[Jim Bob]

Originally Posted by Plume

For myself, at least, attitudes like that motivate me to stay well away. I have spent enough of my waking hours in the company of bitter cynical elitists. Now I prefer the company of happy open-to-life elitists.

And yet here you are, in RPG Open, with 3.40 posts per day. So perhaps you are not so far away from gaming as you're saying

Jimbobjones1971's point was true, if not politely put. People do not lack time, in general; it's simply that they lack effort. Some gamers cannot be bothered running a game, other gamers cannot be bothered doing more than put up a notice in the store to recruit players; and some non-gamers can't be bothered to game, or to tolerate any other gamer with slightly different views or interests to themselves.

"I don't know if I can game, it depends on time and availability."
Translation: "If the game looks good, I'll join, if not I'll make some vague excuses and skulk away."

"Time" actually means, "effort." For example,

"Can you go down to the shop to get us some milk?"
"I don't have time."
"Can you take this winning lottery ticket down to the store to pick up our winnings?"
"Sure!"

You make time for things which interest you. That's all that jimbobjones1971 was saying. For my part, I don't bother with people who tell me, "I have no time." What that means is, "I'm not that interested." These people you can persuade to join up anyway, but they won't stay. It's best to focus your efforts on finding people who are interested, rather than trying to make people who aren't interested, interested.

Now, you're saying that you have no interest in gaming... yet here you are on RPGOpen, posting about it. So, are you interested or not? As I see it, there are four types of people, in terms of gaming,

1. People who are not interested at all, it just bores them.
2. People who are interested in gaming, and want to game.
3. People who are interested, but have some reservations, because of a bad gaming experience, or a bad local image, etc
4. People who were once gamers, but are bitter about the experience, but haven't yet found a new hobby to interest them, so they still buy books, lurk in rpg forums, etc.

Most people are just type (1), they have no more interest in gaming than I have in quilting - and that's okay, the world will not and should not be made up of gamers anymore than it should be made up of quilters, that would be stupid.

I think that it's possible and good to recruit types (2) and (3). Type (3) may take some time...

Type (4) are legion on RPGnet and in other places. I think that a person's life, when you break it down to the simplest elements, the things outside yourself which you need are family/friends, lover, work and hobbies. If you lose one of those you go through a grieving process (Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Sadness, Acceptance), and need to readjust and find a new one. The type (4) people are those who are in the Denial, Anger and Bargaining stages of grieving over their lost hobby.

I know it sounds stupid to speak of a person grieving over a lost hobby, but consider what a hobby is. A hobby is, like work, something on which you expend effort, time, and care, which gives you a feeling of using your creative and productive powers. It's just that work, you have to stick to it and get money for it, whereas a hobby you can pick up and put down at any time, and it never earns you any money to speak of. If you lose anything on which you expend effort, and which gives you a feeling of creativity and productivity, you grieve. Of course that grief for a hobby is different in intensity and quality to the grief for a person; but still, there it is.

RPGnet and similar places, with lots of Bitter Non-Gamers, make much more sense if you realise that many of them are grieving the loss of their hobby. They once had something on which they spent a lot of effort and care, and now it's no more for them. And so they deny it - playing when bored and unhappy - or they bargain about it - telling us that we're roleplaying wrongly, that roleplaying needs to change, etc - and often they're angry about it - tossing abuse and scorn towards roleplayers.

In time, most go through the sadness and then into the acceptance, and we don't hear from them anymore. They find a new hobby to replace the one that's dead for them.