Adjusting gaming to the reality of adult life with families?

[Kol Korran]

Hey all. (This may be a bit long, feel free to scroll down to the TL; DR below if you wish)
I may have broached the subject some time ago, but I don't quite recall, and even if so, it was under different circumstances.

A bit of an introduction...
I've been gaming with the same tabletop group for... about 7-8 years now. We're a good group, we have lots of fun together, and we keep try to stick to gaming, despite quite a lot of real life responsibilities. We've started to play together in our early 30's, and we're now around late 30's (One of us in his early forties).

As can be expected, we all have jobs, except for one player we're all in long term relationships/ marriages, and some of us have kids. My own first born son came to the world in June.

Throughout the years, We've tried to keep the game going, and manged so, yet scheduling was usually hard, and on average we met about once every 4-5 weeks. Sometimes after 3 weeks, sometime after 6, but in general a session once a month/ month and a bit... When we meet however, we PLAY, and our sessions have often been long (7-9 hours, a few sessions extended even to 11 hours or so, yet those were rare). We have been enjoying our games immensely, yet the frequency of gaming was... not all that satisfactory. People were edgy to play, "Needing their fix", and people forgot some details from session to session, or were bummed out when a session ended, with some unfinished business, which will now have to wait for a looooonnng time till we get to it.

Mostly me and a player rotated as GMs, with me taking most of the time, and for the longer campaigns, while the other GM did shorter stuff (He's the oldest, and has 2 kids, so he has little time to prepare, and dislikes the prep stages. I love them!)

We tried various solutions over the years:
1. We tried changing gaming systems. We mostly played D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder, yet tried our hand in Fate core (Which we liked initially, but we think we failed to grasp the right mindset, and it doesn't appeal to the Challenge gaming aesthetics which is crucial to us). We are now trying out Shadowrun, yet over time we've learned we have little time and patience to devote to learning new systems and rules (The only reason SR is working, is because the GM, another player, has a long time experience with the system, so he simplifies a lot for us).

2. We tried playing with a missing player. Yet... after a few sessions, we felt it just "wasn't it". Our group's dynamics work well, and need all players in them. Plus, the GMs usually prepared quite a few things specifically for specific PCs and players. Not to mention that if people forgot a few things between sessions, than any player that missed a full session, was really out of the loop...

3. We tried keeping info on Wiki-sites and gaming logs and such, to counter the last problem, but it didn't quite get all of it through.

4. To counter the "left over unfinished business/ no climax" issue, I tried to make each session focus around a specific challenge/ issue/ theme, and tried to wrap it up in the same session, giving some feeling of accomplishment and closure. Yet I couldn't hold it for long, since the party did unexpected things a lot of the time, and I didn't feel right to force a climax.

5. We thought about trying to make shorter sessions, but more frequent, but frankly it was a greater hassle, since that meant freeing two separate times, instead of just one (Even if it was longer hours), which was too hard for most families.

6. Different party members tried to "sate their gaming thirst" in between session:
- The player with the least familial commitments managed to play at 1-2 other groups of old friends at times.
- Another player drew a lot, collected and red rule books, adventures, supplements, novels and lore. (Got quite a collection!), a few months ago he started GMing another group for Rise of The Runelords.
- I prepped for games (My process is long, detailed, yet I enjoy it greatly!), wrote campaign logs and read the GiTP forums, and even played some PbPs on Myth Weavers, on years when I was more free and could commit to games more.

7. We thought of trying some remote gaming (Such as Skype, Roll20 and such), but we don't live THAT apart from each other (An hour drive at most), so if we manage to free time, we rather just meet. Plus, gaming in person is SOOOO much better, or so we think...

However, lately I've become far more busy. I've met my life partner, we married, and 7 months ago our first son was born. Also, I have just recently started my residency (I'm a medical doctor) which is... time consuming (The studies and practical training was time consuming as well, but this is more). A few months ago I took a break from GMing (This is when the SR game started), and my GiTP projects ground to a halt (The SR campaign journal, and a project of building a detailed unique sandbox campaign). I just didn't have the time, energy, and frankly- My interests and focus was elsewhere...

