How Many Beers per Gaming Session?

[DrunkonDuty]

Oh and to answer the OP: I don't drink when I'm GMing. Anymore. Not after I lost my BBEG who was supposed to be a cunning, use catspaws and sow chaos from behind the scenes type. Had a few beers in me and she went and got all gung-ho and tried to take the PCs in a stand up fight instead of running. SHe got massacred.

Or to put it more generally: as a GM I have too much going on to try and do it drunk without effecting the quality of the game. One or two tops.

Most of my players don't drink much.

When playing: hey, I'll live up to my ENWorld handle. Beer all the way. Have a preference for James Squire Golden (kinda sweet) or a great beer from NZ, Monteiths Porter (with a depth of flavour and colour like the bowels of the Underdark.) And if I'm watching the pennies then Toohey's Old, another black beer, pretty good for the price.

 

[Piratecat]

You're not referring to Newqy Brown, are you? I'm hoping against hope here that "New Castle" means something other than "Newcastle Brown Ale" in the US. Or, as it is more commonly kown, the crappy beer that students drink because they can't afford anything else...

Morrus, I wonder if your Newcastle Brown Ale tastes different from ours. Because - and I'm not a connoisseur, mind - Newcastle is freaking delicious.

Jerk. Insulting his beer just made baby Piratecat cry.

Sniff.

 

[Morrus]

Morrus, I wonder if your Newcastle Brown Ale tastes different from ours. Because - and I'm not a connoisseur, mind - Newcastle is freaking delicious.

Jerk. Insulting his beer just made baby Piratecat cry.

Sniff.

Well, next time I'm there, you can you me one and I'll tell you!

We're talking about this cheap-ass concoction, right?

*I drink it at my favourite pub... but only because it comes in a larger bottle than pictured and pint glasses get spilled in short order in that pub!

Incriminating photos follow:

 

[Umbran]

It wasn't intended to be insulting, at all. Maybe poor word choice?

Possible, and if so, I also apologize for overreacting.

I see a lot of folks take a lot of flack, and get treated like children, for choosing not to drink. Even stuff like the "I don't like beer"/"Then you haven't had *good* beer" kind of gets on my nerves a bit. It's kind of patronizing.

 

[Moleculo]

Well, next time I'm there, you can you me one and I'll tell you!

We're talking about this cheap-ass concoction, right?

*I drink it at my favourite pub... but only because it comes in a larger bottle than pictured and pint glasses get spilled in short order in that pub!

Incriminating photos follow:

Yeah, that's the American New Castle. It's a little higher quality here I, just as some American beers are (believe it or not) better over seas than here.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, that's the American New Castle. It's a little higher quality here I, just as some American beers are (believe it or not) better over seas than here.

Well, it's not the American Newcastle, because those photos were taken in Southampton, UK!

But do you have a cite for that? I was under the impression these things were the same everywhere. Certainly any US beers I've had in the states taste the same as they do over here, as did (vice versa) Stella (which I hate) and Kronenburg over there. I'd be very interested in trying it abroad to see if there's a difference.

 

[Mark Chance]

Usually no more than two beers for me. It depends on whether I'm drinking single malt instead. If it's the single malt, maybe three or four doubles over a six hour game session.

And, no, this isn't anywhere near enough alcohol in a short enough period of time to make me drunk, impair my concentration, or short circuit my ability to "take the game seriously" (whatever that means).

Of course, we game in my house. My house. My rules. If invited to someone else's house who didn't allow alcohol, I would respectfully comply.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Moleculo wrote: Yeah, that's the American New Castle. It's a little higher quality here I, just as some American beers are (believe it or not) better over seas than here.

I do believe it. Beers brewed under liscence in places other than their country of origin are going to be varying quality, both up and down. For example: that great Aussie beer, Fosters, is completely undrinkable here in its country of origin. The stuff brewed under liscence in the UK is OK. (not great, but OK.)

On the topic of varying quality in brewing I need to vent: the Guiness we get here in Oz is just awful. <big sigh> I miss the real thing. Nearly enough reason in itself to move back to London. I suppose I could join in that game at the Black Horse...

 

[justanobody]

Well, it's not the American Newcastle, because those photos were taken in Southampton, UK!

Newcastle Brown Ale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seems to be the same thing. Maybe the taste is altered by the weather?

 

[mhacdebhandia]

That's an interesting point, and may well indictae very different styles of play. How "seriously" do you expect your game to be taken?

Certainly for myself and my friends, the operative word is "game", and it's a social activity the goal of which is simply that we all enjoy ourselves.

Sometimes that means we end up with a tense night of cliffhangers and heavy roleplaying; other times it means we all just act a bit silly. As long as we all enjoy ourselves, we consider the evening a success.

But the only metric we judge a game night on was "did we enjoy it?" Because, frankly that's the only reason we do it.

It varies, of course. Some nights are all about cracking wise out of character, other times that wouldn't be appropriate.

The longest-running, most enjoyable, and most successful games I've played in have been ones where at least some of the time we took the situations and characters of the game seriously.

If all I wanted to do was sit around and shoot the with my friends, I could do that. If I'm going to play a roleplaying game, I prefer to have a good time on game night because what happened in the game was fun, exciting, and/or interesting to play through.

I don't walk away at the end of a night of cracking jokes and paying little attention to the game grumbling because I didn't enjoy myself - far from it. I probably make jokes more than anyone else in the groups I play with. I would, however, generally prefer to be walking away at the end of a night of fun roleplaying that was enjoyable for its own sake.

I don't really think drinking at the table, even if you're not getting drunk, is as conducive to taking the game seriously as not drinking would be.