Why can't you be prepared for a game session

[Rel]

I'll kill his character first.

Well that seems a bit of a shame considering how much time you put into making it.

 

[rowport]

To some people, D&D is a game and the only time it comes into play, is when they're playing it. It's like that old song right, "Players only love you when they're playing."

Ha! That's pretty funny, Joe. And, I agree with the premise behind it, too.

Personally, I *love* thinking about future feats, planning out spell strategies, painting minis, etc. For me, the planning in-between game sessions is nearly as entertaining as the sessions themselves. But, there are several guys in our group who are really only interested in that stuff to the extent it is strictly necessary to play the game, and are more than happy to blow it off if somebody else will do it for them (like character generation, painting minis, etc.). I wonder about it sometimes, but do not really sweat it. It is just a game, after all!

 

[Desdichado]

I feel that doing less than that is disrespectful to me and everyone else in the game who are sitting there waiting to get started while they frantically say, "Wait! Wait! I just need to pick which feat I'm going to take and I'll be ready!"

I don't have a problem with that. Although we'll start, whether you're ready or not. If you're still third level when you should be fourth, that kinda sucks to be you until you get it updated. If you're still trying to decide between two feats, you just don't get to use it until you pick it. I don't see how this has to slow anyone down except one person who hasn't finished.

 

[Desdichado]

The whole "it's just a game" philosophy only goes so far with me. Yeah, it's "just a game" but it's a game that we all agreed to get together to play at 7:00 on Monday nights. When a players drags in at 7:45 without having called ahead to warn the rest of us that he's running late or had something come up, it smacks of "my time is more valuable than your time".

I 100% agree, but I don't think that's the issue here. Having a player show up not having picked his latest feat from levelling up is not on the same order of magnitude as not showing up. To me, it's not even the same thing at all.

And we did have a player recently with this exact situation; he took the "it's just a game" attitude too far, and constantly flaked out on us, leaving us holding the bag. Yes, we all got pretty ticked off about it, and when we started a new campaign, we were hesitant to invite him back.

But that really has nothing to do with gaming being a priority or not, and everything to do with commonly understood (yet unwritten) rules of decent behavior that he somehow missed out on learning.

 

[Rel]

I 100% agree, but I don't think that's the issue here. Having a player show up not having picked his latest feat from levelling up is not on the same order of magnitude as not showing up. To me, it's not even the same thing at all.

Your point is fair. I'm probably projecting issues I've had in my games into my responses in this thread. For me, the guy who was scrambling to finish leveling his character is the same one who is habitually late. Together these issues were even more of a problem than taken separately.

I still say that not having updated the character can be disruptive to the point of delaying the game. It isn't a matter of him quietly sitting and picking the feat. He's disengaged from the game enough that he doesn't own his own set of books. So he's borrowing somebody else's PHB. Then he might interrupt to ask to borrow the Eberron Campaign Setting book from me to look at feats in there. By this point we're trying to get on with the game but (whether we're in combat or not) he's not paying attention to the matters at hand because he's trying to decide if he wants Powerful Charge or not. A few minutes later he wants to look at Races of Eberron to check out the feats in there. Finally, halfway through the session, he'll decide on something and then he's looking to me and the other players and saying, "What's going on in the game?"

Fortunately, this is far less of a problem since I killed his last character (I didn't single him out. I killed the entire party.). Now that he's playing a Bugbear Fighter/Rogue (instead of an Elven Wizard/Fighter), his feat selection process is much quicker and he's been planning where his character is going in advance. As a player type, he's a Butt Kicker and I think that MY mistake was not pushing him away from Wizard in the first place, knowing that the myriad of choices involved with that class would exacerbate his existing problems.

 

[billd91]

Sure it does. So do the things that other people give up to be there on time. If you have to pick your kid up at 5:30, and therefore can't make the game until 6:30, then agreeing to play at 6 is stealing half an hour of the life of all the other players. Sometimes circumstances do occur that justify talking ten bucks out of the wallet of each of your friends without asking them. Those sorts of circumstances justify wasting half an hour of each of your friends' time.

But if you organise you affairs so as to do it every week, then my opinion of you would make Eric's grandma blush.

I'm not really trying to justify being late every week, knowing that you can't make the game until half an hour later but agreeing to play at 6. I'm much more concerned about other players realizing and respecting that important things come up after the game is scheduled. If this were to happen every week, then I think it's fair to make sure the schedule is set appropriately. But if it's an occasional work crunch because a fix needs to get out to a critical piece of software or one of the kids had to go to the emergency room or the wife had to work late and couldn't pick up the kids at day care, then my opinion of any other player who didn't cut me some slack would probably also make Eric's grandma blush.

On the other end of things, I realize that life's circumstances often makes lateness happen. When it does happen, it's a good time to break out a little Fluxx, Chez Geek, or Kill Dr. Lucky. If there's a good game on, the time isn't wasted.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Originally Posted by Agback
Your sacred duties as a parent mean that you have to make sacrifices, not that you have a right to inflict sacrifices on other people.

Hate to say it, but I've had real good friends who try to wrap everything around their own schedule without an inch of budge and then seem a little surprised when everyone doesnt' respond to their timing. S happens.

 

[Henry]

Stephen Covey has an interesting idea with his "put first things first" motto. While schedules are important, they aren't as important as completing the most important tasks in your life first, then letting everything else fall around them. We will ALWAYS have the time to do those things first in our priorities, whether it's raising the kids, playing Xbox, getting ready for D&D, or watching Lost. Everything else will fall into place, and those things most unimportant will either get done, or will have been proven not to matter enough to have worried about int he first place.

First rank, obviously, is health and family; they must come first. Beyond that, though, friends should come next, even if it's nothing more than calling to explain an absence. If I'm late to a game session, (and it's happened more than once or twice, as many years as I've been gaming) I'll call and explain what I was doing to make me late. If nothing else, it gives those time to start without me, run an errand, play a side game, etc. until I arrive.

In my opinion, it's not about whether or not it's a game, but whether or not it's a social engagement. If you wouldn't do it for a dinner date, or a Superbowl party, or a black-tie affair, then you shouldn't do it for the weekly D&D game.

 

[Desdichado]

In my opinion, it's not about whether or not it's a game, but whether or not it's a social engagement. If you wouldn't do it for a dinner date, or a Superbowl party, or a black-tie affair, then you shouldn't do it for the weekly D&D game.

Bingo!

But by the same token, that's why having a character sheet that's not 100% up to date is a completely different kettle of fish. That really is just a game.

 

[Rel]

But by the same token, that's why having a character sheet that's not 100% up to date is a completely different kettle of fish. That really is just a game.

Emphasis mine.

Is stops being "just a game" when it detracts from the fun other folks have. At that point it moves to being a "discourteous pain in the ass".