Recent personal life changes
And about 2-3 months ago, I also took a break from being a player. I had enough on my plate, and my mind wasn't in the game, but with my family. I'll note that my wife fully supports and encourages my "go kill monsters with your friends" time, and was sad that I stopped, but my mind kept wandering back to my family in sessions, and I wished to spend more time with them.

The group accepted and understood, though they are a bit worried, and weary... In the past, due to all of the demands of real world life, we came close to breaking it off a few times, yet our desire to game and have fun together overcame the obstacles. I know I feel some burnout, yet I feel quite fine without the game (Though I do like to read and write a bit on the forums, now and then, in my little spare time). I too am somewhat worried, as these are good friends, and though with some I meet outside the game (In a similar frequency), we do meet MOSTLY in gaming sessions...

I am immensely happy in my current situation, yet roleplay games have been a significant part of my life, and I do like them, if I had the time and more free time...

The issue/ TL; DR
So... after this looooonnng introduction, I ask of the forum, especially people with jobs, families, kids, responsibilities- How have you kept your RL gaming group going for long? What solutions did you try? What worked? What didn't? Has the game changed? How? :smallconfused:

This is quite a significant challenge, and I'd love to hear how people coped with similar situations, even if not that close to our own.

Thanks in advance,
Kol. :smallamused:

[Stealth Marmot]

If the children are a problem you could always...well..I mean you can always have MORE children later so it's not like these ones are entirely indispensable...

That said, you could rotate where you play the games to allow the individual players time to be semi-around their families, especially during slow scenes or setup where they dont actually have to be in their seats.

I played in a game last year at one guys house and we got to see him talk with his wife and daughter who was absolutely adorable, and she even got to hear stories of her father's characters and especially loved a cute pet one of his characters had (a flying snake).

[Geddy2112]

When my gaming group started, we were all students. Over the years we have picked up a few and lost a few, but now our group is in our mid-late twenties, with one player being in their mid 30's with a wife+2 kids. We all work full time jobs in various fields, some of which can impact our gaming times.

For us, it is our routine. Our game night has been Tuesday at 730pm for at least two years now, possibly longer. Because we have this time hard dedicated to gaming, usually for 3-5 hours, we all work hard to always be open. If things come up(and sometimes they do) we don't call session for one or two players missing. We only call a session for 3 or more players being out. Sometimes one of us has to work late, or is out of town on business. We also sometimes start earlier or later to accommodate schedules.

Another thing we do is have two games running with two different DM's, so in case a DM is unavailable the other campaign can run and we have a session. We might miss 4-5 games a year but otherwise we meet without fail.

[Knaight]

I'm not in this situation - my groups tend to be college students; I'm a college student; nobody has kids. With that said, it sounds like the members of the group individually have the free time to do game things outside of game (preparation, wikis and gaming logs, etc.), and that you're not willing to play with a missing player. Assuming this is correct, the missing player situation can usually be handled with backup games, just having some one shots available to still do something the weeks the main game can't go forward is a better option. If it's consistently the same people who miss sessions due to being busy outright backup games that are also in a campaign structure can work.

[Maglubiyet]

My gaming group didn't survive as long as yours seems to have past the Coming of the Children. I stopped altogether for a number of years and so did most of my friends. It was hard enough to focus on career, home maintenance, travel, school, etc. while raising kids.

Later, I've come back to it and have only recently re-established a semi-permanent gaming group. Four-hour sessions once or twice a month on regularly scheduled days seem to work okay. I also play with a meetup group that has random games once a month with a lot of the same people.

My kids are old enough to start playing RPG's with me now too. I've run a few games with them and they have fun, though the dynamic is different than playing with your buddies.

And then there are the Conventions. If I can swing it I'll fly out to one of the big ones at least once a year. Those can be hit or miss as far as game quality, so I'll play the odds and fill my schedule up from dawn til dusk while I'm there.

It would be nice to have more, but the same could be said about a lot of things in life.

