alive and required to give long-term care to the other party members, each of whom were dying. Add to that the player of the wizard deciding that it was "in character" to shoot lightning bolts THROUGH allies towards monsters, and my character nearly being killed twice by the party wizard, and the DM doing nothing about it ... I was ready to move on.

When the DM penalized ME for refusing to heal the wizard any further after he actually dropped me to negative hit points with a lightning bolt ... I told him he was fired as my DM, and left the group after making it very clear just how lousy a DM he was.

I honestly ran into very few people in between then and 2008 who played D&D. A group invited me to join them at community college, but they played at odd hours, out in a loud, public room, and had 15 people in the group. I wasn't ready for that different of an experience ... so until I made an acquaintance in 2008 who was into D&D, I simply didn't try again. Once I found someone interested in beginning a group ... well, that really reignited my interest.

During all of the 2000s, it helped that I ran a Star Trek simulation online -- that occupied a great deal of my time and most of my interest in roleplay.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Your worst dry spell

I just had a player take Dehydrate. That spell deals con damage, man!

I'll be here all night folks.

More seriously, it is somewhat of a surprise even to me that my biggest dry spell was college. Given my workload, especially in the early years, the bookkeeping of D&D didn't seem practical. But more importantly, my people were gone, and trying to start a game from scratch at a small school would have been hard. My health was also a problem; I was in pain and didn't know why.

More recently, my original high school group had enough members move back into the same area and reconvened, having all had similar experiences. Apparently good gaming groups are hard to come by. We've had several more longish (up to a couple of months) hiatuses involuntarily to do work and other things, usually around the holidays.

 

[Dice4Hire]

My longest dry spell was when I came to Japan.

I played from elementary school straight through to the end of university pretty solidly.

Then when I came here I had a couple of year's dry spell, but I then started a roup that has gone strong since then, a small group, but strong.

I hope to not have another dry spell.

 

[Zhaleskra]

Perhaps it's from having been in a college gaming group where most people tried multiple games, I've never really understood giving up RPGs entirely based on one game either going a direction you don't like or merely getting tired of it. Lifting that filter, the RPGs that have the most obvious exposure are D&D and WoD. So I can see not knowing that there are more than two options.

Anyway, I've mostly been running and playing at conventions lately, despite having been in three semi-successful groups: d20 Modern, a multiple game group, and a HARP group. I'm working toward changing that, and last night I saw someone had advertised a GURPS group at the brewery in town. To answer the question, probably a year or so.

 

[Mighty Halfling]

My worst dry spell is Quench.
My best dry spell is Horrid Wilting.

 

[sheadunne]

I played consistently from 1983-1993 (school years 4-12). Then sporadically from 1993-1997 (college). Then not at all from 1997-2004 (jobs and wife and contentment). From 2004-2011 I've played consistently (needed a hobby). I'm now taking a break to adjust to a new family member, but I still play off and on games. I'll start up a regular game again probably in the Fall, once life has found a pattern. Games are fun, life is busy, we do what we can.

 

[ggroy]

Many years ago, I took a 15+ years hiatus away from rpg games altogether. I completely missed 2E AD&D and 3E D&D. I got back into rpg games when an old friend called me up out of the blue, and asked if I was interested in playing an evening pickup game of 3.5E D&D.

Back in the late 1980's, I was totally burned out on 1E AD&D by the time I stopped playing rpg games. The last few games I played were in the 1E AD&D Forgotten Realms "grey box". By then, I had started my first career and didn't have much time to do anything else (so I thought at the time).

More recently, I've had a dry spell since December (2010) after my 4E Encounters game abruptly died. At this point, I'm completely burned out on 4E D&D. Since then, I've only played infrequent occasional one-shot pickup rpg games or board games.


Now that I look back on it, in some ways playing 3.5E/4E D&D and other rpg games over the last 5+ years, has sort of been my way of dealing with my "mid-life crisis".

Instead of wasting cash on a Porsche or hanging out at crappy nightclubs, I ended up wasting a lot of cash on rpg books and other accessories (ie. miniatures, dice, etc ...), and spending a lot of time preparing for the 3.5E/4E games I was DMing.