I have to apologize for the lack of an Inquisition for last week, with some of the things that have been going on for the last few weeks I didn’t even realize it hadn’t been done until Wednesday evening. Two weeks ago Dave posited a question that was asked of us on our Facebook page, “How many women are in your primary gaming group?” With almost 500 people voting, only 21% of you have an all guy gaming group. 33% of you have one woman in your group, the most popular response in the poll, which is very good to hear but was nearly matched by the groups with two women coming in at 28% of the votes. Groups with three women came in with 12%, four women was at 2%, 5-9 women at 1%, and a most excellent three votes for groups with 10 or more women! It’s great to see the numbers of the fairer sex that play games, but there can always be more!
This week I’d like to take a look at how often all of you play tabletop RPGs. My own D&D campaign has been on a short hiatus for four weeks now and will be resuming in early November, but leading into the holiday season I’m scared the schedule is going to be disrupted for the next few adventures. We have been running for a long time on a bi-weekly schedule, which works out very nicely for my players and for having some weekends completely free. Dave’s game was on the opposite weekends, but he has recently gone to weekly (as scheduling permits) alternating between two groups of his players. You can call him a wimp for not wanting to run 8-9 people every session, but I think it was a good move and is playing out to add some interesting dynamism to his ongoing adventures based on which characters can make it.
Schedule can have a large impact on your game, if you run too often players could burn out or you could run into more scheduling issues just due to pure volume of sessions run. If you have too much time between adventures, players forget what happened last and some time has to be spent catching up, but also as a DM you’re not as fresh and can easily forget things or remember something incorrectly. When you start playing less than once a month the adventures end up feeling more like mini-campaigns on their own, which is not a bad thing but it takes on a different feel than a weekly foray into the same game world. All of this basically says, by asking this question we are getting to know your games a bit more in an indirect and interesting way!
[poll id=”144″]
Online only games count as well, even though it’s a digital table you still very much count. If you’re in multiple games at once then just let us know how often you end up playing total, I only reference my campaign because it’s the only regular RPG game that I play in.
I’ve tried to break the periods of time into sensible portions, forgoing terms like “bi-weekly” in favor of “several times a month” because they are more inclusive. I personally think of my game as bi-weekly rather than running 2-3 times a month just because some of my players are only available every other week, so a missed session usually results in a 4 week gap which is only one adventure per month (and makes me a very sad Danny). So wherever your answer falls in the poll, please feel free to share all of the weird days/times that you crazy people get in your roleplaying! I know that I was very surprised when Gabe from Penny Arcade started running his D&D game on Monday evenings, as this seems like the exact opposite from when most of the people I know would prefer to play.
Once every two weeks is when I GM and I am perfectly fine with that. We play for four hours and we’re done. It allows us time to mess around and advance the story. I wouldn’t mind picking up another game I play in but I’m happy with how often I GM.
.-= Tyson J. Hayes´s last blog ..Character Considerations: Naming Your Character =-.
We always do weeknights because my wife has made it clear that weekends are off limits (she’s most definitely not a RPG gamer). Plus, it really gives me something to look forward to during the workweek.
Still, when summer rolls around we sometimes set aside a Saturday or Sunday to game on the back porch and drink some beers. That’s pretty much the pinnacle of awesomeness.
.-= Micah´s last blog ..Session 1 – The Merchant and His Book =-.
I play in 2 weekly games right 🙂 I’ve tried the bi-weekly thing, but that’s just too much time between sessions ;p
We’ve been playing on Friday nights for a while now. At this point, we alternate games, so we play each campaign roughly bi-weekly, although it’s really like we play one for two weeks in a row, another one maybe once a month, then throw in a one-shot.
I wish I could have a regular, stable weekly game again, but scheduling that with adults, some of whom have kids and all of whom have jobs and social lives, is damn near impossible.
Ok, next we want a cross reference on the ‘how old are you’ and ‘how often do you play’ tabulations and get a correlation coefficient.
I was wrestling with the online part unitl you answered the parametric inclusion issue for me. I run an onlie game every Tuesday night, as well as a once per three weeks live session and a once a month live session as well.
Tyson’s comment on the duration of the play (obligatory comment on ‘it’s not how long it is, it’s how often you do it’) is another interesting factor. My online is 1.5-2 hrs, Igbar is 4-6 hours, Miston is 4-5 hours, so they do vary.
Just count the wine bottles.
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited Mistonians =-.
