It's hard being an adult gamer

[PapersAndPaychecks]

My group comprises 6 adults age 30+, and my 11-year-old son. Journey time to the venue (my house) for most players is > 90 minutes, and we play a 10-12 hour session once a month or so.

100% attendance over the last year.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I have a lot of experience with the adult gamer syndrome.

Basically it just is difficult to try and pull together many different people with different schedules, priorities etc. and get some kind of regular thing going. "Sorry, its been raining the past three weekends and I have a ton of yardwork to get to..." "Sorry, I have to bake cupcakes for Suzzie's bakesale..." "My parents are coming down to visit the grandchildren..." "My wife and I have barely seen each other the past month, we need an evening out, just the two of us..."

I tried to get a smaller group of more dedicated players to have a regularly scheduled game. We managed four sessions in five months. Have not managed another in the past four months.

The comment made eariler in the thread about softball leagues, golf leagues etc. has other factors to it: 1) most of those kinds of activities are not year-round 2) many sports leagues have more players than absolutely necessary, players can show up to occasional games and get to play, miss others and the game continues without them. People are more reluctant to do that with RPGs. 3) Non-gaming spouses accept these kinds of activities more since they also usually are associated with some kind of exercise (not that swilling beer at a softball game, or bolwing league is really much exercise, but perception affects reality).

I guess what it comes down to is, we want it all, but cannot have it all, so somethign has to give. Most often it is gaming that is one of the first things to go.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Surviving is relative term. If I have a $1000 a month mortgage payment then in a modern society paying that is surviving. In ages past Surviving may have meant planting grain.

A slight misrepresentation. If you have a $1000/month mortgage payment, you probably have a nice house (albeit a fixer-upper, from what you said below) or live in a moderately expensive area. You could survive by living in a smaller house or a worse neighborhood or a cheaper state, or, best of all, by refinancing your home to get a better deal

Again, this depends upon where you live and the type of employment you have. With the cost of living increasing faster than salaries are adjusted there are many of my friends who have had to take multiple jobs just to keep the bills paid. I am lucky that I have a decent job, but not everyone has escaped working at just above minimum wage. Technology has reduced the burden of housework, but where you had all day to do it before you now only have after work to get it done.

My comment about housework and technology applied to the '50s and '60s.

Taking multiple jobs is often a choice; a lower standard of living (which would still be 10x higher than in most eras of history) could accomplish much the same thing.

BTW, I'm not just talking out of my rear with this standard of living stuff - throughout the '90s, my family lived quite comfortably in a safe though unspectacular neighborhood on a single modest income, and in a city no less.

This is somewhat true, but commitments are physical (need money to pay bills) and cultural (take kids to baseball). You are also correct in that values have changed over the last 20 years or so and that has had a significant effect.

Actually, the major values shift is older now than 20 years.

What I wouldn't give to have any of the items on that list consuming my time. TV watching is at most a couple of hours a week. Electronic gaming no way do I have time for that. Reading a book, maybe one book over the last year (5 minutes or so nightly before sleep). Watching a movie, Episode 3 was the only one in the last 9-12 months. Sporting event - no way.

You're personally very busy. I don't contest that.

Statistics seem to indicate that most people are a great deal less busy than you, though. Including, I wager, the OP's World of Warcraft playing friends.

Work every day and on call 24 hours a day. Volunteer firefighter with multiple meetings, calls, and training. Spend most weekends doing home improvement repair, our house had been neglected for 8 years before we bought it. Gaming once a month. Weddings, graduations, family events a couple times a month it seems. Add to that normal household cleaning and maintainance and taking care of my wife's mother and we are going every day from 8 AM to 9PM with the calendar booked months in advance.

And we don't even have kids yet!!!

Then game from 9:30 PM to 3:00 AM, like the crazy (er... dedicated) gamers I know! Just kidding.

However, you do make the choice to be a volunteer firefighter, hence the term. If you were like most people and had no sense of civics, you could dedicate that time to gaming - even as pressed for time as you are, you still make a commitment and keep it.

It seems like there was a shift in the 1990's that took America toward the current amount of free time (real or percieved) that combined with a shift in values and beliefs to get us where we are today.

I think you may be right. The standard of living jumped more significantly in the '90s than it had since the '50s. Since much of the '90s standard was based on a temporary economic surge, the end of that surge left many (most?) people living beyond what could reasonably be described as their means.

My family was fortunate enough not to believe the hype. Our standard of living kept on climbing at a steady rate, with no debt, low payments and no post-90s dropoff. It is (or rather, was) possible and in the long run, it's been a lot more pleasant.

I am not disagreeing that people make choices about how to spend their free time, but I do believe there are more demands on it.

I don't disagree if you're making a comparison with 1960 or even 1980. But 1930? 1530? I don't buy it.

 

[kenobi65]

I DM for two groups of "adult gamers". In theory, both groups meet monthly, though it sometimes ends up being 6 weeks or more between dates for both groups.

As the DM, I am almost always the one who takes the initiative in setting up the dates, etc. With the exception of one player in one of the groups who would play every week given the opportunity (and keeps reminding everyone of this), no one else ever seems to want to take the initiative. This, despite the fact that everyone really does like to play...there's just a lot going on in people's lives.

One group has 7 players, plus me as DM. We've been playing for well over a decade, and have had a few players drop out over the years due to what's going on in their lives (almost always young children). This group will play with one or two missing players.

