What do you eat when gaming?

[Particle_Man]

My wife's maternal instincts have been awakened at seeing the junk food that is consumed at my D&D game. She is considering making soup for us.

So what do you guys eat at the gaming table? Is it healthy food or junk food?

 

[JediSoth]

The tear-soaked souls of my players.

Or whatever goodies my wife bakes. We do have an array of chips, but she usually bakes something from scratch. I wouldn't call it healthy food, but it's better than opening a box of Little Debbie snack cakes. I think this week will be homemade pizelles (they're flat Italian cookies, similar to little waffles).

 

[Hand of Evil]

Varies and have been getting healthier but mix of the following:

• Trail mix
• Carrot sticks / Grapes / Apples & Oranges
• Chicken Fingers
• Deer / Beef Jerky (make my own and get the deer meat from a hunter friend of mine)
• Chips and Dip
• Mini Crescent Dogs / Pigs in Blankets (they are so easy)

 

[Umbran]

We used to do the usual, "table full of chips and junk food". But, these days, while there may be a bag of something to nibble, food is primarily a full meal and dessert my wife and I usually cook for the group.

 

[Celebrim]

My wife's maternal instincts have been awakened at seeing the junk food that is consumed at my D&D game. She is considering making soup for us.

Ha! This would only work if we played at my house, and even then, she'd be more likely to a) abandon ship or b) get curious enough hanging around to join us.

Soup and D&D do not mix. Nothing that leaves spills should be on the table, unless you adjourn for meals, which I don't recommend unless you are playing 8 hours or more at a time. You may only eat things that do not stain paper or spill, and which lick easily off the fingers. For this reason, Cheetos are also bad.

I eat pizza and have done so for 30 years. It can be held in one hand, generally protects the paper, and leaves nothing on the fingers that can't be easily licked clean. It's tradition. At least through college, it was also the tradition that GMs did not pay for the food, leading to the phrases "any DM worth his pizza" or "the DM is worthy of his pizza".

Pizza is however causing problems for me right at the moment, as I've figured out the reason for the necrotic tissue and periodic organ failure wasn't exposure to plague zombies but a wheat induced autoimmune response. Clearing the wheat from my diet has largely cleared up the problem, but while pizza every 2 weeks isn't killing me quickly, it's still leading to unpleasant headaches and other allergy type problems. At some point, I'm going to have to start bringing my own food.

Things that work:
Pizza
Sandwiches (use rolls or other stable bread, avoid things like hot dogs that have lots of condiments that ooze about)
Unsalted nuts
Crudités, sliced baguette, and dip
Chips provided that they can be held relatively 'cleanly'. Sunchips were traditional in my group in high school.
Chicken Fingers (Cane's has been a staple for the last 10 years or so)
Jerky
Pretty much any finger food style appetizer

Avoiding wheat is such a pain. There is hardly any good gaming food that doesn't have it, because its pretty much essential to food that doesn't rely on a plate, knife, and fork.

Dr. Pepper is the traditional beverage, but one of my GM's preferred Coke and I have a Pepsi drinker in my current group.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It depends. Sometimes, nothing. Sometimes it's junk food du jour, sometimes it's leftovers. Sometimes, a meal is prepared that we eat during the session. Others, we eat beforehand and simply drink. Sometimes, it's the remaining holiday treats, depending on the holiday.

 

[GlassJaw]

Good beer and good cheese. Our bi-weekly 5E session has become beer and cheese tasting on the side, which I greatly approve of.

 

[was]

Subs and chips usually, or pizza. Once in a while we'll do a potluck. Sometimes we'll have chili in a crockpot on standby with fixings.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

We normally game on a weeknight from around 6pm to 11pm. Most people in the group will either eat dinner beforehand, or bring dinner with them and eat it at the start of the session.

Even still, I normally supply something for people to snack on during the game (we play at my house). Others will bring things occasionally A favourite of mine is corn chips and salsa. Other things include potato chips, chocolate, nuts, trail mix and lollies (usually some sort of gummy lolly).

Every year we have a Christmas session where we'll order pizza to share and everyone also brings along some snack food/drink to share. We also have a full day session early in January where we have a BBQ dinner. Everyone brings their own meat to eat but we all bring salads, bread and drinks to share.

 

[Gilladian]

Hmmm... last Saturday we had homemade chinese steamed rolls, stuffed with sweet potato, or salted egg yolk, or some sort of savory beefy stuff. The week before that we had popcorn and sun chips. So it really varies.

My sister-in-law is newly arrived from China, and she enjoys showing off her own cooking. So she usually brings something. But we always provide junk food, or fruit, or popcorn (airpop with just a little parmesan isn't junk food!) too. And after the game, we have dinner, typically (we play from 3-6 pm on Saturdays). Since all but one of the regular players is family, this works quite well.