Getting People Together is Difficult

[Crothian]

For the most part we don't have problems except like this week when one person is almost in the hospital with kidney problems and another is out of state at a funeral. Work and family vacations can get in the way some as do illnesses to the gamers, their wifes, their kids, and even their animals. But for the most part we have not had a lot of issues.

 

[Tigerbunny]

It's sure not easy. My monthly D&D game died the death this spring because 3 of our 6 had enough escalating "real life" issues (job change, major illness, impending wedding) that we were missing about 2 months in 3, often with little or no notice. No group survives that for long.

I'm group-hunting now as a player, and I'm sometimes a little amazed at the casual approach to scheduling some folks have - I can't make a commitment to a game with no fixed time or place or frequency, people. Equally, though, once you make that commitment to a game, in my mind, as Lizard said, it's *serious*. You make it or have a good reason why not, and you give as much advance notice as possible. It's no fun to have your table all set up for a 12-o-clock game and start getting phone calls/e-mails trickling in around 12:30 while the 2 people who did show up on time cool their heels.

 

[Umbran]

. I'm just wondering whether any of you also have trouble getting your games running because real life is happening? I don't have anything against people doing anything else with their weekends, but we're always playing on Saturdays, so people know to keep it free if possible.

The "if possible" is a biggie, though.

Consider as an example - you have a group of 5 people. Each as 3 to 5 hobbies and/or social groups they like to engage in or be with, and they only overlap on one of them - your gaming group. That means that for each person, your game is in competition with two to four other things - and that overall your game is in competition ten to twenty other activities!

When those activities are all in competition for the same weekend time, it gets ugly, really fast. And that's only the regular things - not counting the collection of one-off conflicts (weddings, health problems, personal issues, and so on) that each of the five people are subject to.

It is a wonder that anyone gets any gaming done at all. having a regular game really requires a commitment, making the session one of the higher priorities in your schedule. And many people you may want to game with aren't willing or able to make that comittment.

 

[jdrakeh]

I would argue that making games a life priority is even more indicative of a problem than not having time for them. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I suspect that playing games is far less important to responsible adults than things like going to work, paying bills, and spending time with family are. The idea that responsible adults will (or should) put off that other stuff to play games is absolutely hillarious, to me.

Incidentally, the three big things that cause people to miss our game sessions are work (we have one mortician and one solider in our group, neither of whom have the luxury of a 'regular' work schedule*), job interviews (two of us have had to miss game sessions due to job interviews) and travel time (I have missed two game sessions due to a combination of my being unemployed, astronmical gas prices, and the 15 mile travel distance to the game site). That's all stuff that none of us have any control over, currently**.

*The solider is currently deployed overseas.
**Well, I guess we could blow off interviews to play games, but that wouldn't be responsible.

 

[MadMaxim]

The "if possible" is a biggie, though.

Consider as an example - you have a group of 5 people. Each as 3 to 5 hobbies and/or social groups they like to engage in or be with, and they only overlap on one of them - your gaming group. That means that for each person, your game is in competition with two to four other things - and that overall your game is in competition ten to twenty other activities!

When those activities are all in competition for the same weekend time, it gets ugly, really fast. And that's only the regular things - not counting the collection of one-off conflicts (weddings, health problems, personal issues, and so on) that each of the five people are subject to.

It is a wonder that anyone gets any gaming done at all. having a regular game really requires a commitment, making the session one of the higher priorities in your schedule. And many people you may want to game with aren't willing or able to make that comittment.

I'm 27, and the others are around my age, so I consider myself an adult. Well, the problem is that I don't want to tell people what to do with their time, but I still expect them to keep the game in mind and keep the day free. The time varies (because one of the players are working on some Saturdays), but it's always a Saturday, because I work on Fridays and Sundays (have to make a little money to get through university) and the others have regular jobs spanning Monday to Friday. It just baffles me a bit that people can't schedule some of their other stuff for the rest of the days of the week. They know we're only playing on Saturdays because of my work schedule and law school.

I'd like to mention that I have a rule of 60% minimum of players showing up (3 of 5) to play and usually that's possible, but especially lately some have had a nasty tendency to cancel extremly late. It's not that easy to increase the size of the group, because my fiancé doesn't play and she isn't really interested, but she doesn't mind me playing. It's just really annoying and the others find it annoying, too, but I don't really see myself as being the one to tell other people what to do with their time. I'm providing a fun thing to do in their spare time, but sometimes I just don't think people take it seriously enough...

 

[vazanar]

It's tough to schedule a group. Usually you need a few reliable players then the extras. Problem is often the group members don't have an equal interest in the game. Basically you have to plan your story for people to disappear. Ptolus it was easy, it’s a city! Pathfinder was a little harder. Though I admit it's helpful one of our recent vanishers is a gnome bard. It can drive a dm nuts at times.

Summer tends to be the easiest time for me to DM, but my group almost never plays in the summer. Too many other activates that pop up. It has been convenient for trying out Keep of the Shadowfell. If it rains or such we have it to fall back on, but no real investment in premade pcs.

I’ve given up working on campaigns in the summer less the weather is terrible.

 

[Gnome Stewart]

My group treats our weekly session like a religious commitment, and all of us have understanding significant others -- but even so we rarely make all four weekends out of each month.

I don't think there's any one fix for this -- it really depends on your group, everyone's job/school status and, in my experience, your age. The older I (and my players) get, the harder it becomes to ensure we keep our gaming schedule.

We've found having two alternating games helps a lot, since it gives us some flexibility to switch games if a GM is busy, or run short a player in one game if it's not an option in the other game.

One thing I've always wanted to try is using Google's calendar to schedule games, but for one reason or another we never have. That sounds like it might be useful in your situation, though -- as a rule of thumb, the more you plan ahead and get everyone used to committing to every session, the smoother it goes.

 

[WayneLigon]

I would argue that making games a life priority is even more indicative of a problem than not having time for them. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I suspect that playing games is far less important to responsible adults than things like going to work, paying bills, and spending time with family are. The idea that responsible adults will (or should) put off that other stuff to play games is absolutely hillarious, to me.

And if anyone in the thread had suggested that, you'd be right. Suggesting it be taken as seriously as any other planned outing instead of 'that thing you do when nothing good is on TV' isn't a bad thing. For a lot of us, this is the major bit of fun, social, 'friend' time we get per week.

 

[Hussar]

I play in a group of seven players. Innevitably someone misses pretty much every week. We're all adults, so, something is going on with someone pretty much regularly. It's rarely the same person, but, it's also very rare to have a full boat.

We live on two different continents for one. I've got entirely different holidays than my other players, meaning those times when July 4th interupts gaming happen, and then Children's Day happens. Sorry, I work six days a week. When I get an extra day off, spending the time playing D&D will see me beaten in a ditch by my ninja wife.

Some of us have kids, some of us are students, some just have full time jobs that require occassional business trips. So, yeah, someone misses just about every session.

I can easily see how a real life group would have additional problems. My group came together because we all had free time at the same time and all wanted to play D&D. For five or six friends? That's a lot trickier.

 

[jdrakeh]

And if anyone in the thread had suggested that, you'd be right.

Lizard specifically stated that any responsible adult should budget time specifically for gaming, to the exclusion of other activities or reepsonsibilities, if necessary. While I understand the importance of sticking to a commitment, I'd like to think that for truly responsible adults, non-leisure commitments always take precendence over hobby pursuits. Frankly, if I tell my kid I'm going to pick them up from school, being there is a much higher priority for me than being at the weekly game session.