Quote from: Emperor Norton;752053I think its more that people freak out over games that aren't designed for them. Every one of those things could be an issue for SOMEONE's table, whether its legitimately an issue at yours or not.

This is the very same as my experience. I'm tempted to even just say: "This", but I don't know if I'm comfortable enough with Internet-lingo to try.

//Panjumanju

By the standards set out here, the last time I was a non-gamer was sometime around 1999.

Quote from: RPGPundit;752524By the standards set out here, the last time I was a non-gamer was sometime around 1999.

By the standards set out here, despite having a regular gaming group since 2010 and participating in three cons and two game days as a referee and player, I'm a non-gamer.

Does that sound right to you?

I think the definition is ludicrous, but it is also not my row to hoe.

I'm a gamesman. I play Pathfinder, GURPS, and AD&D semi-regularly (aiming for once a month, twice a month optimally). I irregularly attend Netrunner nights at my LGS and open board game nights at a friend's place. I'm prepping a Trail of Cthulhu one-shot. I play video games every day, usually to relax a bit after work.

I don't quite understand how people can play every week, regularly and without cessation, frankly.

Quote from: Géza Echs;752881I don't quite understand how people can play every week, regularly and without cessation, frankly.

Yeah, pretty much the definition in this thread is: "If Roleplaying isn't your #1 hobby that takes priority over all others, you aren't a gamer."

Seriously. I do board games, roleplaying games, I write, I play video games, I read novels and comic books, I have tons of hobbies, and only so much free time a month. I usually do RP once or twice a month, but some months I don't. I don't suddenly stop being a gamer the moment I don't.

Quote from: Géza Echs;752881I don't quite understand how people can play every week, regularly and without cessation, frankly.

It's a weekly commitment, like taking the boy to soccer or the lassie to gymnastics.

Quote from: Novastar;753175It's a weekly commitment, like taking the boy to soccer or the lassie to gymnastics.

Precisely, it's the same as any other regular commitment you make. You put it in your schedule and you stick to it. It's really not that hard.

No different to the way that when I was regularly training Muay Thai, I would be there every Monday and Wednesday, week in, week out for something like three years. I missed less than a dozen sessions in all that time.

Quote from: Novastar;753175It's a weekly commitment, like taking the boy to soccer or the lassie to gymnastics.

I don't have kids, but I can understand spending the hour or so for each. I can't understand being able to get together a group of at least three adults on a weekly basis for years on end. I've never known anyone - gamer or not - that had that much unwavering free time available to them.

Quote from: Géza Echs;753192I don't have kids, but I can understand spending the hour or so for each. I can't understand being able to get together a group of at least three adults on a weekly basis for years on end. I've never known anyone - gamer or not - that had that much unwavering free time available to them.

People who are genuinely committed to something, and don't have "unwavering free time" and are thus forced to prioritise and plan can do it.

My Thursday evening gaming session doesn't move for anything, other things are planned around it in our family diary, just as some immovable events in my wife's diary don't move. If someone rings me up and tries to plan something on a Thursday evening, they get an immediate "sorry, I've got plans then", no matter who it is and no matter what they intend.

Again it's never people with lots of free time who are the most reliable and able to commit to things, but those who have shortages of it. You make your free time work when it's highly constrained.

Quote from: Kiero;753202People who are genuinely committed to something, and don't have "unwavering free time" and are thus forced to prioritise and plan can do it.

My Thursday evening gaming session doesn't move for anything, other things are planned around it in our family diary, just as some immovable events in my wife's diary don't move. If someone rings me up and tries to plan something on a Thursday evening, they get an immediate "sorry, I've got plans then", no matter who it is and no matter what they intend.

Again it's never people with lots of free time who are the most reliable and able to commit to things, but those who have shortages of it. You make your free time work when it's highly constrained.

Yeah, I get that. In my experience, though, well, my various gaming friends have very little free time and what free time they have needs to be flexible in order to deal with other priorities - work, school, inter-personal, etc. As such it isn't uncommon for our scheduled gaming sessions to have to be cancelled and rescheduled at the drop of a hat. The option of having a gaming session that "doesn't move for anything" simply isn't available to us.

For a little while I may be a gamer only by orientation. I am trying to transition away from the gym where I work in the mornings, and have people in my garage gym in the evenings. A few people have signed up, so I can't set aside the weeknight I've been doing.

I'm free during the day, but the only gamers free during the day are long-term unemployed, and generally there's a reason they're unemployed, and this reason makes gaming with them rather less fun than gaming usually is. There are some shift workers and stay-at-home parents but their schedule is all over the place.

So I had to leave my game group with my character Fabio the Most Beautiful Fighter in the Cosmos...

Quote from: Novastar;753175It's a weekly commitment, like taking the boy to soccer or the lassie to gymnastics.

Which is great if those commitments never change.

Over the holiday weekend my son played in two baseball tournaments, one with his travel team and one with his All Star team. That meant a different schedule all three days, starting at nine in the morning and running as late as 8:30 at night, scattered between two different fields. Next weekend he has another tournament with his All Star team as well as his regular season playoffs. The weekend after that is the same.

Now let me tell you about my daughter's cheer competitions and exhibitions.

But this is all quite beside the point, as the asinine presumption of this thread is that if you don't play regularly within an arbitrary time interval, you are a non-gamer. The specifics are irrelevant - the whole idea that frequency determines cogency is too stupid to deserve serious consideration.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;753312Which is great if those commitments never change.

Over the holiday weekend my son played in two baseball tournaments, one with his travel team and one with his All Star team. That meant a different schedule all three days, starting at nine in the morning and running as late as 8:30 at night, scattered between two different fields. Next weekend he has another tournament with his All Star team as well as his regular season playoffs. The weekend after that is the same.

Now let me tell you about my daughter's cheer competitions and exhibitions.

But this is all quite beside the point, as the asinine presumption of this thread is that if you don't play regularly within an arbitrary time interval, you are a non-gamer. The specifics are irrelevant - the whole idea that frequency determines cogency is too stupid to deserve serious consideration.

Not to mention that RPGs require more than one person. So if I have commitments to my kids stuff, that change regularly, so might my other players. Or some of my players might not have set work schedules. Or some of my players may have legitimate issues like an autistic son who sometimes acts up in a way that makes it impossible for him to go out.

Look, if your life lets you set aside one afternoon at a set time every week for years on end, along with all your players as well, then more power to you, but man, that is not my life.

Quote from: Géza Echs;753192I don't have kids, but I can understand spending the hour or so for each. I can't understand being able to get together a group of at least three adults on a weekly basis for years on end. I've never known anyone - gamer or not - that had that much unwavering free time available to them.

It's fairly easy, really.

You find a group of people who want to play weekly, have a regular time slot, have a long-running campaign and be very tolerant of people who have to drop out occasionally.

I've played in a weekly game for over 10 years. One of our players has 2 weekly games, so is in 2 gaming groups.

The only problems we have are:

• Sometimes the games clash with other things and each player makes a personal call as to which is important
• Work sometimes gets in the way
• Partner objections (For example, My wife hates the fact that I have a "crazy hobby" and doesn't like that I spend every Monday evening out of the house)

The people who are gaming less are not necessarily the ones stirring up shitstorms about "spherical cow" scenarios and other non-game-table-relevant minutiae.