Quote from: Exploderwizard;749808Why oh why are you voluntarily doing something so frequently that you hate?

No gaming is better than bad gaming.

Well, a couple years ago I started a gaming store.  And I'm significantly financially tied to it right now.  And running games is part of how I'm making it work.  Running games for whiney, obnoxious, vulgar teenagers who hate accepting the consequences for their character's actions and want to jump games every session even when I prepped for what we started last session.

As a result I'm constantly unprepared and not doing the best job of DMing.  At the moment they're on an AD&D 1e kick so maybe I can make it stick.  One kid even bought the rules.

But yeah, making a business out of your hobby sure sucks the joy right out of it.

Regular weekly Pathfinder game.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;748863Thing is, I have seen posts by people at Big Throbbing Purple (not trying to turn this into a thread about them, just bear with me) where they proudly say "NO I am NOT a 'gamer'!" and these same people will pontificate about gaming, about what is Proper and what is Unacceptable, and so on.

Why would somebody DO such a thing?!?
It'd be like, "I don't like motorcycles!", while being on the Harley-Davidson website. Ok, fine, go somewhere else and find something you do like, and we'll keep talking about motorcycles, here.

Seriously, why piss in some ones Cheerios, if you don't have to?:banghead:

Apparently this is a confessional topic. "Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been X days since my last session."

I'm a gamer, I play RPGs, I GM and play. I run two current campaigns, have a third on hiatus, and am a player in three others (four by tomorrow), one play by post right here. How many benedictions am I lauded?

Quote from: Koltar;749770Last Game session I ran was in January. Wednesday January 31st to be specific.

 Its mostly been an issue of scheduling - got 4 to 7 people that WANT to game - we just can't make the schedules match
 up.

- Ed C.

If you say "We're playing fortnightly Mondays, minimum 2 players", I suspect you could get a campaign going no problem.

I expect my players to tell me if they're not coming, but I'm happy to run with between 2 & 7 (1 on 1 can feel a bit icky...), so I can combine a fairly high pressure job with two fortnightly tabletop games.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;749808Why oh why are you voluntarily doing something so frequently that you hate?

No gaming is better than bad gaming.

I've learned so much from the bad games I've played, definitely wouldn't want those hours back. OTOH if the GM is really bad, I only play once. I'll play a flawed game for several months, though.

Quote from: Gabriel2;749823I'd like to add something to this topic.

How long since you last gamed as a GM?

How long since you last gamed as a player?

Three weeks ago I gamed on the player side of the screen.  For the past two weekends I've gamed on the GM side of the screen.

I GM twice a week on average - Sunday or Monday tabletop, Thursday or Friday online chatroom. My last game was chatroom Thursday, then tabletop Monday, then tabletop (unusually) the day before - so three last week.

I think my last game as a player was tabletop Labyrinth Lord January or February this year; it was an irregular ca monthly game.

Quote from: Ladybird;749859I'd think much worse of someone that blew off their real life for a game, than someone who dropped out of a game due to their real life.

It's as important as any other hobby. It's as important as my wife's Rugby (IMO, doubt she'd agree). It's not as important as doing my job well. But it really pisses me off when people blow off a game, with other people relying on them, for other equally or more trivial leisure interests.

Quote from: CRKrueger;749950So teachers who get the summer off or take a research sabbatical are no longer teachers?  Interesting.  Someone call Webster.

I guess I'd go with "haven't taught for a year" as the divider.

Quote from: S'mon;749971It's as important as any other hobby. It's as important as my wife's Rugby (IMO, doubt she'd agree). It's not as important as doing my job well. But it really pisses me off when people blow off a game, with other people relying on them, for other equally or more trivial leisure interests.

I think this is a reasonable enough position to take, depending on how you judge "equally or more trivial leisure interests". If someone blows off a game because they want to attend some rare, one-night-only event that only comes around once or twice a year at most that's fair enough. (Like, if a player of mine were a huge Prince fan and they had this once-in-a-lifetime VIP ticket to a Prince concert, I'm not going to ask them to bin the ticket for the sake of the game.)

If you blow off the weekly game to hang out with people you hang out with on a regular basis anyway, or sit on your couch playing videogames, or whatever then I have less sympathy. (Unless the reason you want to stay home is because you have a cold or something, in which case yeah, please stay at home and avoid infecting the rest of us, we appreciate it and want you to get well soon.) It'd also bug me if it turned out the thing you were blowing us off for could have been rescheduled, but you didn't reschedule for our sakes, because fuck you, you knew Wednesday was game night.

EDIT: Anyway, updated my signature to include most recent session. I don't give two shits how regularly you game but since it seems some people care how often people on here game I might as well head them off this way.

Quote from: Gabriel2;749823How long since you last gamed as a GM?

5 days ago.

Quote from: Gabriel2;749823How long since you last gamed as a player?

Nearly 2 years ago.

Quote from: Warthur;749973I don't give two shits how regularly you game but since it seems some people care how often people on here game I might as well head them off this way.

I'm not overly concerned.  Just idle curiousity.  I know I go through dry spells where I just don't want to do the RPG thing because of just feeling down or not having the spark of imagination firing like it should.  I hope I'm not alone.

I'm in a Monday night regular group, currently GMing the Great Pendragon Campaign, though I'm running an unrelated short 20s scenario this Monday then someone else will run for a few weeks - we just ended the Romance period and I need to catch my breath and prep the next phase of the GPC.

Quote from: Gabriel2;749982I'm not overly concerned.  Just idle curiousity.  I know I go through dry spells where I just don't want to do the RPG thing because of just feeling down or not having the spark of imagination firing like it should.  I hope I'm not alone.

We have short hiatuses throughout the year on games I run, mostly because while I love gaming, I'm also not a very social person, and there are times where a month will come along that I don't want to interact with people. (And no, I have no problems with my social skills, I just enjoy being alone a lot).

If someone else is running a game, I'll probably go, because I don't like being a no show for an ongoing, but there is a lot of times I'm the only person running.

Quote from: CRKrueger;749950So teachers who get the summer off or take a research sabbatical are no longer teachers?  Interesting.  Someone call Webster.

Oh, come on! This isn't a universal definition of "gamer" to put in the dictionary of RPG terms - this was something that Pundit laid out in the moment in order to have a specified term to ask his question so we wouldn't get three pages of "What is a gamer, anyway?"

If you can think of a better definition for the purposes of this thread, then argue it, and stop being so needlessly persnickety.

//Panjumanju

I have GMed every other week on a regular basis for the last 20 years (since I got out of the Army).