How Many Groups Do You Play In?

[sydbar]

Currently only one , but have been in 3 at once.

 

[Catavarie]

unfortunately 0 my gaming group has permanently disbanded due to people having falling outs with each other, that was over a year ago.

Still have not yet found another group I can get into

 

[MerricB]

A lot depends on how you count it. I run a game & play in my brothers game (that we alternate) and run a Xen'drik Adventures game at a local game store. All three groups are mostly the same players, with a few slight variations.

Here's how it works for me... Let's identify players by a letter. I'm A, by the way.

Most Friday afternoons DM: A, Players B, C, D, E, F, G - RPGA adventure, either Living Greyhawk, Mark of Heroes or Xen'drik Expeditions (Cabal of Shadows).
Occasional Friday afternoons DM: B, Players A, C, D, E, F, G - XE: Covenant of Light
Fortnightly Friday Night DM A: Players, C, H, I, J, K, L - Age of Worms
Monthly Friday night DM: H; Players A, I, J, M - Mutants & Masterminds
Fortnightly Sunday afternoon DM A; Players B, C, D, M, N, O - Ulek campaign
Monthly Saturday DM: C; Players A, C, D, E - XE: Blackwheel Company
Monthly Sunday DM: A; Players B, C, E, H, P - XE: Crimson Codex

So, that's 16 players split between 7-9 campaigns. I'm not counting the games that I don't play in, the like d20 Modern game that B runs with a couple of players not on the list!

Cheers!

 

[GuardianLurker]

Two.

I GM one, and play in another, and no players in common besides myself.

It's been higher, but that was when I was younger and unemployed. Right now I've found that two (each every other weekend) is about the most I can comfortably do. Right now, the "play" group is running much more frequently than that, so I'd actually prefer if it were dialed back a bit.

Personally, I've found that two games (one GM and one Play) is optimal for me - it prevents GM burnout, and exposes me to other GM techniques. I've done more, but that was when I was younger and unemployed.

 

[Robert Ranting]

While I'm currently only DMing one game, and not playing, this is a bit unusual for me. My local college gaming club was filled with at least a half dozen DMs who were very proactive about running games. Back in 2003, when I started DMing my own campaign on Thursday nights, I was also in a Ravenloft Game, an Arcana Evolved game, and a World's Largest Dungeon game, all three run by the same DM. Ravenloft was originally composed entirely of people older than me (university alumns, grad students, and non-traditional students), AE was a mix of the Ravenloft group and the people around my age, World's Largest was a rotating queue of the 20 people who'd chipped in $5 to buy the book as an xmas present for the DM, and my own game was a mix of people I knew from the other AE game and a handful of complete newbies to Tabletop RPGs. I'd say that at most, maybe 3 people would overlap between games at any one time (WLD rotating it's queue and all), with an average group of 5-6 for Ravenloft, 6-7 for my game, and 7-8 for both AE and WLD. It's difficult for me to remember the exact overlap, because we had a lot of players come and go due to scheduling and character death/queue rotation, but I'd hazard a guess that in the two years of intensive gaming I did, I probably played alongside 25 people from the club. Some mixes were good, others were bad, and in the end, I feel somewhat fortunate to have had the opportunity to enjoy the hobby while I had the chance.

Robert "What a Difference 6 Months and a Degree Make" Ranting

 

[Umbran]

I DM one (currently monthly) D&D game.

I play in one (currently bi-monthly) GURPS game.

This is in addition to the occasional larp every few months.

 

[dog45]

I'm in 3 games, yet have only played 2 sessions the past 6 weeks.

One game is just me and the DM's wife as players on sundays. It's a pretty cool story driven game, as she is new to dnd. maybe 1 combat per session. but they've cancelled a lot of games recently and its kinda frustrating.

Another game is with the local LG players. I don't play LG myself, but these guys do. This game is combat heavy with rotating DM's. We play every other wednesday, but havent lately because of various 'real life' interfernce. one players wife just had a baby, and i dont remember what the other guys deal was.

the other game is with a couple of guys kinda new to dnd running dungeon crawl classics mods. some players dont come every week, and the game day is always chaning due to work shifts. there was a game last night but they forgot to let me know that the day changed. wtf?

so i've started supplementing my gaming with PbP here on enworld. i have a character in one game, and i just started running my own. I'm actually thinking of starting another game, and am putting in character apps to play in more games.


hmmmm. is that too much dnd? it sounds like a lot - but in actuality it's very little play time.
i suppose i could be doing something else with my free time, but at least im not cooking up meth or stabbing kittens.

 

[Rhuvein]

I only play in 1 game, the one that I run. I would be willing to play in someone else's game if it were local. I play in some online games as a player and very much enjoy it, and it does indeed help keep me sharp as a DM.

 

[Troll Wizard]

I play in one game every other Saturday and DM one every other Friday. I could easily join more if I wasn't married, with a kid and worked 45+ hours a week.

There are lots of gaming groups in northern Virginia with different DMs and campaign settings A year ago I saw a listings for 4 different Eberron games. Don't how far south you want to drive, but you may want to look thru the want ads here on ENWorld and on WOTC boards. Also there where yahoo groups for game searching players and DMs in Virginia and DC.

 

[Crothian]

So - how many groups do you play in? Do more/different groups enhance or hinder the overall gaming experience? I'm keen to learn.

One group of mine was like yours having problems. We'd wouldn't game all that often even when we got together. Things always seem to come up to hinder gaming there. So, I reluctantly joined another group.

THe new group is great and it has been a lot of fun playing and running D&D. But with the first group totally dead I wanted something else. So, my second group is the opposite of my D&D group: Changeling. It is almost all role playing and character building fun. While D&D I play in is mostly combat and tactical D&D fun. Between the two I get what I want out of gaming.