It's hard being an adult gamer

[EricNoah]

My group can only manage once a month.

Same here; even if I had the time to put together twice as much material we wouldn't be able to play twice a month; just too many people to free up at the same time. Fortunately, two of my players are also DMs so I'm in their games.

 

[Umbran]

I've run into this problem.

It could be that your friends are not truly "gamers."

Or, your group cold be gamers, but they all have lives. You know: jobs, spouses, kids, other activities they like to take part in. For a lot fo folks, a weekday gives them perhaps four hours to live their lives. Darned hard to work gaming into that.

 

[haiiro]

Since we do all have lives and jobs, it helps to have gaming "on the calendar."

I took this approach with my last game, along with two other tactics: having a big group (5-7 players, usually 6), which meant that one or two could be absent and we could still play; and playing once a month.

Backgrounds were shared at the outset, so everyone was able to play someone else's character if needed, and I was writing all of my own material -- which takes me a while! -- so the once a month thing worked out well.

Overall, this combination turned out pretty well. That said, my current group plays once a week, and missing a week earns you a lot of heckling. I'd say we maybe miss one session every 2 months, and it's great.

 

[JoeBlank]

I doubt it is your game. Part of being an adult means responsibility. Part of being a mature, well-rounded person means having other things going on in your life, from work to marriage to kids.

The three groups in which I am involved all have difficulty keeping to schedule. One of those is an online game, on WebRPG, and we still have a hard time getting everyone there.

The best advice I can give is to make a choice. Either play only when everyone can make it, and accept that you are not going to get to game as often as you like; or have a large enough group that you can get by without one or two players, and structure the game such that you can deal with it in-game when players can't be there.

 

[JohnSnow]

Well, in our group, we've often had to reschedule due to conflicts. But we set up an email list that lets us communicate. We've been through a few changes of persons, with players relocating (3 in all, 2 of the originals and one who was brought in to replace the first original player who left), but the game has gone on strong for the last year. And EVERYONE has always been eager to play. We've played D&D 3.5 and, more recently, Castles and Crusades. We even tried a session of Warhammer last week.

Of course, now our regular DM/CK for the past year, Enworld's own Akrasia, is departing for Ireland, leaving this group of gamers DMless. We'll probably adapt, as almost all of us have DMed in the past, but if you can make it up to Emeryville every week, I might have a group of eager gamers for ya.

Not that I'm recruiting or anything.

For what it's worth, the group originally coalesced thanks to the WotC boards, so we're a pretty gung-ho bunch of committed gamers. And yes, we have still had scheduling problems. For what it's worth, we usually play once a week on a weeknight, since people usually have more commitments on the weekends. It's been working so far.

 

[Oryan77]

Well when I formed the new group, everyone discussed it together and agreed to schedule the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month. We haven't gone by that schedule yet in 6 months. So then I started just emailing everyone 1.5 to 2 weeks in advance. At first it seemed great, everyone said they could make it. Friday rolls around and I get 2 out of 4 cancelling. When a 3rd heard that they cancelled, he felt it would be better for him to skip out also that weekend.

Not that they didn't have good reasons to miss the game, it's just frustrating for me when I do hours of preparation all week and then we don't play. Which means I'll have to study all of my notes & the module again the week before our next scheduled game.

I've created a message board for the campaign...not a single person has even signed up on it

I know at least 2 of them are hardcore gamers because they always talk about gaming. But ever since World of Warcraft came out they don't make an effort to play D&D. I don't even think they are replacing D&D with WoW because they always have reasons other than WoW for not making a session (and I believe them).

The advice about starting a 2nd group is good, but I'd worry that the same thing would happen. I'd also worry that it would be insulting to the current players.

I've thought about just getting more players in the group so when someone doesn't show I still have a full group, but my luck; that's when everyone would start attending and I'd be stuck with a larger group than I'm willing to DM. Is it insulting to recruit new players only as alternates for when someone doesn't show?

 

[Wombat]

(stands up to mic)

Hello, my name is Wombat

[Hi Wombat!]

I am an adult gamer.

Yeah, I'm 46 years old and still play games. My current group can make it about every other week, with a few weeks missed due to holidays, etc. We can only game on weekends and no one in the group wants to give up every single Saturday, especially as most of the folks I game with are married.

So how to keep interest?

Well, we have a pretty active Yahoo group for our campaign. I hand out XP to players for writing up stories and articles or for drawing pictures; I even hand out a few measely points for finding appropriate photos on the net!

So while we only have sessions every other week, we can post to our board any time we feel like it. This keeps the group connected and "in the zone".

It's a pretty good option.

 

[arwink]

At 28m, I figure I'm in the golden age of adult gaming .

The problems of organising games in my youth (finding a parent willing to let us play in their home, having enough money to buy cool books or new games, social groups largely limited to school friends) are now overcome by the simple expedient of paid employment, my own home and a wider social network, while the true problems of scheduling games as adults (children, work, significant others demanding time) are yet to rear their ugly heads. I manage a good five or six sessions a month accross a few different games, and the quality of gaming is better than anything I was playing in my youth.

I love this hobby.

 

[Bront]

I've had issues where I have been incapable of keeping a particular night free (Work hours shift permanently, etc), but we adjust Turns out I wasn't the only one in my group with the same problem at about the same time, so we're shifting nights, and everyone is coming with.

 

[talien]

I have tried for the last year to run at least a bi-weekly game. So far I'm averaging about 1 game every 2 months. What's worse is that I've formed a new group within the last 6 months trying to get more play time and we still don't play any more than I was.

Bi-weekly is a LOT. I played once a week for years and years in high school. Doing that now is nearly impossible due to distance, jobs, differing schedules, etc.

To top it off, I can't get anyone excited about the game because we don't play enough where we can really develope their characters and get emotionally involved in the campaign. I understand people have real life to deal with, but I always get the feeling that my game must not be important enough to work schedules around like I'm sure they do to play World of Warcraft.

Writing a story hour achieved several things: 1) it keeps everyone up to date on what's going on between games, 2) it helped fill in the blanks for characters that might not have been fully developed. I've started to notice players incorporating what's mentioned in a story hour into the game so that the two begin to blur.

Is this a sign that I need to improve my game or is it really just part of being working adults? I'm cool with looking at myself to see if I'm the problem, but "I" think my games do have a lot of flavor and excitement in them. If I was going to blame a session for being dull I would blame all the wasted time that the players spend focusing on rules & battle tactics.

I'd say it's the reality of adulthood. We have two groups of players, the 9-to-5ers and the non-traditional workforce types. It's rare we can all get together, which is why our group consists of nine people. It's extremely rare all nine show up at once (in fact, practically impossible). We just kept expanding the group until we found enough such that we could play with at least four of us (three players and one DM).

Is it a bad sign also when the DM is always the one asking each week, "Anyone up for a game this weekend"? I would think if players wanted to play, they would be bugging me all the time about when we're going to play next. Or is that the difference of being young vs being adults now?

I think it's all about priorities. I love gaming. I also have a job, a spouse, a house, books to write, video games to play, movies to watch, family to visit...the list goes on and on. The odds of adults having their schedules intersect such that they have five hours together are slim.

As an adult, gaming takes planning and commitment. Not everyone is as good at planning or as committed to gaming. In my opinion, part of adulthood is being okay with that.