Greetings to all...
Except with very rare exceptions, I pretty much prefer that players do not bring their boyfriend / girlfirend along to play unless that person is a experienced RPGer and the two of them have been togather for longer than a year.
Sounds rigid, eh? -- Let me tell you why:
1) Players with a relatively new Significant Other (SO) are often afraid of offending the other person and therefore will always cooperate their SO's PC in all situations. And if something does go wrong, there will be an extended break so that the two of them can go somewhere and talk. This is a pain in the ass. They will also often play their character the way they think the SO would want them to play it.
2) If the SO is not an experienced player, that's a problem in itself plus often the first person will try to tell the 2nd person how to play or what to do (trying to "help" them) which can result in a conflict. Time for another extended break so they can work it out.
3) Sometimes the person's SO can become jealous when his/her character (Sigh!!!) is talking with a NPC of the opposite gender. Don't tell me it can't happen; I've seen it happen three times. It was totally absurd.
4) The GM often finds themself in the role of playing 'relationship counselor' just to get the game going again after some emotional mishap.
5) The person may really like their SO, but sometimes everyone else thinks that they're a real bitch / slimebag / moron / asshole. But, since they're a couple, the whole playing group is stuck with that person. Yay.
6) If the two are in a fight in real life, chances are one or both of them may not show up at the game. Even worse, if they break up their character is gone forever.
Now I know (and have played with) many people who were couples who were really good players, worked well togather, and never had any of these problems. But the having these problems happen just a few times was enough of a clusterfuck to make me include the aforementioned rule.
What has been your experience?
Quote from: Blazing Donkey;495312What has been your experience?
Varies. Depends on the maturity of the couple, and of their relationship, as should be apparent in most things you mention. But you're certainly right that relationships as such are somewhat problematic since, mature or not, they often can't help porting (parts of) their problems over to a game where social interaction is key.
Meh, seen very little of this. Bar a little out of character-ish bitching from one my very good friends girlfriend, who's ten years younger than him - and that sometimes shows, I've never experienced this. I have played with my own wife as a player, and with gm's who had their girlfriends as part of the group - never an issue.
But yeah, your examples sure seem to suck.
I'm fine with it except when it crosses the GM / PC divide. Just because of the power dynamics overlaying one another. I would also prefer the person wants to be there to game instead of just spend time with the other person, I don't care enough to kick people out for it or avoid games where they're playing.
Quote from: Blazing Donkey;495312What has been your experience?
Though I can see how your examples may happen, I've never had such experience. People is welcome at my table, SOs or not, as long as they're normal, polite persons.
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;495323(...)I would also prefer the person wants to be there to game instead of just spend time with the other person(...)
Indeed, otherwise the SO will just end up trying to distract the player from the game to get attention which gets terribly annoying pretty fast.
I generally dislike couples bitching at eachother when among friends or acquaintances, not just in a gaming situation, but it gets particularly annoying when they do it in-game.
I've had a few couples over the years in my crews and there was never any issues. They were gamers so that could have made a difference. Even when certain members of my crew have hooked up and it didn't work out, it never caused any disruptions. Guess I have been lucky with the people I roll with. I have heard some horror stories, though.
Regards,
David R
My wife is one of my regular players. I've not heard a complaint at her gaming with me, and/or when others GM other than "She is silly.." which is often true of her characters. The only complaint I have is she doesn't get Marvel Saga--one of the easier systems to explain to others. Part of it is she is synesthetic, and numbers have their own colors. So Marvel Saga's cards are all kind of confusing to her.
My sister and her husband plays, a good friend and his wife play (the wife is erratic, due to her work schedule, and she likes totally different gaming than most of the rest of us. She tend to like "high school hijinks" style gaming, to more serious approaches of play.)
Another friend has brought his girlfriend, who we are slowly introducing to play. I'm generally alright with SO's, the only times I'm not is when all they can DO is distract from play. This happens a lot more with younger folks than those of us who are in their 30's.
Of course my general rule is that I treat everyone--including my wife the same. She gave me a hard time about that as a joke "but I sleep with you!" despite that (not going to happen) threat, I still treat her the same. It works for us.
I don't outright oppose it, but it's an issue that's rarely come up. Maybe twice in twenty years? I might be forgetting an instance. In both cases it was a spouse, and they played for a few months, were treated like any other player and in both cases simply lost interest and moved on to other hobbies.
Varies. Had a woman who came to spy on her then b/f (hi Ken) and knew D&D because her brothers played it in the 70s and 80s and she ate it up.
She quit once she figured out he wasn't going out to score coke and blowjobs (at least not at our game...) :(
A pal who became a long-time friend (still is; Hi Gregg!) brought his g/f to the game and I thought she was going to be either a sit and watch TV/read Cosmo type or a flip the dice around, giggle, and say "WHUT do I do, now?" every other round.
She was a monster of a gamer, and still is, and just floored us all with her gaming prowess.
Have seen my share of bad g/fs or wives at the table, though.
Girlfriends and wives aren't any more likely to cause trouble than players who are 'good buddies' with the GM... or other cliquish behavior.
Traditionally, my table has been populated by bachelors and dudes whose spouses weren't interested (like mine). My wife is very supportive of all my hobbies though, so no complaints. FWIW, I don't think I've gamed with a female since the 90's.
Yea, it varies a lot.
