This is from the Game WISH page:
How do you prioritize gaming in your life to make sure it happens on an ongoing basis? Are there circumstances or scheduling issues that make it more or less likely for you to participate in a gaming session or a campaign? How do you work around these issues, or can you?
Boy, this one is something that I face all the time - trying to find time to do anything. Gaming is one of the things, though, that I make a lot of time for. Probably more than is healthy for me, really. It's actually a nice way to get out of the house. In fact, since a majority of my friends don't frequent bars and clubs and the like, it's really the only excuse we have to get together - to play games.
We have our regular Saturday games, of course. We usually start at 5 and play until 11 or so. It seems like a long time, but we usually don't really get rolling until 7 or so, and dinner comes in there somewhere. So you can see that our priorities are overtaken by the urge to feed.
I think that we might play longer, but there are some in the group that must be home early. The rest of us used to hang around until all hours, but then Bob (our host) started kicking us out for various reasons, such as, "I have to work in the morning," and, "I want some 'quality time' with the wife." Lame.
As is the case with any group, I suspect, we have all sorts of scheduling foibles. Due to a harsh quixotic episode, two of our players won't game on the same night. This leads to the ever-confusing off-on-on week scheduling in which we play game A one week, then game B the following two weeks. The game is completely different each week with different characters, game masters, etc. The running joke about whether I'm playing the bard or the ranger has become quite tiresome. "Don't you have that +5/+5 spell?" "No, you're thinking of the bard."
Playing alternating games is an extreme annoyance. But since this is the only nigh that everyone can get together, that's when we play, and I don't really have a choice.
Also, having our game nights on Saturday leads to many complications with family schedules, since we usually visit Berta's family on weekends. That forces me to miss games every so often. Strangely, fall is our gaming season, and our players are mostly home between the holidays. But these in-between times are the best ones to visit, because then we're home for the holiday. So I miss a lot of games during this time.
Things were better with the game on Thursday, because there was no missing the game for travel except in rare circumstances. But Thursday nights are short due to working on Friday. This strategy could work better if I could sleep at my desk.
Having Abby around hasn't been that difficult to my gaming. Of course, Berta has been great about it. It's just one night a week and she's very forgiving for that. Besides that, when Abby's older I'm sure she'll want to play. Maybe we'll start off with something simple, like TFOS. Something fun and light.
When other people don't show up (a couple of our players are into sports, and like to attend weekend games) we play as if their character didn't ever exist. Sometimes that's difficult, and we end up doing things that we wouldn't normally have done on a week, but that's how we usually play it. One guy, our cleric, never seems to show up for the games where there are undead. Coincidence? Hmm...
So that's it. Roleplaying factors pretty big into my social schedule. I really only have two casual interests/hobbies these days, which are computers and role-playing, so surely they'd factor in above much else. But as I've said, family things usually come first, and I usually just schedule myself out.
Following that note, here are some depressing items about roleplaying coming to an end.