[Thrudd]

I think it is important to have a solidly blocked-out game night each week. Everyone needs to work together to figure out what day and time is the best and make every effort to adhere to that schedule. Of course families and work and emergencies sometimes require missing a week, but a lot of the time I think it is more a communication and motivation issue. The decision to game needs to be important enough that each player can tell their spouse and family that this specific day and time will be set aside for game night.
If some of your group are the sort who will bail on you when they experience any small inconvenience (like they're a little tired, or they don't feel like driving) there's not a lot you can do.

You might try to get spouses involved, too, so that it can be a family or couples thing rather than a "spend time with buddies away from the family" thing. This is really an issue addressed in individual relationships, however. Some couples are fine with having "me" time away from each other - others may not be able to embrace that. If some in your group are in the second sort of relationship, you won't be able to count on them attending regularly. Rotating where game night takes place might help with that a bit.

Depending on the size of the group, you could shift to a more open-table approach to gaming. Don't plan things as one long epic featuring each person's individual character as a prominent driver of the plot. Plan for a game where whoever shows up can pick up one of a set of characters they have, and go on an adventure that can reach a stopping point if not be finished by the end of the night. If someone is missing or someone new shows up next week, it's ok, because last week all the characters were back in town recuperating and now they can set out on a new adventure with whatever characters they want. This would help with the situation where not everyone reliably shows up, or where sometimes a spouse wants to play and sometimes they don't or can't.

[thirdkingdom]

Between kids and running my own business I really don't have the time or energy for face to face gaming anymore, so these days I pretty much game pbp. I've got a core group of people I game with -- ironically, I've never met them IRL -- and manage to run one game and play in a couple others at any one time.

[daniel_ream]

1. We tried changing gaming systems. We mostly played D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder, yet tried our hand in Fate core (Which we liked initially, but we think we failed to grasp the right mindset, and it doesn't appeal to the Challenge gaming aesthetics which is crucial to us). We are now trying out Shadowrun,

This jumped out at me.

You've changed systems, but you haven't changed the type of systems you're playing. These are all rules-heavy, zero-to-hero campaign focused games (except FATE, which has a big conceptual learning curve for a lot of people)

There are tons of games that are explicitly designed to be taught and run in a single session, are episodic in nature, and insensitive to specific attendees. Most of them do tend to be narrative games similar to FATE, though. If you're looking for "challenge aesthetics", you might look at Agon or Beast Hunters. It's out of print, but MWP's Smallville is less narrative than it appears and has a fairly deep tactical game as its core mechanic (you don't have to play angsty superpowered teenagers, either, you can do scheming, backstabbing Roman senators or Mafia just as easily)

Another option is to run D&D The Way We Did It In The Old Days, When Kids Were Respectful And Stayed Off My Lawn. You need a simpler D&D to make that work because you're going to go through characters quickly (so B/X, ACKS, or maybe DCC). The idea is you have a town for restocking and a wilderness sandbox with a bunch of dungeons, and each session depending on who shows up each player grabs a character from their stable, you form a party and go raid something. You need a calendar to keep track of which characters are where, but you don't need to worry about who shows up.

All that said, it does sound rather like you're just less interested in this hobby than you used to be, and that's okay. The traditional 3.5/Pathfinder style of game really presupposes a lot of free time and a strong commitment by multiple people to regular attendance. That's difficult for any hobby.

[Faily]

In one group, only one of us have children, while everyone is in a relationship. For the relationships, well, two of the guys there solved that easily by including their SOs in the group. The other SOs just don't have an interest for that kind of stuff, but are understanding of the hobby, so that's no problem.

When the one guy had the first kid, we were all understanding that he wanted to focus on being a father. Really, we all think that is the sensible thing to do when you become a parent, so it was never an issue that we felt he had "ditched" us in favor of being an adult. We would let him know when we would play, and if he showed up, even for only a couple of hours, that was great. His presence was missed when he was gone, of course, but really, it was all about giving him time to spend with his kid. Now he has two kids, and they're becoming old enough that regular gaming is back on the schedule for him. Which is great. Sometimes, you just have to accept that there will be a time-period where people will need to focus on other things than the gaming hobby, and then welcome them back when they have the time again. :smallsmile:

In our second group, we have two players with very young children. Much to our surprise, as from our experience with the first group I mentioned, both players were back at the table right after the new generation had arrived. Turns out that in each respective household, they'd agree that they'd maintain as much as possible of their hobbies. Which I can respect, as it's not easy to balance work with raising a kid and then adding hobbies on top of that too. But it seems to be working for them well after 3 years now.

