Quote from: Radu the Wanderer[...]That is--- Do you want to game WITH THESE PEOPLE?  If you can't get along with someone socially or casually, you probably won't be happy in a gaming situation.  It seems obvious but there's always that guy nobody likes but nobody wants to let on that nobody likes them.  I call him Gamer Bob.  There's a Gamer Bob in every group--- the guy who's on the outside of the clique, who's joined late, or who people can't really get along with generally but do alright in a gaming situation.  Hell, I think I have a Gamer Bob in my current group, too, but we're just getting into the swing of it so momentum is still building.  I'll have to see.

I was like that at first, but eventually I became enough of a bastard that I didn't mind one bit of saying "Sorry dude, I just don't think your personnality jives with my group". My campaigns are fun and spotless because of that.

And if he starts crying, you can always throw in an "It's not you, it's me".

I recently went through a long dry spell initiated by one player going completely nuts and ruining everyone's fun to the point where no one felt much like gaming anymore. Then I relocated, and had kids. My best friend lives in the same general ara now (1hr drive) and we tried to put something together a couple of times, but it just didn't happen. Recently we decided to try again, but with a new system- the first session was rough. Really rough. Aside from the slow page flipping rule search, there was one major problem. We invited another old friend over- he hadn't gamed since his teens and was really interested, or seemed to be anyway. He took forever to create a character- in contrast I did my first character in this system in less than 15 minutes less than an hour after I bought the game. Slow character gen isn't such a horrific offense though, but in this case it just added to the mounting annoyance. He named his character Mucas Maximus and it all went downhill at light speed from there. He didn't play like a fourteen year old boy- he played like the worst kind of fourteen year old boy. He didn't even try to get into the spirit of things. It was like he wanted to role play, but was somehow too cool to engage. Four hours of misery ensued.
After a long talk, my best friend and I decided to ditch him and the campaign he murdered in the womb. Now we're into our third session of something else- same system, just a different genre- it's just the two of us, but that's not so bad. Sure, I'd like some more players, but, considering the way things can go, I think I want to have a bit more momentum before I introduce any noobs.

I have discovered that I can get an *awesome* gaming experience with Skype and some tools (online dice-rollers, desktop sharing software). As such, I've been able to set up games reliably with people thousands of miles away.

In fact, some good friends just moved to Canada--rather than the not-gaming we were doing f2f (because they lived 2hrs south) I think we can set up something reliable with them two time-zones distant.

I think the article is dead on: you need the same time commitment. On the other hand, since telepresence has never been better, it's easier to find new people than it ever was.

-Marco

Kids make you young Colonel - I'll say that much. In my current group the oldest player is 18.  I'm 31. The gap is at times uncomfortable, but for the most part I just demature a bit and roll with it. The game is still fun, though it's irksome to lose a player to a grounding by their parents.

My gaming group all enjoys the 'sport', mostly because we all have the same general expectation: It's something fun to do while sitting around and socializing (drinking).

Well, most of the time. There have been a couple campains that were serious and a lot more rewarding, but we're too goofy to run every campain as though our lives depended on it.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonAdd in having moved 2600 miles 3 years ago, and then having moved about 200 miles from where I initially moved to about 6 months ago, and it becomes even more difficult to establish new roots. It isn't a matter of not trying. Sometimes circumstances make it very tough.

It shouldn't be too hard to find a group within your age range down there. I've tried probably two dozen groups in the past 3 years trying to find a good fit, and consistency.  Most groups I've found are all in the 30-45 age range.  I've had more trouble finding players in the mid 20ies range than anything else.  And number of groups and geographic region hasn't been too much of a problem.  

With things like Yahoo DnD groups, college clubs, Meetup.com, Conventions, and group finders on EN World, WotC, RPG.net, etc, I've experienced a wide variety of groups.  

It's harder to find one whose style and available time meshes with yours in my experience, more so than the age range.  Being comfortable with strangers is a challenge, and getting past the "this isn't my familiar old group of friends" can be tricky.  A lot of groups seem to want the "old school friends" feel to them, and aren't always welcoming to new blood.

Quote from: PookaKids make you young Colonel - I'll say that much. In my current group the oldest player is 18.  I'm 31. The gap is at times uncomfortable, but for the most part I just demature a bit and roll with it. The game is still fun, though it's irksome to lose a player to a grounding by their parents.

Heh, had a game awhile back with a 13 year old boy and 14 year old girl in with a bunch of late 20s and early 30s folks.  They worked out pretty well all told and brought some enthusiasm to the old guard.  And it's kind of ironic that the group fell apart due to childish behaviour, and it wasn't coming from the actual children.