I have found there is such a thing as TOO much gaming...

[Tyranthraxus]

I can comment on this from the other side.. or rather.. being on the receiving end of people who game too much.

The dreaded burnout.

Back in my late teens and into my very early 20's I gamed with some friends. Sadly , I never had gaming buddies at high school (although I did game, but via a gaming club). Some of these guys were very hardcore gamers.. ie they would game every day. I always felt that 'cheapened' the experience.. and I had seen the effects of burnout or gamers at the club.

So from a group of 6 of us, slowly but surely one by one they burned out. The every day gamers because every second day and so on until finally the dreaded 'Real world commitments' speech TM was given out as to why they could no longer game. Sadly of the 3 I still know about, none of them game. I gamed once a week.. either on a Sat or Sun and while they would be talking about characters they were running or encounters from the other games I always felt a little outta things. I also think there is an uncomfortability thing as players get older.. its almost as if they think people with laugh or talk behind the back if they say they are a gamer. That or it could be their significant other putting paid to the gaming bug. Probably many many reasons.

As we went to 2 players, we found that we were now too player shy and by extension we were forced to stop. I moved on to other gaming clubs ( usually university based).

So spare a thought for those people who have to stop gaming because of the everyday gamers. We dont stop via choice, we stop because we have to.

 

[Treebore]

Oh, I've been gaming for enough decades to do the burn out thing a few times. That is why I do so many different RPG's, keeps my imagination and enthusiasm going for much longer. Doing only one kind of RPG at a time is want burns me out the fastest.


Also let me be a little bit clearer. I do not "ignore" my family. I am not one of those people who game all day and ignore everything else. I am a farmer, I run the charity I founded, and I take care of my family, and even spend a lot of time with them despite my gaming schedule. But that is also why I schedule like I do. Instead of playing WoW, or the console games, or watching mind numbing TV, etc... I schedule very specific time frames during which I game, and I cancel/miss whenever needed.

The whole reason I even got up to as much gaming as I did is because my kids do play in a few of them, and they were doing their own things and weren't around anyways during the other time frames, and my wife still gets to spend from 9 PM and afterwards with me, plus since all of my gaming is done here at home, she can always come over and get a hug, ask questions, etc...

So don't anyone get worried that I may be too "obsessive" about my gaming. Believe me, if I was ignoring my family they would let me know about it, especially my wife. She is worse than a iron willed demoness when she feels its needed.

 

[Jhaelen]

Moderation.

Yup, or using one of my favorite Ancient Greek sayings: μηδεν ἀγαν (meden agan).

 

[TarionzCousin]

A friend of mine was in a gamer club in college whose requirements were:

20+ hours of regularly scheduled gaming every week; and/or
9 regular games.

I think she said there were only four people who qualified, BUT this was at an all-girls college prep school in Virginia.

Yes, she still wants to game that much.

 

[Treebore]

A friend of mine was in a gamer club in college whose requirements were:

20+ hours of regularly scheduled gaming every week; and/or
9 regular games.

I think she said there were only four people who qualified, BUT this was at an all-girls college prep school in Virginia.

Yes, she still wants to game that much.

When you have the time to do so, why not?

 

[Achan hiArusa]

You know you have had too much gaming and caffeine when an hour long session takes 5 minutes.

 

[CuRoi]

Besides, even as it is, I am still doing a lot of gaming compared to a lot of people, Tuesday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Like I said, my kids are involved in more than half of those too! So I think I am going to stay out of those other games for now, these opportunities with my kids are far more important.

Well, you say married with kid(s) and gaming 4 nights a week. I'm married with kid (singular) AND my wife plays in my games and we barely manage every other week. However, I refuse to run games over the internet (tried once before and it was terrible, plus the face to face interaction is what I enjoy most) so I'm limiting myself a bit right there. Anyway, what constitutes "too much" is entirely subjective I suppose.

But yeah, it's the family that "keeps" me from playing. I run my son's Scout Troop (heaven help the poor little geeklings who recently got incredibly excited about playing Munchkin on a campout...), we go mountain biking, camping, I've been enlisted as the "drummer" in his Guitar Hero band, etc. He'll sit in on an RPG session every now and then but it's not his thing. He takes violin and keeps involved in other clubs (which I take time to get him to) and all that normal kid stuff.

I'd rather be doing all of that than yelling over the feedback from some gamer's Skype account, shouting over THEIR kids playing in the background, or having to pause as people just wandered away from their computers mid-game. Ugh

 

[Treebore]

Well, you say married with kid(s) and gaming 4 nights a week. I'm married with kid (singular) AND my wife plays in my games and we barely manage every other week. However, I refuse to run games over the internet (tried once before and it was terrible, plus the face to face interaction is what I enjoy most) so I'm limiting myself a bit right there. Anyway, what constitutes "too much" is entirely subjective I suppose.

But yeah, it's the family that "keeps" me from playing. I run my son's Scout Troop (heaven help the poor little geeklings who recently got incredibly excited about playing Munchkin on a campout...), we go mountain biking, camping, I've been enlisted as the "drummer" in his Guitar Hero band, etc. He'll sit in on an RPG session every now and then but it's not his thing. He takes violin and keeps involved in other clubs (which I take time to get him to) and all that normal kid stuff.

I'd rather be doing all of that than yelling over the feedback from some gamer's Skype account, shouting over THEIR kids playing in the background, or having to pause as people just wandered away from their computers mid-game. Ugh

Yeah, my kids are now old enough to be doing their "own" things, and driving themselves there. Except my 15 year old. He still does a lot of his own things, but he has to have me or his siblings drive him. His main interests are Astronomy or going "caving" or going digging for rocks. Plus we are only "day time campers" and our favorite park, as well as only close and nice camping ground, just got all burned up a month ago. So everything we usually do is during day light hours, so I still am able to run my 2 face to face games as well as online games most of the time.

Then his Astronomy is usually around 11 PM or Midnight, well after game times. Like this Friday is supposed to be an awesome dual source meteor shower.

 

[havard]

Sounds like you are making the right priorities Treebore. Family should always come first.

-Havard

 

[TheYeti1775]

I'm still trying to figure out where you had so much free time to fill with gaming.

My once a week for a few hours fills up my schedule.