At last night's game session, as we finished a one-off and discussed canning the RuneQuest campaign and trying something else, one of the gamers there made an interesting commment. He said that it seemed like the Christmas/New Year break causes a lot of disruption in game groups, members come and go and campaigns are dropped, it takes some time to find the new one you want to settle on. He wondered if this happened to a lot of groups.

I said that I thought that yes, this happens a lot. If for example there's a player who's been a bit pissed off about the group or campaign, as they have a break of some weeks they brood on it, and the "hmmm, not so good," turns into "you bastards!" So one payer goes and another player is found, and then you effectively have a new group, and it takes you a while to settle in and find out what sort of game and style everyone enjoys together now.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of thing? Or is it more general than just holiday period chaos? Sometimes it seems like there are groups playing years-long D&D campaigns, and everyone else is playing 1d6 sessions of one game, then 1d6 sessions of another, and so on.

Yeah, any break can cause problems like that.  I'd say if two or more sessions are missed the possibility of something changing grows much higher.  I'm not sure what it is either, but generally attribute it to folk just getting out of the swing of things and forgetting about whatever it is they were doing.

As a student it's the final exam periods and odd breaks that tend to do it to me.  A month off for exams isn't unusual.

My group's "break"is usually in the summer. One of our most active players goes to seminars and pagan festivals and a vacation with her husband. Two or three of the rest of us go to Gen*Con to help with the Klingon Jail & Bail for charity.
 So, for us its late June to late August for our unintentional "break" each year.

 Christmas & New Year's ?? We all were invited to same New Year's eve party that was hosted by one of my  players.  Since our usual  game session is every other week - theres never been a major break caused by the Holidays. .

- E.W.C.

To be honest, for nigh on 27 years of gaming, summer has always been the campaign killer for me. Nothing says "Stop playing your games and go outside!" like warm weather.

Holidays can be a problem but noting compared to a stretch of nice weather.

YMMV,
Bill

I've certainly had games killed by the Christmas break, sometimes ones that everyone was really enjoying too.  By the time we all get back sometimes the momentum is just plain gone.

My groups have survived the chaos of holidays/winter finals, but I'll tell you - do NOT have a cliff-hanger ending go off just before the holidays, and trying picking it up in, say, mid-January. (Don't remember if that's what I did, but there was a very unfortunate pause in there.)

A good solid group will survive the holidays, it always happened to us during the summer months.

What surprised us one year was during the Dartford summer festival, we all turned up unannounced and ran into each other, and ending up watching live music to the early hours while drinking Kent dry.

Quote from: HinterWeltSummer has always been the campaign killer for me. Nothing says "Stop playing your games and go outside!" like warm weather.

Agreed.  I've started engineering campaigns so they end in May; otherwise they sometimes don't see July.

Holidays have always played havok with my game groups.  Even in my heyday of gaming, it became a given that no gaming was going to be possible from about mid-November to  mid-January.  Everyone would be going on trips, visiting relatives they never normally saw, or were just always busy accompanying people on shopping outings.  If anything, the holiday gaming rut gets worse as an adult.

I've never had much problem with summer games.  Of course, in Texas people generally don't want to spend a lot of time in 105 degree summertime heat.

Thanks for the replies so far. It seems to be pretty much the consensus that holiday periods mean no gaming. But you've not answered the second part of my question - how does your game group go after that holiday period?

Do you just jump straight back into the same old long campaign? Do you lose a member or two, replace them, and then back into the long campaign? Do you bump around from game to game for a while looking for something to settle on? Does the group implode entirely? Or what?

Quote from: JimBobOzThanks for the replies so far. It seems to be pretty much the consensus that holiday periods mean no gaming. But you've not answered the second part of my question - how does your game group go after that holiday period?

My old D&D group used to break for Christmas, which I suppose is understandable.  Although, it used to annoy me a bit.  I understand that many people are unavailable for gaming during the holidays, but I always thought it'd be worthwhile at least doing a quick check with everyone.  Instead, it was always just assumed no-one would be available.
 
It was not uncommon to break in late Novemeber and wait until mid February to get back into the game.  Maybe two months with no gaming.  In one case, we didn't get back into the game until March and even then, it was only because I volunteered to run a couple of one-shots.  After running two weeks in a row, I asked who would be available for a third week only to be told by one of the players "I think I need to take a bit of a break."  Three months with no gaming followed by two sessions in two weeks and apparently he was already starting to feel burnt out
 
Our sessions were fairly slow and dull at the best of times, but after Christmas they were particularly bad.  Players would forget the names of everyone's characters, forget the NPCs and forget the plot.