How much time do you spend actually playing?

[STARP_Social_Officer]

My sig tells people that in a STARP session, it's one hour's roleplaying and ten hours argument. That's a slight exaggeration, but there's a reason ST stands for 'Side Tracked' in this instance. I'm just wondering on what side of the average we are here. In a normal session, which will begin at about 11am and finish between 4 and 5, we'll maybe get three hours of roleplaying in. The rest of the time is spent arguing the rules, showing everybody the latest funny (subjective term) file they've downloaded, bitching about work (I never do this, but I'm the only one), getting food and eating it (this takes a lot of time up) and so forth. How much of your game time is devoted to "game time" and how much of it is a bunch of people hanging out and socialising?

 

[Lanefan]

Highly variable, and depends on a host of random factors:

- what is actually going on in the game (whether it's holding everyone's interest or not)
- how much out-of-game contact there's been between the players since last session
- who shows up (some players are more attentive than others)
- how long the session goes (longer session usually = higher % of actual play time)
- whether any rulings are required, or rule changes have been recently implemented
- whether any of the players have any significant out-of-game issues (we're all friends)

I'd say, though, that even though we're not great we still consistently do better than your 1-hour-in-10 ratio.

What you might want to try is running your games in the evening. Afternoon games for some reason don't seem to do as well unless the intent is to keep going into the night.

Lanefan

 

[jdrakeh]

Ah, not enough. Lately, due to my day job, play has been confined to a once monthly session lasting about six hours. About two of those six hours are used for things other than gaming (e.g., eating dinner, shooting the breeze, etc).

 

[vongarr]

I'd say we are more on a 3/4 ratio for time. the 1/4th being time "wasted" non gaming.

 

[blargney the second]

We usually get together from 7pm to 11pm on Thursday evenings. We get at least three hours of actual gaming in those four hours, sometimes even the whole period.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

3/4 sounds about right. Noone's having any problems with it, though, or we'd have changed it long ag. ago

 

[Particle_Man]

Very little argument, but we do get distracted by talking about movies, other games, etc. I would call it 5/6.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think we normally manage to spend >90% in actual gaming. We don't argue very much about the rules (for that we have forums), and we don't cook or order pizza in the middle... Of course we chat about various stuff but mostly only while waiting for everyone to arrive, or otherwise after we already finished the evening game. I think we have already many problems arranging a date that is good for all, that we don't want to waste it.

 

[interwyrm]

It really depends on the group. In my current group, (as a player) I get frustrated when the others quibble over text and rules and talk about non-related stuff pretty quickly. The DM is a really great storyteller and I've gotten involved in the story so I'm anxious to keep the plot moving. When I'm not immersed in the story, I probably contribute to distractions as much as anyone else.

I'd say in the current game it's about 70% gaming. I'd prefer about 90-95%. (Once we get started, that is. Pre game distractions are fine.)

 

[Piratecat]

Once we get over the initial chatting/putting the babies to bed/eating, it's 90%-95% gaming. We spend 0% of the time arguing about rules. That first bit might take 30-45 minutes, though.