Real life and gaming [rant]

[Kol Korran]

the following are just musings and a rant of my own about gaming experience and real life. it serves no special purpose, raises no questions, it just is. you've been warned

so.... my group are all in their 30s. two have families and kids, another one is married, all have jobs (or in my case also med school) but we decided to play.

surprisingly to us, we have endured, and are still playing after more than 2 (or 3?) years under two different DMs (who were players in their turn. but this did not come easily. at first we could meet every two-3 weeks, but then we have other constraints and at times met every 4, and on a few occasions only once in 5-6, which did put a strain on things.

we lost one player who wanted to play more often, and most times the players don't fully keep track from session to session, and many session take place in the house of one of the guys with kids, where they need to help with them, taking them from the game on occasion.

the wives have been great so far (one might even join us soon), but there have been... tensions over this matter. i think that in that respect it's good that our sessions are not that frequent or it would have caused problems.

and yet, the games are fun. a time to unwind, be with friends, do imaginary heroics and face imaginary dangers. play strange and interesting characters and groan with anticipation (for better and worse) when the DM has a new idea.

but... every session, it's so hard to organize. the group constantly feels... temporary, as we all know that a little new complication can take a player away. (one of us moved quite a distance from us, which is causing a slight problem... so far) things were... simpler when we were kids. a session every week (or god forbid- every TWO!), no one had major complications, and we felt like the group would go on FOR EVER... (or long enough we didn't notice).

the game is not a major hobby, quite the sideshow to other matters in fact. but well... it might be nice if it was simpler that's all.

that's all i have to say. i did warn you it was a [/rant]

[SamBurke]

Live life and deal with it? I don't know, really (not being married, not having kids, etc, etc)... But, there's always the hope you can get the kids to play, too. :smallbiggrin: Corrupt those little minds as fast as possible!

But in all seriousness, I think you might just want to talk as a group, prioritize, and see if you can set aside time for it. Alternately, you could Skype each other, saving the time driving.

[Vladislav]

but... every session, it's so hard to organize. the group constantly feels... temporary, as we all know that a little new complication can take a player away. (one of us moved quite a distance from us, which is causing a slight problem... so far) things were... simpler when we were kids. a session every week (or god forbid- every TWO!), no one had major complications, and we felt like the group would go on FOR EVER... (or long enough we didn't notice).When you're running the spouse-work-kids triangle (with a bit of school on the side), everything is in a constant state of crisis. Everything. A game of D&D is no exception.

[bloodtide]

This is very common. One of my groups is of the similar age and such, and it's nothing but problems.

You would think that people could set aside a couple hours a week to plan a fun activity for themselves. But no, they can't. And to make it worse it's not like they are doing anything else!

Now I'm not talking about the 'good' parent/spouse who feels they must be with their family 24/7. I'm talking about the ones that don't even try to game, yet still say they want too.

A great example is the guy who calls up and says he is 'too busy' to game. So without him, another player won't come and another is 'busy', so the game gets cancelled for the week. But the cheery on top is when that first guy calls you up, bored and asking to do something with you. Or worse you find out his 'busy stuff' was to clean a fish tank.

I've only gamed at a house with kids/spouse a couple times and know well enough to avoid it now. That never works. Families are just to pushy and intrusive. Very few spouses grasp the idea of 'leave your partner alone and let them have fun'. And no modern kids get this concept(but I'll tell you as a kid if we so much as opened the door to the basement during dad's weekly poker game..!!!!!)

And it's not so hard, people just won't do it. For example to get my wife and daughter out of the house recently I sent them to a spa for a 'mommy/daughter' day. And it worked out perfectly.

[veven]

Most of my group is in their early 20's so we really only have to worry about jobs and school but one member is 28 (he was pretty much like my older brother growing up) And has a wife and two kids.

