(Rant) Real life constantly interfering with my game!

[pogre]

Man, I'm frustrated! I have a great group for a weekly campaign and we can only schedule once in February. Sunday is really the only viable day and lately we have so many conflicts it is getting harder and harder to meet. Kids activities, visiting relatives, etc. is just sucking the life out of the campaign.

Personally, it is hard for me to get into a game I am running unless we play weekly. This once a month stuff is not going to get it.

Let's hope March is much better!

My wife says I'm spoiled and adults should not plan on being able to play a game once a week. Perhaps, what do you think? Is gaming on a regular basis merely for the high school and college students?

BTW - don't bash on my Mrs. she truly is a saint and a great Mom for our four children.

 

[fba827]

If I was currently working, I would only be able to game once a month.
(between work, getting actual sleep, family, nongamer friends who i still like to see despite the fact that they are allergic to polyhedral dice, and trying to keep the house in order, multiplied by similar schedules of the others in the game group, and it's hard to get game time in)

At the moment I am not working and I have found a game group with equally odd current schedules so we're able to play about twice every three weeks (i.e. once every 1.5 weeks) for about 6-7 hour long sessions when we do. But when we hit those stretches where we can't get together at all for a month or so, I feel like an addict without his fix. It gets depressing and then I am all out of practice (with what my powers are, o what the key points in the plot were) by the time we do get together so there takes a bit of a "what are we doing and what can i do again?" before we get up to speed...

it is harsh... i feel your pain!

Sincerely,
D.D.P.W.O.T.S.G. (D&D Players without time support group --or some equally awkward acronym!

 

[Truename]

My wife says I'm spoiled and adults should not plan on being able to play a game once a week. Perhaps, what do you think? Is gaming on a regular basis merely for the high school and college students?

I'm 35, married, with kids, and I game (nearly) weekly. Thanks largely to the enthusiastic support of my wife, who puts the kids to bed while I go play in the basement.

Part of the trick for my group is that we don't try to mesh schedules. Early on we picked a day and time that was "most workable" for everyone and we stick to it. If you show up, great, if not... see you next time. The game goes on. (There's no XP penalty for missing a session.)

We have six players and I can typically count on one absence each session. Sometimes there's only three players, and once we played with two. The game must go on. If we only played when everyone could show up we'd probably only get one game a month.

 

[vagabundo]

We have Sunday as our default day and usually send around an email (gmail) to see who can make it. Rarely - usually a bank holiday or around Christmas - it might be on a Monday or something.

We have a £ (money) man rule - £ is 3 on euro keyboards; it is a running joke due to me typing in a hurry - so we only game if three players can make it and sign off via text msg or email. I find that any less players and it isn't as much fun. I have only four regular players so we can afford one down.

Players that cannot make it get their character run by someone at the game and the usual risks apply - 'I charge him into combat with the Dragon'. So there is an incentive beyond just missing out.

I send around a little Story Hour through email, it is a summary for those that missed the game and something fun for the rest of us. I enjoy writing it and it is only around 500 to 1000 words. It keeps people interested in the campaign and I put in extra detail, like cultural stuff, that can get lost at the table.

We've manged to play more than we miss, so it is a good sign and we all have other commitments and busy lives. Hope it helps.

 

[Rechan]

I feel your pain. Primarily because my players keep getting their lives interrupted with having a LIFE, meanwhile I have no life and thus all the time to game, and no gamer friends available! GRR.

This goes doubly for finding new, reliable players.

 

[Starfox]

Wqait a few years - It gets a lot better when the kids can join game.

 

[Dausuul]

My wife says I'm spoiled and adults should not plan on being able to play a game once a week. Perhaps, what do you think? Is gaming on a regular basis merely for the high school and college students?

BTW - don't bash on my Mrs. she truly is a saint and a great Mom for our four children.

I'm not bashing anybody, but your wife is wrong. Lots of people have weekly bowling leagues, bridge games, whatever. It just takes a certain level of commitment. Adult gamers can do regular games, but only if people make a reasonable effort to keep that night open; a player who always jettisons game night at the first hint of a scheduling conflict should probably reconsider playing in the first place. But my Thursday night group includes a player with a demanding job, a wife, and two very young children, and he shows up pretty reliably.

Now, even with people making a reasonable effort, it will often happen that somebody can't make it. That's just life. I long ago learned that if you cancel the game whenever one player can't make it, you go into a downward spiral that destroys the campaign. (Because the game is always getting canceled, people start putting it lower on their priority lists when planning their schedules. This results in more absences and more cancellations. Pretty soon nobody shows up ever and the game dies.)

My group generally follows the rule that if one player is absent, the game goes on; two players or more, and we take that week off the regular campaign. If there was warning in advance, we usually call off the whole session. If it was a last-minute cancellation, the people who did show up play board games, or Munchkin, or just sit around and shoot the bull for a few hours.

It's also worth noting that certain times of the year are harder than others. Around late December to early January, you may as well give up expecting to game - too many people celebrating with family, often out of town.

 

[NerfedWizard]

4 kids, + you think you're going to game every week???

Best of luck with that

I think your only hope lies in them becoming gaming nuts,
one of them learning to GM and running the campaign and
then all you have to do is turn up and play. But the others
may get jealous when his Christmas and birthday presents
are mysteriously bigger...

Not willing trust a 7-year-old to GM?? --- well I did it at that
age, OK not for adults, and I could have done with a few tips,
but it's not beyond the realms of possibility.

 

[Jack99]

It sucks when it does. We had a rough patch when several of the players got their first kid at the same time, but since then, it hasn't been a problem. We play once a week, with perhaps one or two cancellations a year.

 

[Kinneus]

I feel your pain. Primarily because my players keep getting their lives interrupted with having a LIFE, meanwhile I have no life and thus all the time to game, and no gamer friends available! GRR.

This goes doubly for finding new, reliable players.

Solution? Move to Boston: http://www.enworld.org/forum/gamers-seeking-gamers/248465-boston-ma-looking-join-d-d-group.html
Or, you know, download Maptool.

Regarding the OP, I can kind of see where the flakey players and their annoyed wives are coming from. These are just games, after all, and if they're interfering with 'real life', I can see how some people would give them the axe. Kids and family and work and responsibilities and health and financial issues should probably take precedence over slaying demons... but can you blame people for trying to cram a little demon slaying into their life? I think not. Everybody needs a hobby, man.