The other group only has 3 players, so we will only play when everyone's available. You'd think co-ordinating a small number of calendars wouldn't be that difficult, but these players have a lot of other things going on (trips out of town, theater, etc.)

In both cases, we just have learned to be flexible. Things come up (in my case, my job sometimes springs last-minute trips on me, which can mess up the game schedule), and you do what you can.

And, both groups play on weekends (Friday night for one group, Sunday for the other). I can't even imagine trying to get people together on a weeknight.

 

[spectre72]

I don't disagree if you're making a comparison with 1960 or even 1980. But 1930? 1530? I don't buy it.

BTW - Thanks for the civil and enlightened discussion

It is always nice to discuss something like this with someone who does it in such a pleasant fashion.

And my comparison is the time periods from closer to our own since I have no personal experience with 1530, but I do know people who have lived through most of the 1900's

Now back to work I go...

 

[Rackhir]

I had your problems exactly when I was trying to run a champions campaign in High School. My experience has been this. People will MAKE time for what they really want to do. They might not be able to make a specific night, but they will at least suggest other times when they would be available. If neither of these are happening, then your players are not enjoying things enough to make it a priority.

 

[Odysseus]

IME the best way to organise an adult group is have a set weekly game day/evening, and try and stick to it. But be flexible , be willing to changes days , venues or miss a week if necessary.
If your group can't manage that sort of commitment. Then try running short one day scenarios whenever the group can get together.
There is always internet gaming, openrpg etc. But generally commitment is less than F2F games.

 

[fenrat]

Gaming woes - setting dates

Our group has the same types of problems others have outlined ....... we all WANT to play, but life stuff gets in the way. We all play only one a month - its all we can spare - So, to try and get us to keep to a schedule, we actually set our gaming dates for a whole year in advance ... then, when something comes up, we know three momths from now when we are SUPPOSED to game ... it still requires changing dates now and then but we've been doing it for 5 years now .......

 

[WizarDru]

Our group consists of mostly 30-somethings and the odd 40-something. We work differing shifts, most on the 8-5 shift, a few on the late night or rotating shifts. Three of us have children, all but one of us are married, all of use property owners and we are spread over a moderate geographic area (some players having to drive 30-50 miles to get to the game). We make it work.

A few strategies for us:

Flexibility: Some weeks, we play on Friday. Some weeks, we play on Saturday. We used to wait until the kids were asleep; now we do our prep while they're getting ready for bed (and occasionally, earlier than that). We established two campaigns: the regular (Alpha) as detailed in our story hour, and a secondary (Beta) game, for when someone can't make it, but we still want to play.

Communication: As your players if there's a problem, or if they're just not that interested. Maybe something's making it less for fun them. Maybe it's the commute, maybe it's rushing to eat before getting to the game or maybe they just tend to forget until the last minute. We have a mailing list, and we vote and confirm dates every week.

Regularity: Try and make the game a fixture. It's a lot harder for the players to say "Darn, wish I'd known ahead of time, I can't do 'X', because I've agreed to do 'Y'" Simply put, if you make the game occur on a regularly frequent and predictable basis, there can be no excuse for scheduling conflicts, unless it's a conscious choice: "Sorry, but I have to go to a school play." At the same time, be reasonable. Anticipate that people have lives and possibly commutes to the games. Remember that sometimes, the universe will interfere, ranging from weather to personal responsibilities (work, kids, etc).

We game almost every week, but it's not always easy. It takes some work to maintain it, but its time well spent, IMHO.

 

[delericho]

It's all about priorities. To get a group of adult players together for anything like a regular game, they must all be committed to making it happen. Some people simply can't or won't make that commitment. The reasons for this vary (they have to spend time with their families, they choose to play WoW instead, whatever), but the end result is the same - no game.

There are a few things you can do to help bring together a group for a regular game, however:

Firstly, it's a good idea to set a regular time and place for the game. In this regard, evening are usually a better idea than weekends, and you probably don't want to try to schedule a game every week if the group can't manage that. However, saying "we'll play every second Wednesday at Bill's house" will get a better response than trying to set things up as you go. However, if you can't fix a regular time, you should always try to set up the date for the next session at the end of the previous one.

Secondly, once a time is agreed, the members of the group need to agree to treating that commitment with the same seriousness as any other commitment on their time. So, they don't decide to go to the cinema on game night. Of course, there are always exceptions, due to work, family emergencies, or whatever, but exceptions will be rare if the group have made that commitment, or if the members have agreed to a commitment that they just cannot live up to.

Thirdly, the respective SOs of the group can either be your best friends or your worst enemies in this regard. It is absolutely essential that they accept the scheduling of the game, or you'll never get the group together.

Finally, if a player is losing interest, finding himself unable to attend regularly, or otherwise drifting away, you may have to drop that player. Under such a circumstance, you should make it clear that this isn't a reflection on him, nor on your friendship, but rather a case of having to keep the group together. Leave the door open for him to return, once his life settles back into a state where he can once again commit. Of course, if the majority of the group are drifting away, it's probably best to wrap up the game, and do something else, or find a whole new group.

The truth is that a dedicated group of people can make a game group work, but only if they're all committed.

If all else fails, you could try running an episodic game, where each session is a self-contained event, and characters can come and go. This takes quite some doing, but it would allow you to run a regular game even with a group who cannot all manage along regularly.