It's hard being an adult gamer

[fredramsey]

Once a week, with few exceptions. Saturdays, noon until 4-6 PM. Ages range from 24 to 43. We all love it, and do our best not to skip unless we have to.

 

[GlassJaw]

I've been going back and reading some of this thread and I've noticed a consistent trend of people that their group is incredibly difficult to schedule.

My response to this is that if YOU want to game more and on a consistent basis, you can ALWAYS find players. If you don't look outside your small circle of gaming friends, then you'll continue to have the same problems.

I moved from Boston back to Providence, which I assumed at the time was the black hole of gaming. Not so at all. I've met so many gamers in the area I've had to turn down games. If you want to game, they are out there. You just have to know where to look and be consistent. There's no excuse for not gaming if you have the time and desire to do so.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Personally...and it's just my very own opinion...gaming with a new group of folks wouldn't work well for me. I've gamed with the same guys (for the most part) for 18 years. I don't have the means to get out and go to another group's location, and I'm really squeamish about letting strangers in my house. I really value my personal space-almost to the point of being a recluse or hermit. So until my group can find time in our professional and family lives for more frequent gaming, I'll just go without. I'd love to game and game and game, but to me, it's not worth compromising my "comfort zone" to do so.

But that's just me.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I've been going back and reading some of this thread and I've noticed a consistent trend of people that their group is incredibly difficult to schedule.

My response to this is that if YOU want to game more and on a consistent basis, you can ALWAYS find players. If you don't look outside your small circle of gaming friends, then you'll continue to have the same problems.

Agreed!

It really comes down to this: is gaming your hobby (ala building model cars, computers, or whatever) or is it your favorite activity to do with your friends? Because it's a multi-person hobby, you'll have to seek out other hobbyists if it's the former, and those hobbyists won't always be people you knew before. Wargaming is the same way.

Of course, that assumes you live in a relatively major city where the population is large enough to support multiple gaming groups...

One other point - a lot does depend on your schedule, and your group's. I mostly game with people who either work part-time only, who work 9-to-5 jobs with regular hours, or who set their own hours by being self-employed. If you're on-call at all times or have a wildly varying schedule, it's much, much harder to do any multiplayer activity.

 

[GlassJaw]

I'd love to game and game and game, but to me, it's not worth compromising my "comfort zone" to do so.

Well I will say that you are probably missing out. Most of my really good friends now I've met through gaming. Sure, I've had my share of bad experiences but for every bad game I've left or never returned to, I've met more awesome people than I can count on two hands and two feet. I consider that to be a very good ratio.

is gaming your hobby (ala building model cars, computers, or whatever) or is it your favorite activity to do with your friends?

Both!!

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

Hmm . . . it seems my group is breaking most of the trends in this thread:

1) We are mostly in our thirties (a couple of late tweens).
2) Five of the six players have children ranging in age from a three years old to twelve years old.
3) We game nearly every week on Friday nights.
4) I play a hell of a lot more now (for the last two or three years) than I did when I was a kid.

The group membership has varied quite a bit over the last several years. We've had a total of eleven or twelve different people in the group, but never more than six people at any one time. For the last year or so the group has been only four people. We picked up two new players three weeks ago with whom none of us had ever played, so now we are six again. Things seem to be working out pretty good with the new players so far. They are both 2 for 2 on showing up to games, and both are fun to be around.

What's not to like about being an adult gamer?
- More money (for most people) to spend on toys
- Better control over your own schedule (no parents or school telling you where to be all the time)
- Ability to get to where you need to be (no need to get a ride from parents/others)
- No angst about being a teen-aged geek/loser (it's ok to be an adult geek)
- No responsibility for anything that you didn't bring on yourself (you decide what's important to you)

Those who can't find time to game don't really want to game. Gaming is not important enough to warrant serious scheduling. That's my view of it. My wife and I (and our friends) play damn near every Friday night. We have three children. We have a mortgage. We have car payments. We have parents who want to see our kids. We both have siblings. I think the trick was deciding that DnD was our hobby, and we will give up other leisure activities to play DnD.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Well I will say that you are probably missing out. Most of my really good friends now I've met through gaming. Sure, I've had my share of bad experiences but for every bad game I've left or never returned to, I've met more awesome people than I can count on two hands and two feet. I consider that to be a very good ratio.

I don't doubt you're likely right. I know there are several gaming groups in my area, but I'm just not a person who's really comfortable around people I don't know well. It's a personal quirk, I know, and I could probably force myself past it. I was actually invited to play in game by another guy I know, but I didn't know anyone else in the group. As game time approached, I became really, really ill and had to bow out. I don't know if it was psychosomatic or if I really had some stomach virus, but very soon after I cancelled going, I began to feel better.

And the gamers I meet in my local bookstore have always...and I mean always had a really high creep factor, from really bad hygiene to a complete lack of social skills (an example is a guy who would lick his lips and stare at every woman who walked by the game section. He even told one of the employees "I like your t**s".

Yeah...I'm a lot happier being a hermit.

 

[MoonZar]

Well, yes and no. Yes, there may be other things that come up that have to take priority, but no, it doesn't necessarily mean that the player in question isn't very interested in the game.

Some examples, from our group:
- Player comes home from work, ready to go out and play, but his wife's had a horrible day with the kids, and says, "no way in HELL you're leaving again."
- Similarly, kid or spouse gets sick, player doesn't feel good about leaving them home alone.
- Bad weather makes it impossible for the player who lives an hour's drive from the game to get there.
- Flight delays make it impossible for the player coming home from a business trip to get there in time.
- A project comes up at work that forces the player to work late, and thus he can't play.

This is all part of being an adult. It happens. Unless you have a job / relationship / whatever that you just don't give a flip about, when these things come up, they do take priority.

As important as gaming may be to a person, even if you want gaming to be the #1 priority, sometimes, it just can't be. You deal with it.

In our case, I have adjusted the types of adventures I run to cope with it. While we certainly have overarching plots and ongoing storylines, I write the particular adventures so they can be completed in an evening, with the players / PCs who are able to be there.

The example you made are thing out of control as you said.

But my point is that sometimes some people don't have dnd very high in their priority and this could be a huge problem for the dm who make efforts to make the campaign interresting.

 

[cuteasaurus]

I don't doubt you're likely right. I know there are several gaming groups in my area, but I'm just not a person who's really comfortable around people I don't know well. It's a personal quirk, I know, and I could probably force myself past it. I was actually invited to play in game by another guy I know, but I didn't know anyone else in the group. As game time approached, I became really, really ill and had to bow out. I don't know if it was psychosomatic or if I really had some stomach virus, but very soon after I cancelled going, I began to feel better.

And the gamers I meet in my local bookstore have always...and I mean always had a really high creep factor, from really bad hygiene to a complete lack of social skills (an example is a guy who would lick his lips and stare at every woman who walked by the game section. He even told one of the employees "I like your t**s".

Yeah...I'm a lot happier being a hermit.

You're not alone...I prefer to play with people I know, not get to know the people with whom I play. I'm sure they're not all creepy and many are quite nice... But I just can't be comfortable role-playing in a room full of strangers...

 

[GlassJaw]

And the gamers I meet in my local bookstore have always...and I mean always had a really high creep factor, from really bad hygiene to a complete lack of social skills

I can agree with you on this one. I've never had good luck with finding players at gaming stores.

But I have gone to people's houses sight-unseen and found some excellent players sometimes and not so great players at others. I usually require a phone conversation or two beforehand. I've gotten it to the point where I pretty much know how the game is before I decide to participate.