Teh Wife games with me all the time. In my HM4 game that I GM, she's died more than any other player. Not because of any other reason other than she plays a Fighter and her character is typically right up front in the action taking damage and in the thick of things.
In the other HM4 game that we play together she plays the Cleric and I play the ILL/Th. Our characters have disagreed at times but never bickered. We don't argue during a game, that's the time that we spend wanting to have fun.
Now, I've played with couples that did bicker and I've played with couples where the GM gave the SO preferential treatment so bad it was annoying...
Like most things when dealing with people, it all depends on the people involved. You can't really pigeon-hole people based on a few bad or good experiences... ;)
My wife games in my group. And Nate and Sara are practically married. And Amy and Tiffany are a couple. Chris and Jayme (married) might join the group soon. Only two of the group are single.
I have no problem with spouses/SOs in my games.
Most of the spouses really like their SO being at our table. They know that we're not going to let anyone end up dead, or in jail. We're way too caught in our nerditude to bother chasing tail, so no danger there. All in all a perfect way to let the SO out of the house, but with no real risk.
The wife plays in both lives groups.
Igbar has 2 couples, one married, one not. 4 women, 5 guys in that group, as of last count.
PLayers have always been allowed to bring SO's, since they like to play with my boy or work on other hobbies. and one of the newer players used to just come and watch, she's now a player. as it is supposed to be.
I should point out that Mrs. TheDungeonDelver games with us pretty regularly, except for (most) Champions/Hero System games because that's a 20+ year "guy's night"
Played for a few years with a husband and wife in the group, they were okay. The husband designed games, great gamer, good GM, liked to run weird stuff, a wide variety of things. Just a good all around gamer. The wife had some option paralysis, and if the husband was running the game, he let her dither far more than I did when I was running. A good gamer otherwise - smart as a whip, she'd just always try to find the best solution, when 'good enough' would do just as well.
In a different group, some years earlier, a different husband and wife team, the wife was just terrible. She'd make careless or just mystifyingly stupid decisions, and when she took damage as a result she'd just about throw a fit - to the point of near apoplexy if she thought she'd be killed. We'd have kicked her out if her husband wasn't such a good guy. Felt sorry for him.
And one husband and wife pair, the wife was just a much better gamer than the husband, who was a bit of a tool. She was inventive, funny, and came up with interesting solutions to problems. He was just one of those people who try to be inventive and intelligent, and just come up short - devising overly complex solutions that take forever to implement and are full of failure points, then getting frustrated when people won't sit around and wait on him, or his perfect plans inevitably blow up in his face.
---
So, the individuals in the husband-wife pairs I've gamed with have been pretty standard, for the most part. I have experienced the 'they suck, but their partner rocks, so we'll put up with them' dilemma.
My ex-wife is a gamer. We met at a gaming/comic store. She was quite good.
I am trying to get a solo Pathfinder game off the ground for my wife. But scheduling is tough.
Quote from: Tetsubo;495564My ex-wife is a gamer. We met at a gaming/comic store. She was quite good.
I am trying to get a solo Pathfinder game off the ground for my wife. But scheduling is tough.
Scheduling for one player is tough? :idunno:
I've never had any problem with wives or long-term girlfriends; more often with very short-term girlfriends, and there the problem is not with them, but with the idiot that brings her to the game she has NO interest in playing. He's desperate for her to like it so he pushes her into being there, and its awkward as she clearly doesn't want to play and it has no appeal, while her soon to be ex-boyfriend tries to show off the game to her and spoonfeed her at every fucking step to the point that his "hard sell" of gaming guarantees that not only will she have a bad experience, but she will never ever like RPGs from then on.
But other than that, SOs that actually want to be there, play, and try the game, have never ever been a problem.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;495734I've never had any problem with wives or long-term girlfriends; more often with very short-term girlfriends, and there the problem is not with them, but with the idiot that brings her to the game she has NO interest in playing. He's desperate for her to like it so he pushes her into being there, and its awkward as she clearly doesn't want to play and it has no appeal, while her soon to be ex-boyfriend tries to show off the game to her and spoonfeed her at every fucking step to the point that his "hard sell" of gaming guarantees that not only will she have a bad experience, but she will never ever like RPGs from then on.
But other than that, SOs that actually want to be there, play, and try the game, have never ever been a problem.
RPGPundit
This mirrors my own experiences.
My core D&D group is composed by two couples, and I never had problems.
Actually the current situation is quite wild. One husband is playing a sex-addicted wizard. His wife plays a male elf who has a crush for my female druid. The female player in the other couple plays a Paladin fearful of losing her virginity because she doesn't want to lose her Unicorn mount, while the male plays an halfling uninterested in sex.
I had a problem only once with a couple. She did seemed interested in gaming, but after a while we got a flurry of excuses ("My dad is hospitalized, our car is in the shop for repairs, our car is hospitalized, his dad is in the shop for repairs...") We missed a month of sessions before realizing that they were making up excuses because she didn't want to play anymore.
[We didn't realize it at first, because once *I* caused the group to lose a month of sessions due to a chain of misfortunate last-minute accidents.]
This of course made us angry and we stopped inviting them altogether. Repaying politeness with lies is not what gaming should be about... :rolleyes:
Quote from: Tetsubo;495564My ex-wife is a gamer. We met at a gaming/comic store.
No comment.
;)