Quote from: soltakss;753589It doesn't matter if you play RPGs ... at all.

...

What matters is that you have fun when you game.

How do you have fun gaming when you don't game at all?

Quote from: Kiero;753539I play on a weekday evening, not at the weekend, which makes all of these moot.

Bullshit. My son's had four different practice schedules this spring - three for baseball, one for soccer, and after the spring football season ended, my daughter added a jazz technique class at her studio. My wife and I rejigger our schedules weekly, sometimes daily.

The idea that everyone's week is as unwavering as yours reflects your paper-narrow perspective on, well, pretty much every gawddamn thing under the sun.

Quote from: mcbobbo;753552If you fit the definition but don't want to, maybe you can game some more?  What would be the harm in that?

Or maybe we could try working from a less fucked-up definition?

What makes gaming 'in the last month' a standard anyone should accept? Is someone who play only at conventions two or three times a year a non-gamer? Is someone who breaks out his old campaign for a weekend when his high school buddies are in town a non-gamer?

The whole premise of this thread is fucked from the giddyup.

Quote from: Kiero;753539I play on a weekday evening, not at the weekend, which makes all of these moot.

Work trips happen during the week: one of the guys in my group travels 4-8 days a month for work; another has to watch the kids 8-10 days a month while his wife works as a flight attendant. Kids activities happen during the week. Around here, soccer is Mon + Wed or Tues + Thur. If you have two kids, that's Mon-Thur gone. Scouts/Guides are Tues/Wed. Even in the winter, indoor soccer (which one of the guys in my group coaches) is 2-3 evenings a week.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;753598Or maybe we could try working from a less fucked-up definition?

What makes gaming 'in the last month' a standard anyone should accept? Is someone who play only at conventions two or three times a year a non-gamer? Is someone who breaks out his old campaign for a weekend when his high school buddies are in town a non-gamer?

The whole premise of this thread is fucked from the giddyup.

As others have said, there's no RPG police to force you to agree to any definition.   But if you're going to use them, it makes a certain kind of sense to set limits on what they do mean.

I agree that if you're out of play for over a month you're not an active gamer.  I am often not an active gamer, so I say this in earnest.  But I do think it is fair to 'require' that one frequently  game to be considered active.   Why?

1)  A month is a long time.  Note too that this language is pretty loose.  So we're not even necessarily talking a strict 30 days.  If you gamed in April, you're probably good.  Hell the thread is almost a month old itself.

2)  You have options for gaming.  And forgive me if this seems too personal, but I know for a fact that you have ran solo games via Mythic.  Tunnels and Trolls is good for a quick solo game, too.  And then there's the internet, which deserves its own bullet...

3) Between Skype, G+, Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, play by post, etc etc etc you have almost 'no excuse' for not being active if you want to be.  You could.  Easily.  I bet people here would jump into a Flashing Blades game if you'd run it.  It could be done.

So, at a certain point it becomes worth asking whether or not you want to play.  Not publicly.  (Put away the rotten tomatoes guys.)  But inwardly, because this is probably a hobby you do love.  I know I do...

Like I said, I can't throw stones.  I don't game as much as I should either.  I prefer face to face games and hate meeting new weirdos.  But this advice applies to me as much as anyone.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;753598Bullshit. My son's had four different practice schedules this spring - three for baseball, one for soccer, and after the spring football season ended, my daughter added a jazz technique class at her studio. My wife and I rejigger our schedules weekly, sometimes daily.

... I'll admit I'm really happy that neither of my kids are into that many different things. My daughter is into theater (and when she gets into a production, rehearsals for her blocks can be a REAL pain in the ass), and my son isn't into anything that is scheduled.

Quote from: mcbobbo;7536113) Between Skype, G+, Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, play by post, etc etc etc you have almost 'no excuse' for not being active if you want to be.  You could.  Easily.  I bet people here would jump into a Flashing Blades game if you'd run it.  It could be done.

Part of the fun in RPGs to me is the face to face time. I've done online RP, and I just don't enjoy it as much. And the difference in that enjoyment is enough that I would rather go do something else.

If I was free for 4 hours and playing tabletop RPGs with some friends was one of the options, I would pick that one 9 times out of 10. But doing online RP just doesn't work for me. I'd rather play board games, or video games if no one is around. Or read.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;753613Part of the fun in RPGs to me is the face to face time. I've done online RP, and I just don't enjoy it as much. And the difference in that enjoyment is enough that I would rather go do something else.

If I was free for 4 hours and playing tabletop RPGs with some friends was one of the options, I would pick that one 9 times out of 10. But doing online RP just doesn't work for me. I'd rather play board games, or video games if no one is around. Or read.

I'm right there with you.  I want to like online play.  I really wish I did.

But I still hold that it's an option not being chosen.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;753598Bullshit. My son's had four different practice schedules this spring - three for baseball, one for soccer, and after the spring football season ended, my daughter added a jazz technique class at her studio. My wife and I rejigger our schedules weekly, sometimes daily.

