What are the biggest real-life hinderances to your gaming?

[Henry]

In one word... Summer.

When summer rolls around, people spend more time at the beach, travelling, performing more outdoor activities, etc. In fall and winter, this usually dries up for us, and regular gaming resumes.

This year has been unusual, as I don't think anyone's missed more than one or two weekly sessions -- except for fellow gamer Torm, who has had to quit for a while to deal with some work and real-life issues.

Gas doesn't figure in for us much, since we all live within about 15 miles of one another.

 

[adwyn]

For me its my son. Right now gaming is time we're not spending with him, so my wife and I consciously limit ourselves to one game a week.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Yeah, that pretty much says it all.

Amen, brother!

I live about an hour and a half away from my group, so the price of gas is a big hurdle.

Other factors that hinder my playing time is my job and my unwillingness to game with strangers. My job keeps me on the road sometimes for weeks on end, so that shoots any regular play time right out the window. Plus, when I get home, I want to spend time with my fiance more than my gaming group. (She's prettier and likes to do "stuff". ) I tend to play games with friends. Every now and then I get in on a pick-up group with people that the FLGS, but I'm never as comfortable as I am around my friends. With the climbing price of gas, I may just have to suck it up and find a new group in my town...

The final factor is I have a lot of hobbies and not nearly enough time to do spread around. I love baseball, painting figs, playing non-RPG board/video games, reading, and hiking. Too many irons in the fire...

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Job/school/kids/wife/home suck up most of my time.

 

[painandgreed]

I've got the games. I've got the players, but they can't find a time to get together that they all agree on. Most say they're more than willing to play but when it comes to actually spending a actual day or night gaming instead of camping or drinking, they renege.

 

[kenobi65]

Biggest issue is co-ordinating calendars with the other players in my groups. Finding dates when all (or even most) of us are available is a real challenge.

 

[Arkham]

Sleep

That darn Sleep thing keeping me from gaming more.

Blahblahblah, wake up and work, wake up and take care of kids, wake up and do this and that.

If we didn't have to Sleep, there would be much more gaming...

 

[Teflon Billy]

While it's true that very occasionally my work gets in the way of gaming, for the most part I game about as much as I want to: weekly.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I voted other, as I've a couple of factors. I'm in a band, go to and play shows pretty frequently, write a zine, write poetry, and generally have a pretty active social life.

But in all honestry, what really holds me back from gaming more often is that I'm entirely too chicken to seek out more gamers (maybe I'm afraid of overloading my life, or just afraid of coming across a Cat Pee Man). So, I stick with a small and infrequent gaming group.

But it's not all that bad. We've been gaming together for many years, and we have a lot of fun when we do game.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

While it's true that very occasionally my work gets in the way of gaming, for the most part I game about as much as I want to: weekly.

QFT . . . mainly because I've always wanted to use that TLA.

Yeah, I play every Friday night, and that's plenty of game for me. We get in a fair amount of "downtime" role-play via email and 'blogging to go along with the weekly sessions.