In short: everyone adapts differently to the "adult life", whether it be kids, marriage or work. Some manage to balance it fairly well, others put their hobby on hold for some years, and some seemingly disappear off the face of the earth (had one guy we played with who just disappeared completely from our gaming circle after his first kid). There is no *one* trick or advice that will work for everyone.

All I can offer in advice is to stay in touch with eachother (I find Facebook Messenger to be great for that), and try routinely to book in game-time. Like... ask now if people want to schedule a date in February for a game-day. Holidays and vacation-periods are usually no go in adult-life, as you end up having too many family obligations taking up your time and less time to do what you want... which is almost reverse for what it was before we had to become "responsible adults". :smallwink:

[kyoryu]

So, I know that I'm probably most known as a proponent of Fate on these boards, so I'm going to suggest something totally expected...

Have you considered an old-school, open-table, D&D-style approach?

No, really.

If you look at the old-school games, they were less about "plots" and more about individual delves into a big giant dungeon.

Since each game was entirely self-contained, it didn't matter if the cast changed from session to session.

Most players had multiple characters, so they'd just choose the character that was appropriate to play with everyone else that showed up that night.

Since the dungeon was just a big deep thing with layers in it, fewer players just meant you probably didn't go as deep, while more players meant you could maybe try harder things.

It's an amazingly fault-tolerant setup for play. I've known games like that that have gone on for decades. Fluctuating players is an utter non-issue.

[RazorChain]

I completely understand what you are going through. I am married and have 3 children and the long time group I've played with is comprised of individuals around 40 years old with bunch of kids and obligations.

We always managed to play bi-weekly, but out of group of 7 we were usually always missing one. So in essence if you want to play regularly then always expect that at least one is going to miss the game. If you have 2-3 persons missing a game then you should have a simple backup game running. My group had a Black ops campaign as a backup plan where we all had a character and took turns GMing black op missions where the point was over the top action against threats humanity didn't know existed ranging from aliens, psionic dibolical cults, zombie outbreaks. This means if you are missing players from the main campaign you can still play.

But at this time in your live you just have to accept that you are busy, I've been playing for almost 30 years and there have always been periods in my life where I wish I could get more gaming done.


The most difficult part is finding a time where all can meet. Setting aside a regular gaming time helps...for example 16:00 on every other sunday. This helps the group to keep the game time on their schedule and not put other stuff there.

[Darth Ultron]

My main group has been together though high school, the 20's and into the 30's with kids. And I would say the reason we are all together is that we all want to be. It's only ''hard'' to do, if you make it hard.

For the general life advice....beware the ''just want to spend time with the family'' as that way leads to dragons. It sounds good, and feels good....but may not be for the best. Having a life separate from ''the family'' does seem to be the best. It is really quality over quantity. You can ''be'' with your family all week, but not really ''be'' there as it is ''just'' a normal week. Though that is counting the dozen or so ours your say watching TV ''with your family in the house''.

Our games are fast, focused and intense....though they have always been. Our games move lighting fast compared to most other games I've ever seen. My house rules and play style are built all around this.

[Jay R]

About once a month, with nobody making all the sessions? Yes, that's adult gaming. You need to learn to accept it and live with it. I offer two suggestions.

In a game I ran a few years ago, I told people that if they weren't there, they could choose one of two options for their characters.
1. Their character would be left out of the adventure, getting no loot, no xp, and no risks, or
2. They could designate another player to play their character, for full credit, and full risk.
[Some players can play two characters simultaneously. Pick somebody like that to play your character.]

Also, I'm currently in three games, with overlapping but not identical players. Which game gets played can depend on who can play that weekend.

But the brute fact remains. Gaming is no longer as important as the other activities in your life, and will never again be as steady as it used to be.

[2D8HP]

I'm in my late 40's, with one son who will turn 12 this week, and another who was born June 1st 2016, plus I have a job with lots of emergency overtime, so sadly I don't play face-to-face "campaigns" anymore.
Besides PbP at this Forum, I'd recommend an old fashioned "drop-in" style of D&D, which previous poster's suggested, but also board games (Risk, Runewars, etc.).
The real trick is keeping friends.

