Commuting to a game

[howandwhy99]

I'm a diehard pedestrian and have looked for games in the city inside the perimeter. Unfortunately, every time I think I've found one - oops - we end up at someone else's house 30 minutes away. Is D&D a suburban-only game?

But for now I've got the ideal set up. A great group and my own personal chauffeur who drives me to the games. Not that he isn't appreciated. I gotta get him coffee a few more of these times.

 

[Phlebas]

I drive 25 miles each way on a weekly basis to DM/play (from the south side of Nottingham to the west side of Derby). The journey there is the worst as it's through rush-hour traffic and takes around an hour. The journey home (between 11pm-midnight) only takes about 25-30 minutes. I don't mind the commute as the games are fun.

I've been lucky in the past because, even though I gamed at a neutral venue, it was the local community centre so I could walk there in 2-3 minutes. Having said that, I have driven for a couple of hours (each way) for weekend-long gaming sessions when I moved away from the area and still wanted to play in the campaign

Small world
My three games are all situated on the western edge of Nottingham (with no-one driving more than 30 minutes). We did have someone commuting in from Brum a few years back, but that campaign folded in 6 months as attendance got patchy and other players left the area

The biggest commute i do is trying to get away from work on time and fighting through rush hour traffic so i can eat / prepare before gaming & its not always successful given the number of time I (& others) have arrived late straight from work begging for a sandwich ...

 

[dpmcalister]

...all situated on the western edge of Nottingham...

LOL where were you when I was looking for a game earlier this year?

 

[sakkara]

Been playing for almost 25 years now, and have played in a variety of places.

Through high school, we cycled between 3 of our houses, no more than 10 miles apart.

Through college, we played in the dorms or our apartment (once we moved off campus).

Post-college, I've been lucky to host more often than not, so that made things easy, especially when I DM'd (we rotate). I did used to head to the FLGS for some M:tG back in the day. Our D&D games have predomiantly been weekly.

Since building a new house & moving out to the exurbs of Minneapolis (waaaay out in Rogers for those who know the area), we moved our group's gaming location to another place centrally located. But my commute is pretty far out, so heading over there isn't terribly far out of the way. Plus when I moved out to build, I am 2 blocks from one of my best friends who also is in the group, so we ride-share on gaming day every week.

One person in the group faces a similar commute (being far out like us so its not a big deal to divert over some on the way home to game). But one other guy lives the wrong way, and drives about 45 minutes to play.

Also in the earlier '90's 3 of us road-tipped weekly from Minneapolis to St. Cloud to play with friends (about 1.5 hours).

I think how far you'll drove depends on the quality of your game & the strength of your relationships with those at the table. All our long drives have been to play with good friends. I don't think people would be willing to drive near as far to play with people they met via ads or something.

-Sakkara

 

[DethStryke]

I generally host, which has been discussed above sufficiently.

I'm located in Baltimore County (just north of the city line) and every time I look for players, I always find that southern MD / Northern VA / Wash D.C. crowd but no one reliable or interested in Baltimore itself. I've had a game invite in my sig for over two years, for instance, and have not recieved one reply for it.

I've driven up to 1 hour to go to a game, one way. That was in rush hour traffic. I run a Star Wars game and one guy drives almost an hour to get there (from just south of Laurel). He is the most reliable of my players. I guess if you're going to even bother driving that far, you're going to go whole hog.

 

[sniffles]

I've been fortunate that all my gaming friends live close by. Occasionally we play at a friend's house in a suburb, and it can take up to an hour to get there during rush hour. Without rush hour traffic we can get there in 20 minutes.

We've got one player who makes a 300-mile one-way commute from Bellingham, WA to get to Portland, OR once a month or so. He does the round trip all in one day, too - he usually doesn't stay overnight.

 

[just__al]

I currently play in 4 campagins

One is every thursday, I DM and my wife and I travel about 55 minutes down and 40 minutes back now that we live in New Hampshire and the game is still just north of boston.

One is 1st and 3rd and sometimes 5th wednesdays which I DM and my wife plays. It's 45 minutes down and 35 minutes back

One I play in is 2nd and 4th and sometimes 5th wednesdays which I play in and my wife stays home

One is 10-15 sundays a year and takes place in my basement. I DM that game too.

Both of the hosts of my "away" games make sure I'm covered for 90% of the books I need to DM so I'm usually just carrying a PHB or two and the WLD book if I'm running that game or Races of the Wild for the other game I DM.

I don't mind the commute because living where we live allowed us to afford to own instead of rent. Oh and that whole no income/sales tax thing....

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Wow! By looking at the distances some people are willing to drive and the amount of time they are willing to spend in their cars I feel somewhat silly complaining about a 1+ hour commute into DC.

 

[mac1504]

I live in Milwaukee and drive once or twice a month to the Gurnee/Libertyville area which is about a 45 minute commute each way. I've been doing that commute for over 5 years now. It's well worth the drive.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Do you find that a commute defies your efforts to find a game or other players? Just how far are you willing to drive (milage one way) or how much time are you willing to spend in your car (traffic time) to get to a game?

I have never lived closer than a twenty-minute one-way drive to a game of D&D, and the vast majority of my games have been forty-five minutes from home when the traffic gods smile upon me - longer when they frown.

Hong's Britannia game based on Ultima IV was the twenty-minute drive once he moved to his apartment in Hornsby, which isn't all that far from if you take the back roads from my home in St Ives.

The rest of my games have been through SUTEKH at the University of Sydney, though most of them have been held at the homes of the GM or players. The university is at least forty-five minutes from home, though obviously when I was studying I had other reasons to make the trip. Most of the games I've played were held in the suburbs of the Inner West (Ashfield, for instance), within ten or fifteen minutes' drive from the main campus, with a forty-five minute or more drive home for me.

Since I graduated, I've either been making the forty-five minute drive from home or about the same length from where I work in Seven Hills.

In mid-2007 I'm moving to the Inner West myself right before I get married, which will improve my (and my fiancee's) gaming situation considerably.

Oh, one other unusual case: before my fiancee moved here from California, we used to make the three-hour or so drive from her apartment in San Luis Obispo (she was studying at Cal Poly) up to the Bay Area, partly to visit her parents in Mountain View and partly because we wanted to game with her old DM and his girlfriend in Fremont. So I guess three hours or more is about the longest I've historically been willing to drive for a game, though I wasn't the one driving (she owned a manual (stickshift) car and I've only learned to drive automatics).