I know this probably won't work for you because you are all in the same situation but we just decided to run two games. We play about once every two weeks in the game without Andrew (the older guy) and we play the game he is in (that I run) once a month, maybe twice if its a relaxed month. Yes, sometimes he does have to help with the kids, but we usually start pretty late so they get put to bed halfway through the night and his wife is great about the whole thing.

[comicshorse]

[QUOTE=bloodtide;12139423
I've only gamed at a house with kids/spouse a couple times and know well enough to avoid it now. That never works. Families are just to pushy and intrusive. Very few spouses grasp the idea of 'leave your partner alone and let them have fun'. And no modern kids get this concept(but I'll tell you as a kid if we so much as opened the door to the basement during dad's weekly poker game..!!!!!)

And it's not so hard, people just won't do it. For example to get my wife and daughter out of the house recently I sent them to a spa for a 'mommy/daughter' day. And it worked out perfectly.[/QUOTE]

I must say my experience contradicts this. A friend has been running a Changeling game at his house for over a year with no problems. We've found as long as the X-Box is in another room we don't get disturbed at all

[bloodtide]

I must say my experience contradicts this. A friend has been running a Changeling game at his house for over a year with no problems. We've found as long as the X-Box is in another room we don't get disturbed at all

I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it's rare. Too many people like the 'my family life is chaos' type life.

Video games, or movies, or whatever, can work great to keep kids busy. As long as the kids are not too young and can handle things like making toast or getting ice water.

[Shadowknight12]

things were... simpler when we were kids. a session every week (or god forbid- every TWO!), no one had major complications, and we felt like the group would go on FOR EVER... (or long enough we didn't notice).

Get used to feeling like that. As time passes, you will be feeling that more often and more intensely. In what will appear to be no time at all, you will miss being in your thirties. You will miss the time where kids were kids. You will miss being sprightly, strong and healthy. You will miss bedroom activities, life's simple pleasures and yes, you will miss D&D with your friends.

Count your blessings while you still have them around.

[Kerrin]

The folks I game with are all adults with jobs, families, etc (as am I). The only real issue we have is getting people's schedules to line up so we can find a weekend afternoon to get together. When we do find a date/time, we do play. However, sometimes we can't get together for weeks on end (e.g. 6-8 weeks).

The families aren't an issue because some of the spouses play too, and the children are easy to keep entertained on the side. In fact, some of the parents are now running games at home for their immediate families (children too) to fill the weeks in between when we can all get together to play our game.

[valadil]

We just reached that point. My fault. I'm not going to be doing any gaming for a while. When I get back to it I'm expecting one of two changes. Either we're going to use lighter systems or we're going to switch to playing written modules instead of writing our own stories.

[Delwugor]

I hate it when reality gets in the way of fantasy. :smallannoyed:
But it does. In my group we plan for every week but are happy if we play every other week. In the past we have had 2 months where we couldn't play. Those are the rotten breaks.

We've made some changes this year which are suppose to reduce missing sessions because one person can't make it. There are currently 3 campaigns being run and if one person can't make it we play where we can get buy without his appearance. Sounds good but doesn't always work out either.

[Jolly]

When I was stuck in 29 Palms (aka the worst place in America) we played an average of 2-3 times a week. Less because we were DnD fanatics than because we had no friends outside of the gaming group, nothing to do other than play (well, and drink heavily), and were in desperate need of escaping from our miserable lives.

Now I don't even have a local group, and our skype sessions happen maybe once every two months. It's like running a series of one shots but with the same characters. But I wouldn't trade my life now for my life then. RPG's are a hobby, and when real life gets in the way I try to take what I can get and be happy for it.

[Jay R]

We have the same situation, with the added complication that we are all SCA, so many weekends are also unavailable.

Our last game was early September, and our next one won't be for a couple of weeks.

The spouse problem is no problem for us, though. We game when the DM's wife is out at school; the paladin's husband enjoys a day alone to play Wow, and my wife just joined the game. The other two aren't married.

You have to recognize that, unlike when you were a student, gaming is a low priority, and other things - work, chores, events, and yes, sometimes even the need to rest - have to take priority.