Sword of Spirit
Legend
I want to mention 2 things before I get into the issue:
1) I know some role-players like to have sessions closer to 2 hours, and don't have time or interest in longer ones. I'm talking to all of the gamers who are accustomed to sessions of 4 hours or longer.
2) The conversations I'm talking about are not in the context of inviting someone to play with us, they are just in context of explaining playing RPGs to friends.
I have had multiple instance when I'm telling a non-role-player how long sessions last, and they just can't even comprehend it. They seem to think they have no frame of reference for the sort of time spent on a recreational activity that I'm talking about.
This despite that fact that I have good reason to believe they do have frames of reference. The people I'm talking to typically have kids now, but they should be able to relate to their younger days when they would have a night out with friends, or a long date, involving dinner, a movie, and maybe another activity all baked in. And most certainly for many people in their demographics that would have been a frequent occurrence in their college days. They seem to have poor memory when I try to use that as an example, however. (Again, these aren't random people from a younger generation that has shorter activities, but friends that I'm almost certain had the sorts of experiences I'm talking about, because they were ubiquitous.)
I've occasionally tried to reference a high school team sports game, and how those players spend a lot of time practicing, and then have all the pre-game and post-game time in addition to the actual time on the field. Still, I think their mind only remembers the actual time spent there as a spectator. I mention Super Bowl parties, but that's "only once a year", so doesn't help them get the idea of doing this weekly.
I could mention a Monopoly game, but that generally isn't something people want to do very often, lol.
I wonder if, for a lot of them, they can't seem to get out of an inappropriate mental comparison with booting up a gaming console and sitting down with controllers. Yeah, some people do that for a long time, but for most people 30 minutes to 2 hours max is about right. I don't know; that's my best guess.
There's also the fact that people tend to spread their recreational activities out over the week, rather than in a single stretch, and I don't know that there's an easy way to get past that, because doing anything for 4 hours has seemed crazy to some of my friends (again, despite the fact that I know they have reasonable frames of reference from their earlier lives).
So what examples can you guys think of that would give a non-role-player a proper frame of reference for a recreational activity they enjoy being a weekly 4-hour event?
1) I know some role-players like to have sessions closer to 2 hours, and don't have time or interest in longer ones. I'm talking to all of the gamers who are accustomed to sessions of 4 hours or longer.
2) The conversations I'm talking about are not in the context of inviting someone to play with us, they are just in context of explaining playing RPGs to friends.
I have had multiple instance when I'm telling a non-role-player how long sessions last, and they just can't even comprehend it. They seem to think they have no frame of reference for the sort of time spent on a recreational activity that I'm talking about.
This despite that fact that I have good reason to believe they do have frames of reference. The people I'm talking to typically have kids now, but they should be able to relate to their younger days when they would have a night out with friends, or a long date, involving dinner, a movie, and maybe another activity all baked in. And most certainly for many people in their demographics that would have been a frequent occurrence in their college days. They seem to have poor memory when I try to use that as an example, however. (Again, these aren't random people from a younger generation that has shorter activities, but friends that I'm almost certain had the sorts of experiences I'm talking about, because they were ubiquitous.)
I've occasionally tried to reference a high school team sports game, and how those players spend a lot of time practicing, and then have all the pre-game and post-game time in addition to the actual time on the field. Still, I think their mind only remembers the actual time spent there as a spectator. I mention Super Bowl parties, but that's "only once a year", so doesn't help them get the idea of doing this weekly.
I could mention a Monopoly game, but that generally isn't something people want to do very often, lol.
I wonder if, for a lot of them, they can't seem to get out of an inappropriate mental comparison with booting up a gaming console and sitting down with controllers. Yeah, some people do that for a long time, but for most people 30 minutes to 2 hours max is about right. I don't know; that's my best guess.
There's also the fact that people tend to spread their recreational activities out over the week, rather than in a single stretch, and I don't know that there's an easy way to get past that, because doing anything for 4 hours has seemed crazy to some of my friends (again, despite the fact that I know they have reasonable frames of reference from their earlier lives).
So what examples can you guys think of that would give a non-role-player a proper frame of reference for a recreational activity they enjoy being a weekly 4-hour event?
), and you're at or exceeding 4 hours.