[caden_varn]

A couple in our group had their first child about the same time as yours. Since they were both roleplayers, and some of the rest of us are either single or have kids who are much older, we gather round their place once a week for a couple of hours after the baby is asleep. It's a short session, just a couple of hours, and the rest of us tend to share the running duties. It also means that the wife, who has given up work for the moment, gets some guaranteed human adult social interaction once a week.

It works pretty well for the most part (except for times like last night, when I forgot to bring the adventure :smalleek:).

[GungHo]

Its our "bro time". It's cheaper than shooting, golf, hunting and fishing... and even when we did go hunting and fishing, we ended up doing D&D in the damn cabin. The spouses are okay with it because they know we're not being fools at a bar. At the end of the day, family obligations are family obligations, though, and we all understand that, so we adapt and overcome.

[Stryyke]

I feel your pain. 25 years ago, I had my first kid. It does change life. For me, I just had to play online whenever I got a chance. Which is to say I didn't have a regular group for 20 years. I just retired, my kids are out of the house, and I lost my fiancee' before we got married. So I just picked up face to face gaming again.

There are some ways that face-to-face is better; but I think if you get a good group, online gaming is better. I know people really like the figurines and maps and being able to throw pizza at the group idiot, but I find that we tend to get off-topic a lot easier face-to-face. There are far more tools available online, and we tend to focus on the game a bit more.

Live, a 4-5 hour session may involve 2-3 hours of actual gaming. Online, a 4-5 hour session involves closer to 4 hours of gaming.

Just my personal observation.

[Max_Killjoy]

The group that made gaming excellent for me... let's see...

Several have moved away to distant parts of the country.
A couple got married and had a kid.
Some got sick of each other so things split off.
Two of them flaked out and kept disappearing for long stretches.


So... there's no gaming group left.

[Corsair14]

Life does have a tendency to get in the way of things. I miss my old college and early career jobs that allowed me the time to meet a centralized group and get some gaming in. College kids don't know how good they have it. I see this in my current rpg group, my first since 2006 when I got a real job after college. We have been playing for about 3 months now and the differences between us couldn't be more blatant. I am 40, married but have to be up at 430 for the gym, wife complains I am off having fun with friends instead of her. A girl in our group,(I say girl, she is 30ish) we play at her place usually on her porch, her husband babysits their kid. One guy is a AF vet with kids and wife, and is in final semester of school and then we have the younger guy in college who has limitless time to play. We finish playing usually around 10-1030 and the other two guys go down to some lounge and play other games. Must be nice.

Growing up unfortunately means letting things go, especially if you live in out of the way places. My group after college pretty much broke up with two of us main people graduating. I don't know if any of them have even seen each other any more. One of my best friends back at hometown still meets up once a month with his group and they play 2nd ed ADND. They are all late 40s early 50s plus the occasional adult children and they have been doing this for a decade now.

If you don't have time to play, you don't have time to play. Find another hobby. I have for my 11 or so years of missing games. I still wargamed for part of it but while I missed role playing I did other things. I found other subjects that interested me enough to research and work on them easily as much time as I did gaming. Take up competitive shooting, its something useful, utilitarian and something you can do with your kids that they can go on and get scholarships for. Work rocks. Plant trees. Go fishing. Play online.

[Contrast]

I'm a member of two groups at present. One meets every week on the same day at the same time. We probably miss about one session in five (we'll usually go ahead regardless unless more than 2 people are out).

The other group started out intending to meet once a week but quickly became every other week and then 'we'll arrange when we next meet' and now hasn't met since before December due to scheduling issues.

So my experience is that it helps massively to have a set time when you game and to stick to it as much as you can (even if you're missing people just get together and play boardgames or a one shot or whatever). It doesn't have to be weekly - every other week or monthly is easy to remember as well and thats the key - you need to be able to remember when it is so you don't double book yourself.

That said, if you don't want to meet without people missing and you're not all retired or students then you're going to have difficulties :smallbiggrin: