I was a bit surprised the other day to hear from one of my DCC players that, besides my DCC game, he also plays about 4 other sessions a week. He's much younger than I am of course, but really the only time in my life I gamed quite that much was when I was in high school (and only before I started having any real success with girls).
I'm pretty sure if I tried doing that now I'd die. I'm sure I'd go bankrupt because I wouldn't have any time to get any work done. As it is, most weekends I end up being a huge wreck; by the end of it I'm looking forward to the regular week and going back to my ordinary timetable.
But when I think about it, I'm gaming twice a week on average (well, 1.75 times a week, really, because I do two campaigns one weekend, and 1 or 2 the other). For a guy my age, that's probably a ridiculous amount (especially since the shortest session I run is about 6 hours). Not having kids obviously helps.
Since I moved to South America, I've actually started gaming more than I did in the period between starting University and moving here, where I mostly gamed once a week (and briefly, not at all).
So fundamentally, I started out roleplaying a ton, then roleplayed a lot less, and now am roleplaying quite a bit more but not as much as at the start.
So what about the rest of my readership? How often do you actually game? Would you want to be gaming more often if you could?
Discuss amongst yourselves.
RPGPundit
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For a long while, I was gaming once a week. Now, it's more like once a month, except for weekly 60 min sessions of Alpha Blue via Roll20.
ReplyDeleteWaaay back when I first started gaming (which was when I was 10 or 11 years old) it was once a week, on the weekends, pretty much all weekend (staying up til 2-3 am before everyone finally passed out).
ReplyDeleteThen when I got a job and moved to another town, it was 0-2 times a week, mostly one-shots (a "campaign" that ran 2 or more sessions was pretty rare), depending on who was running (which was usually me).
Then there was a patch where we just kind of stopped tabletop gaming for a few months, and when we started up again it became more or less a steady once-a-week thing (depended on work schedules).
Fast forward a decade and we're doing weekly games (again, depends on life and work schedules), with a bi-weekly playtest campaign, which is probably the most I can handle because of family and other things that need to get done.
I used to play several times a week but that was back in college (and also the reason I flunked twice).
ReplyDeleteI went back to rpgs after a few years hiatus and started a monthly game with my wife and my old group. Then after a few more years I joined a club and added another monthly game, then another.
Now I GM twice a month (L5R and SoTDL for now) and play once a month as a PC (Heavy Gear). Plus, I think about running something for my daughters in the near future.
Some weeks I only game once, some weeks I game twice a week. I want to take on another game so I game at least twice a week. My games don't go as long as the pundits, usually only 4 hours (Maybe occasionally 5)I could handle one more game but that is about it.
ReplyDeleteBoth of the games I play in are bi-weekly (AD&D 1st edition and Savage Worlds- The Last Parsec) and sometimes the AD&D 1st edition game will be played two weeks in a row if we are in the middle of a dungeon and need to finish something.
Typically I ran a campaign every other week, and play one every one nominally every week, but more often then not every other too.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess it comes about as 4-6 sessions a month.
I'm 38 years old.
Played a lot back in th 1e days. AD&D, Traveller and Chivalry & Sorcery. Fell out of gaming as I moved around and raised my boys. When we moved back to Minnesota in 2000, I started gaming once a month. But the roster of DMs in the group dwindled from four to one (me) and I burned out about two years ago. So that group is defunct.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I really do laugh out loud when I read your write-ups. Your groups sounds like they're a blast.
As expected I played a lot during my 4E time, but now that I'm DMing, I spend more time planning and designing than gaming. (So much so that I can say that I'm finally gaining a work ethic and streaming my _planning_ sessions on Twitch.) Right now I have 2 games as a PC, both about 4 hours long, on Fridays and Sundays. I have Encounters on Wednesdays, where I'm the DM. I spend the rest of my time working on One Book Shelf projects and creating the next campaign I'll DM, Princes of the Apocalypse.
ReplyDeleteToo bad I could never gather up this level of dedication or flow a) in the processions of McJobs I used to have until I took my fuckitol, or b) working on web comics for an audience who consists of 15 silent fans, just as many openly denigrating critics, and a majority who only want to supplement their burn pages with new content.
I think I have a better life as a DM. Might not pay much, but it doesn't have the pitfalls as before.