Getting People Together is Difficult

[Lizard]

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.

Uhm...no.

I said if you've decided to commit to a game, you should make sure you've allocated the time for it. The decision to commit should be based on your other priorities. If you know you need to pick your kid up from school every Tuesday, you don't tell your friends "Oh, I'd love to game on Tuesdays!" If you find out that you were free on Tuesdays, but now you're not, you say "Can we move the game to Thursday? Or else I'm going to have to drop out, sorry."

I was talking about gaming in the context of all other leisure commitments. It would be grossly irresponsible to quit a job in order to have more time to game. By the same token, if you know your job often means you have to work late and that you can't reliably be somewhere every Tuesday at 6, you don't tell people you will be.

Likewise, I don't think it's irresponsible to, say, have a sitter for the kids one night a week so Mommy and Daddy can have some adult time with their friends.

 

[kenobi65]

Yup, it's always been a problem for our groups.

I DM for two different groups (the only overlap, other than myself, is my wife). In theory, both groups meet once a month or so (one on Friday nights, one on Sunday nights)...but, in practice, it's not that often for either group.

The Friday group has 9 players, plus me, if everyone's there...but we never have everyone there. One player lives 700 miles away, and is only able to join us a few times a year. Another player is my brother-in-law, and he has 3 little kids, and a wife (my sister-in-law) who really doesn't much care for gaming, so he's rarely able to join us. Even discounting those two, it's challenging to co-ordinate calendars for the rest of the group; between trips, family committments, etc., we're almost always down a player, beyond the two I mentioned above...and, finding a date where we can get that many of us together can be difficult.

The Sunday group is smaller (5 players plus me), but it's even worse, because all of us (except for my wife) work in advertising. We'll have players who have to work all weekend, or have to go out of town for a shoot, etc.

It's not that we don't like playing, it's not that my players aren't committed to our games...it's just the reality of our schedules. So, we enjoy the game when we can.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Yep. I look forward to retiring and everyone having better schedules.