The Adult Gamers' Dirty Secret

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Post originally by Old Geezer at 2005-12-14 17:02:40
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Well, I'm watching 50 recede behind me.

I hadn't gamed in fifteen years. I hadn't enjoyed it in twenty. A few abortive games were disasters.

I tried reviving old games I liked, and got a lot of "I'm too busy". My friends with kids, I buy this from.

But I got to looking. I realized that I was visiting model railroad friends 6 to 8 times a month and 'playing trains', plus reading books, having a job, having a wife, and writing a fantasy novel.

April of 2004 somebody advertised for Star Wars d20 players at the FLGS. Being an utter Star Wars geek, I signed up.

I was nervous as hell -- playing with people I didn't know.

I loved it.

We play, on the average, twice a month, and try more often. Realities of life - full-time-plus jobs, families, other activities.

But we play Star Wars every two weeks.

And my old gaming bunch, who 'has no time', does nothing but watch DVDs, play computer games alone, and watch TV. They are no busier than we are.

The dirty secret of adult gamers is that "I don't have any time" is a code phrase for "I can't be arsed".

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Post originally by Rainmaker at 2005-12-14 19:17:56
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Amen brother. Amen.

I'm a 27 year old lawyer myself, still playing with the same group that I've had for 11 years, made up of gamer friends from high school and college.

And you know what? We don't play RPG for the sake of playing RPG. We do it because it's the only way we can stick together and enjoy each other's company, along with the company of each other's wives and children. We are a circle of friends first, and an RPG group second.

RPG builds lives. 'Nuff said.

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Post originally by FredH at 2005-12-15 04:26:46
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Ain't that the truth. For something like twenty years I've only gamed intermittently, assuming that a real weekly game was simply undoable for me. But recently I took the plunge and started running a weekly game (which means I've gamed more in the last two months than in the previous three or four years combined), and life, however busy, seems to be allowing it to happen. Some of that is the group clearly clicking as a group of friends, better than previous groups I've been in.

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Post originally by Fred at 2005-12-15 06:22:18
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I agree with what most people said here. I also play mostly with longtime friends who have busy lives, but can take 4 hours a week to pursue a hobby they like. Some friends of ours, who used to play with us, dropped out with that "I don't have time" excuse. Granted, some of them had really busy schedules -- one fo them had a wife and small kid, a regular job and was attending college during weeknights. However, I offered to hold a game on saturday afternoons just so he could participate. Guess what? It never happened, he couldn't make it.

I took the hint and stopped invitinh him and another friend of ours. I just said to them: "Guys, you know we play once a week. If you want to play, just give me a call". I would understand if we were asking them to run a game, since that does require more work (I should know, I'm almost always the GM), but is just playing -- you show up, write up a character, play and have fun... Goddammit! :]

Just for the record, I'm 36, have a job and girlfriend, but no kids.

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Post originally by Grop at 2005-12-16 01:53:59
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Well, I don't know what is FLGS, but meeting new gamers is definitely the solution if your friends won't play. RPG clubs are great for this.

GPB

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Post originally by IMAGinES at 2005-12-16 06:04:37
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Hi, Grop,

FLGS has become a fairly standard acrtonym on these boards. It stands for Friendly Local Game Store.

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Post originally by Have Dice Will Travel at 2005-12-17 16:33:08
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This is starting to sound like gamer confessions.

Anyway, I think people are pretty much right that "I don't have enough time" is an excuse for "I'm not really interested."

My husband is a full time student with a triple major (Japanese, Poly Sci, and Asian Studies), he's making strait As. He also works part time.

We have a 6 year old who's autistic. His school requires at least three hours a week of our time and we have speech therapy three times a week (two near our home and one 40 minutes away one way) and occupational therapy once a week 40 minutes away.

We play 3 times a week. Once with our big group, once with a school friend, and once just the two of us. The first two sessions are at least 6 hour sessions ours usually ends up being 2-4.

Before he went back to school he was a firefighter on a 24 hour schedule and worked 2 part time jobs in addition to that. We still played at least once a week.

I don't even know what's on TV most nights. Actually when we had to take a week off for a family visit I found myself with nothing to do during our usual game time and turned it on only to find that there was nothing interesting.

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Post originally by Grop at 2005-12-20 13:47:01
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Hey, thank you :)

[Paul of Cthulhu]

I simply don't watch TV, and haven't done so regularly for the last 10 years or more.

It's amazing how much of your life you get back.

If my wife didn't watch it. We wouldn't have a TV at all.