Am I addicted to D&D?

[Shadoe's Lady]

Finally, someone worse than my husband!

I don't know if you're addicted (you might be pushing it), but I can now no longer pick on my husband. The clothes get put away, the dishes get washed, dinner gets cooked. I should be grateful. (For about 5 minutes, then I'll find something else to harp on.)

 

[Droogie]

Too much of anything is bad for you.

But like you said, gaming is your (other) job. I guess you're allowed to be obsessed with it to a certain degree, if it helps to put food on the table.

You know when you are addicted to something if it interferes with your "normal" life. In other words, if some aspect of your life is literally suffering because you spend too much time on that thing, it might be good to reel it in a tad.

Me personally, I'm a newbie DM, but I refuse to spend too much time on preparation and world building as a matter of principle. I don't develop my own races or classes when there are plenty of pre-published ones to pick from that would fit the bill. I'm not knocking your desire to do this; if you enjoy it, thats fine, and its part of your job anyway. I mean SOMEONE has to come up with these new crunchy bits for me to use.
But for people like me who aren't looking for a job in the game industry, I like to keep things simple. Less is more. The PCs screw up everthing anyway, so much of your work is wasted.

I find myself getting sick of this stuff if I spend too much time with it. Then I start to feel guilty. And oh, so dirty.

My sig says it all. Life is short. Find something else to do for a change. Take up golf or something.

 

[megamania]

ahhh heck...I'm addicted to the EN WORLD Boards....I blame anyone but myself

 

[der_kluge]

Nah, I guess I'm not addicted, but I do spend far too much time with this stuff.

Droogie, I guess I'm the opposite. The campaign I'm developing will occur in the (as of yet unpublished) Bluffside world. So, I have some ideas on what that entails, and much of it exists *just* outside the boundaries of the normal PHB rules. So, I spend my time working on variant things, like dragon statistics, which, for anyone else, the MM stats would work just fine, but for me, I've spent the better part of the day working up 3 new variant dragons for this game.

I realized after I had done that, that I could have taken the stats for Bronze dragon, say, and applied it to one of my own dragons. I would have done that if I was a pure hobbyist, but I'll probably publish this stuff one day, so it has to be "right". So, I'm kind of killing two birds with one stone - writing new rules for the Bluffside world, and working on my own home campaign. So, it all works out in the end.

 

[caudor]

Just thank your lucky stars...in an alternate universe you may have been addicted to soap operas!

Cheers

 

[Mistwell]

It sounds to me like you are, in fact, addicted.

Try going a week without ANY d&d activity. If you can't do it, you are certainly addicted.

 

[jester47]

I think that there are a lot of us who are perfectionists. We want the game to be perfect. So we put a lot of time into preparation. And I think that is the trap.

Next time you game, take a look at what you actually use in a session. I think you will find that it is not much. The game really does not need that much preparation to run right.

If there were still chores to be done, preparations to make, people to talk to, would you work on your clue or monopoly or chess strategies? Probably not. Treat it like what it is: a game. But it is a game with spice because it can tell a story and you can make it work any way you want it to. But all the extras are like spice, a little bit goes a long way. Dont over spice.

Aaron.

 

[Skullfyre]

Just thank your lucky stars...in an alternate universe you may have been addicted to soap operas!

Cheers

Or really bad music videos!

 

[Airwolf]

I'm not addicted. I can put down these books and this keyboard anytime, ANYTIME, I SAY!!!

Leave me alone!

 

[Zappo]

I'm addicted to food and water. And air. Can't live without them. My medic says that the abstinence crisis would kill me.