The idea that everyone's week is as unwavering as yours reflects your paper-narrow perspective on, well, pretty much every gawddamn thing under the sun.

If you think it's bad for sports, my oldest is in marching band.  Now there's some grueling schedules. I never knew there that many fucking parades and events in my hometown, and that's not counting the "regular" evening events that the wind ensemble plays for the public.

QuoteThe whole premise of this thread is fucked from the giddyup.

You said it. It's all about waving e-peens around.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;753572You must not have kids, because their after school activities aren't limited to weekends.

I have two, and the eldest goes to school this September.

Quote from: Haffrung;753600Work trips happen during the week: one of the guys in my group travels 4-8 days a month for work; another has to watch the kids 8-10 days a month while his wife works as a flight attendant. Kids activities happen during the week. Around here, soccer is Mon + Wed or Tues + Thur. If you have two kids, that's Mon-Thur gone. Scouts/Guides are Tues/Wed. Even in the winter, indoor soccer (which one of the guys in my group coaches) is 2-3 evenings a week.

I've been away two nights a week with work for the past five months; it's always Tuesday-Wednesday at my instigation. Because I didn't want to be travelling with every other bugger Monday or Friday and Thursday is my gaming night and I wasn't going to have that interfere. No one objected to the days I chose.

Quote from: Géza Echs;753415Really? Because you describe regular chatter at my games (well, except for the Asperger's buddy bit), while I have no idea what a "spherical cow" is.

Yes, that's the point.

The conversations of people who are gaming are about practical and silly stuff. The conversations of people who aren't gaming are more likely to be about abstruse theory bullshit.

I know my flexible schedule at work is driving some of my gaming friends mad. They keep rescheduling the Netrunner tournaments at my LGS for me, but every twelve weeks (when a new class begins) they inevitably have to move it again because now I'm suddenly teaching on their night. Same with my friends in the Skype AD&D game I play in - I work seven days a week, and I'll often hit a spike where gaming on the weekend (their preferred days, since they often go for eight or more hours) becomes untenable for a week or two.

Quote from: mcbobbo;753611I agree that if you're out of play for over a month you're not an active gamer.

Why?

What makes a month special? Why not two weeks? Or two months? Or six months? What rational basis is there for using one month as a line of demarcation?

Quote from: mcbobbo;753611. . . [Y]ou have almost 'no excuse' for not being active if you want to be.

I am as active as I choose to be.

I have a gaming group with whom I've played since 2010. We play in short bursts of two or three game nights in a couple of weeks when one of our members is in the States on business every five or six months, and in the interim we get together via Skype once every few months.

In that same time span, I've participated in a couple of game days organised by other gamers I've met online, and refereed and played at three cons.

There's never been a time in my life when I played more frequently than one or two times a month tops, and those periods were notably short.

This utterly ridiculous thread is about branding gamers as less-than-serious by how often they play. The whole idea of using a frequency interval to determine who is among the righteous is pathetic dick-waving.

Quote from: mcbobbo;753611I don't game as much as I should either.

Why the fuck do you think SHOULD is a word that should ever be applied to playing roleplaying games?

I assume he meant "should" in the sense of "given how much I like it."

I mean, if you only sorta like and enjoy something, there's less of a sense of urgency to doing it than if you really like and enjoy it.

Quote from: Haffrung;753470+1. I have a group of five, including myself. All but one have kids. Our priorities are: family > work > leisure (of which gaming is anywhere from #1 to #3 depending on the time of year). Work commitments, and more especially family commitment, don't hold to a tidy schedule.

I question people who have families for whom gaming trumps all of these considerations.

Sorry honey, you'll have to tell your boss you can't go out of town that weekend - D&D.

I don't care if that's the only weekend the campground has sites available - that's D&D night.

The kids can't do soccer this year - the schedule will interfere with D&D.

You can go out for dinner with my parents by yourself - it's D&D night.

I've gamed regularly (one night a week for 3 hours) for the last... hrm... 7 or 8 years? Before that it varied (periods of weekly gaming with periods of no regular games).

We do occasionally miss weeks looking at my log, no more than 2 or 3 a year, due to things like work, etc.

We have a group of 5 (me, inclusive), and I usually GM. If I can't make it, the game doesn't go, but it's a pretty serious commitment -- I work around it as much as possible.

Just about everyone in the game is a professional (one's unemployed) in the same time zone, and the game takes place after the workday ends.

For things like "soccer schedules" (in my case -- little league), we've moved the gaming night. We used to do Sunday nights, now we do Mondays.

I find that the more regularly we play the easier it is to get everyone together: when you're extremely sure your buddies are all going to show up, it makes showing up a priority. We're understanding when someone can't make it, of course, but that's by far the exception.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: mcbobbo;753590How do you have fun gaming when you don't game at all?

By reading gamebooks, frequenting RPG forums, attending conventions and so on.