Sixchan said:
Was Voadam talking about a playtest game, though?
I don't care what he talked about. I'm talking about my bitch, and mine involves a playtest game.
If I was in a Playtest game, I'd consider dropping out for a date a no-no. However, in a regular game, dropping out for a girl (or guy, in some cases), is a very good reason for dropping out, even at the last minute. With days warning in advance, it's even better, though.
Wait a minute here. Let me put this another way.
We can't get together to play on a moment's notice. I need at least a week's notice, and one other player needs no less than two weeks. Why? Because we have religious, familial, academic and occupational demands upon our time that we are obliged to uphold. If we want to play, then we must carve that time out of our schedules and commit to this well before the fact; acting on a whim is not allowed.
As I run the game I have to spend a great deal of time before the session in preparation by drawing maps, writing location keys and designing NPCs; this is time that I could spend drafting proposals, writing query letters, phoning officials or networking with colleagues. This is an opportunity cost, and I pay it because the satisfaction that I deriving from gaming is greater than doing nothing but working every day of the week, and it improves my occupational output by providing a safe outlet for both my negative and my positive emotions that would otherwise interfere with my productive life. Therefore I value both the time I make for the hobby as well as the hobby itself.
This is why I understand gaming to be no different than any other appointment that I schedule; I pledge to make time out of my life to meet with one or more folks to do a specific thing at a specific time for a specific duration of time, and those others folks do the same, so to blow it off on a whim means that I insult them by wasting their and mine on this when all of us could've done something else with that time that would've been equally (if not more) productive. Ditching the game to go chase some skirt is definately not acceptable because it's an act that says "You can't rely upon me honoring my commitments, even ones so simple as saying that I'll be at a given place at a given time to play a game."
I have no time for people that won't make good on their word.