We’re gaming weekly and loving it 😀 Add in my fortnightly DBA wargaming group and that’s me done.
Right now the 4e Endday campaign is taking up all the gametime but usually we divide it out between D&D and superhero gaming with Mutants & Masterminds shared between 3 or us taking it in turn GM’ing. Right now it’s all falling on my shoulders as GM but I’m going to need a break soon – planning a weekly session is tiring on these old braincells, y’know. I’m eager to get back to being a player again in a good old fashioned Superhero session or two.
.-= greywulf´s last blog ..Sir Jason of Voorhees =-.
I wish I could find another group or two to game with, but until I do, I am stuck at playing maybe a couple of times a year with two other players. Mostly we stick to D&D and White Wolf titles, but sometimes we’ll try something out of the ordinary.
.-= Jamie Smith´s last blog ..Sightseeing =-.
I play Thursdays and Saturdays offline… and I have ongoing forum games where I posts several times during the day…
I’d say I play every day, but most people don’t even consider forum play a good game… so I’ll stick with several times a week…
.-= Lunatyk´s last blog ..Show Me The Awesome =-.
We play once a week on a weekday (Monday). We’ve been playing for a few years now and we’ve had to change which day of the week we play a couple times, but once we set a scheduled day everyone just does the best they can to make sure they are free.
These days I only get my play in during conventions, either prepping an adventure beforehand or at the convention itself.
.-= Tyler´s last blog ..Monsters in the Green Mountains =-.
Thanks everyone for the responses!
Micah: You should convert her, ASAP. 😀 I’m surprised she prefers you to play during the week, but I can see the benefits to it!
highbulp: I think 2 weeks is the longest most people can go without completely forgetting things and needing to be reminded, but I still give brief recaps before each of my adventures to catch people up.
Randy Lander: Scheduling is, and most likely always will be, one of the biggest hurdles to tabletop RPGs.
LordVreeg: I’m glad I put in the line about online games then! Well we have seen several years in a row that our primary audience is in their 30’s and from the looks of this poll the biggest answers are between 1/week and several times per week. Eventually we’ll combine all of our polls into a singular entity known as “the reader” that encompasses all of your feelings, opinions, and statistics. I shall call it Cthulhu.
Greywulf: I don’t think I could handle a steady running weekly game unless I had a lot of time to lay things out before it started, but that would lead to a certain amount of railroading on my part which is something I hate doing.
Jamie: Where are you located, perhaps we can help you find another gaming group! 🙂
Lunatyk: We still don’t have anyone who has responded as gaming everyday, so you’re probably the closest. Forum play is definitely a bizarre middle ground when it comes to RPG/storytelling.
abouelse: Sticking to a set day is what I’m trying with my game when it picks back up in November, but I’m scared the Holidays will do that in quickly….
Tyler: Con games still stand out as some of the most fun adventures I play in, probably because of the variety when compared to any of the ongoing games I’ve played in or just because it’s a one-shot everyone wings it and has more fun as a result.
Since 4e started, I’ve been running a weekly RPGA LFR game, which is well over a year now. We take it slow and roleplay a lot, so we’re just about to 8th level.
I run a homebrew on Fridays since April, 4e, and it’s an intense, epic game with deep subplots and well-built characters. We’re just to 5th level.
I play in a homebrew on Sunday evenings, 4e, where I love the Virtuous Paladin build for my eladrin. That started at 4th level and we play about 3 Sunday evenings a month.
I credit 4e, and the DDI tools, especially the monster builder, which makes it easy to prep mentally for the game over the week and sit down and do the crunch in about an hour or two the night before. I tend to tweak the RPGA stuff just to flesh out more roleplay and a little more intricate NPCs, but generally, it’s been good material–and I own all the Dungeon Tiles they use for their maps. 🙂
@Bartoneus: Forum play might be bizarre, but I do adore it…
.-= Lunatyk´s last blog ..Show Me The Awesome =-.
With my previous face2face gaming group, we used to “try” to play once a month … And it ended up beeing a PITA to schedule (everyone beeing a working husband or dad).
But for a year now we have been playing online with maptool … almost every week. I even found a second group where I’m not the DM !
I’m currently running a campaign that meets on Sunday nights, as this was the only night that (most) people could make it.
The group is starting to get pretty large now (maybe as many as 15 people have expressed interest in playing!) so I might need to look at making two groups and going alternating weekends for each group.