Drinking and gaming?

[Psimancer]

We have now effectively banned drinking at the game because of an incident a few years ago…

A new player to our group brought a couple of bottles of red to the game, but only one other player joined him in drinking. Needless to say, they got hammered. This guy was slurring his words and staggering, and despite all calls to stay at our host’s place for the night, take a cab or get a lift, insisted on driving home. One of the other players who went in a similar direction said he was all over the road.

The following week we all expressed our concerns, to which he took objection. Over the next couple of games he produced charts and tables that indicated that there was no way he could have been drunk based on his weight and the amount of alcohol consumed.

Finally we all got annoyed enough with it that took a vote; unanimously we decided to restrict drinking at the game. This guy was so incensed by the decision he quit the group, calling us all communists. We never saw him again.

 

[Imperialus]

Not so much any more since my drinking buddy in the group moved to Ontario but we used to pick up a 6 pack to split over a 4 hour session. We'd usually go to a rather esotaric little liqour store near my house and pick up the strange european beers with unpronouncable names. Bellview Krik was probably our favorite... Kwak is nice too.

Just a suggestion Aaron, if you do want to try a really nice beer, try and track down a fruit beer of some kind. Cherry, Rasberry and Apple tend to be the most common. They tend to be kinda pricy but they are well worth it, the sweetness of the fruit tends to take a lot of the bitterness out of the beer which is what most people find objectionable. Easiest one to track down will probably be a german beer named Hogarten(sp?). Also try an ale, it's brewed differently than a pale Lager which is what most the big name breweries (Budwiser, Molson, Coors ect.) churn out and it tends to be a bit richer in flavor and have a more palatable aftertaste than them. A lot of the nasty taste in big beer comes from the perservatives and additives that they put into it which is probably why the one beer you found you liked came from a microbrewery.

 

[Vanuslux]

It depends on who I'm playing with. If they're all good friends...well, most of my good friends are good drinkers so we can all put away quite a few before getting too fuzzy. If the other people I'm playing with aren't drinkers, though, I don't drink either.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I would actually like to, since it would nicely compliment the casual, 'beer and pretzels' style of gaming I mostly do these days. Unfortunately, I game outside the home and am both a cheap drunk and a middling driver.

 

[Bad Paper]

Get. The. Dungeonmaster. Drunk.

QFT. If not with alcohol, then with something.

There is definitely a place in role-playing for drinking matches.

In seans23's campaign, he ran us through Three Days to Kill. There's a drinking game in there called "I'll Kill You." Sean made the tactical error of playing it against multiple PCs, ha ha.

In the game that I DM, I had an NPC chatting with one of the PCs some distance from the party, confiding in rumors, conveying irritation at other PCs (NPC=NE druid, PC=LN monk, so NPC was bitching about the NG druid in the party), standing around chatting at night.

NPC (that's I) pulls out a flask, makes a show of drinking more than just a swig of clear liquid. Hands it to PC. PC (that's seans23) takes the flask, and nearly drains it.

Sean later told me that he thought it was water. It was potcheen. He doesn't even remember slow-falling from the rim of Nightfang Spire and singlehandedly slaying three wights while the rest of the party was busy with a certain lunar bovine. har!

 

[the Jester]

I would actually like to, since it would nicely compliment the casual, 'beer and pretzels' style of gaming I mostly do these days. Unfortunately, I game outside the home and am both a cheap drunk and a middling driver.

But apparently not a complete idiot.

I support and endorse your decision, but fortunately for me, we either play at my house or at my neighbor's, so I gots no worries.

 

[Agamon]

Soda, juice and water are the usual suspects. Beer has been had on the rare occasion, and I've only ever played with two drunk players (one got blitzed before showing up). Drunk players are both mildly amusing and downright annoying.

Funny anecdote: the guy that showed up drunk (he was at a golf party before the game - didn't drive to the game, thank goodness) leveled his PC when he showed up. The next session, he looks at his sheet and says, "What the hell? Who picked my feat and skills? This is messed up!" We all had a good laugh at that.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I don't drink. Very few of the people I have ever gamed with drank at the table. Of the two notable drinkers, one would be drinking a bottle of hard liquor of some kind or other. He drank because he HATED his job and D&D and booze were his weekend escapes. Usually he could function and we didn't have much of a problem with it. Occasionally he would excuse himself from the table and pass out in an easy chair in the living room. He was in any case not a "problematic" drunk and we all let it slide.

The other was my cousin who drank because he was a chronic alchoholic. He was IMPOSSIBLE to deal with when he was drunk and he would get drunk nearly every week at the game. Others at the table did drink at that time and drank sensibly. However HIS drinking disrupted the game. So I made a rule that there was NO drinking whatever at the game. This, of course, annoyed everyone else, keeping them from enjoying their drinking in moderation but they dealt with it. My cousin dealt with it by showing up to the game ALREADY drunk. Noon on Saturday and drunk week after week. I ultimately told him not to come back. He's the ONLY person I have ever had to toss out of my game.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

No alchohol or narcotics of any kind. I've had too many bad experiences with players getting stupid drunk during games. It becomes an absolute total waste of my time when that happens. If I want to get drunk with my friends, then that's what I do. When I come to play or DM, I'm there to game, damnit! Grymwurld™ is all about the in-you-face style of D&D that is fueled by Mountain Dew and energy drinks. Crank up the heavy metal, chug that litre of Mountain Dew, and start rolling those natural 20s!

After the game, I'll break out the single malt scotch, the guiness, and the brandy that those that choose to partake.

"I don't need to get wasted,
It only hold me down.
I just need a bit of my own,
And the balls to say unto those:
That I, believe in me, yes I
Believe in something more than
You can understand,
Yes I believe in ME"
— From the song "I" written and performed by KISS, from the album "Music from the Elder." [Lots of cool D&D songs on that album.]

 

[Gentlegamer]

I once had a player bring his own case of beer to a game.

His barbarian died that night after trying to run across the rickety rope bridge at the beginning of The Forge of Fury.