You never heard of that? Seriously? It's... it's the foundations of the hobby. It's how it started. It's how many of us got regular game groups - have an open table, after weeks or months see that the same 4-5 people keep showing up, then head off somewhere else.

Never any social geektogethers or conventions, either, then?

Do you guys all live at home with your parents giving you strict curfews, or something?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;875227Do you guys all live at home with your parents giving you strict curfews, or something?

I am totally picturing you saying that, then spraying your mouth in silver and screaming "Witness Me!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KlSuGNt8e4

EDIT: Oh, and my mom says that just because you hurt my feelings that I can stay out until 9:35 pm tonight! Take that Kyle Aaron!

I run my games as an open table with only certain people (maybe 16 or so) having received an invitation.  When a game happens, every knows that there needs to be 3 people showing up or we'll do something else.  So far it hasn't happened and I'm regularly getting 6-9 with maybe 5 people that are there for every session without fail.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;875227You never heard of that? Seriously? It's... it's the foundations of the hobby. It's how it started. It's how many of us got regular game groups - have an open table, after weeks or months see that the same 4-5 people keep showing up, then head off somewhere else.

Never any social geektogethers or conventions, either, then?

Do you guys all live at home with your parents giving you strict curfews, or something?

My first gaming group was at Uni, someone owned RuneQuest and offered to show us how to play.
My second gaming group was my brother, his best friend, his best friend's step-brother, a married couple and me, as they had played D&D at Uni.
My third gaming group was people I met at Uni.
My fourth gaming group was some people I found through hearing about a HeroQuest group in Birmingham.

At Uni, I don't think I ever saw any roleplaying done as part of a club or society, although it happened. As I had an established group already, I didn't need another group.

I went to a RPG club once and it didn't suit me at all, no continuity, lots of people I didn't know, games I didn't really want to play, or games that I wanted to play but not on a piecemeal basis.

At the conventions I go to, people offer games, other people join them and play them. I don't see them as open table games, really.

Maybe my experience is different to a lot of other people's. However, it's how I've been playing for over 30 years and is all I know.

Quote from: soltakss;875323At Uni, I don't think I ever saw any roleplaying done as part of a club or society, although it happened. As I had an established group already, I didn't need another group.

I went to a RPG club once and it didn't suit me at all, no continuity, lots of people I didn't know, games I didn't really want to play, or games that I wanted to play but not on a piecemeal basis.

At the conventions I go to, people offer games, other people join them and play them. I don't see them as open table games, really.

My first gaming group in college was large and often had three or more DMs running. I never went to a general RPG club that played varied RPGs that I might not want to play; but I have played a lot at local game stores when they specifically schedule a game I am interested in playing, usually with multiple tables.

Too much turnover can kill it just like too many absences in the other approaches can; I quit one game store's Wednesday nights because for weeks in a row I wasn't playing with the same person, player or DM, and even experienced the same encounter twice at different tables. But mostly it's been pretty good; the game is almost never cancelled and nobody beats you up if your other obligations mean you can't be there. And it's a good place to evaluate new players to invite to more committed games elsewhere.

Quote from: soltakss;875323I went to a RPG club once and it didn't suit me at all, no continuity...

Open table games, at least the way I prefer them, do have continuity, even if the roster of players is ever-changing.  The key difference is that the game's primary focus (and thus the focus of continuity) is The World rather than The Party.  In the ideal case (if you can get enough players...), you have multiple parties of PCs, each with (at least the potential for) shifting membership and pursuing their own goals, which may or may not intersect and could even put them at odds with each other.  ("I heard that the other group found a huge pile of gold last week, but didn't have any carts to bring it back...  Let's get a cart and grab that gold before they can go back to it!")

Of course, that may still be something that doesn't interest you.

Quote from: soltakss;875323Maybe my experience is different to a lot of other people's. However, it's how I've been playing for over 30 years and is all I know.

The way you play is definitely common, and almost certainly the most common model today, but my understanding is that, in the very beginning, you'd have groups of 30 or 40 players in a shared setting and a randomish 10 or 15 of them would show up at any given session.  Over the years, the hobby has evolved into mostly smaller groups of more consistent players, but I prefer to at least attempt to revive the earlier style.

Quote from: nDervish;875518Open table games, at least the way I prefer them, do have continuity, even if the roster of players is ever-changing.  The key difference is that the game's primary focus (and thus the focus of continuity) is The World rather than The Party.  In the ideal case (if you can get enough players...), you have multiple parties of PCs, each with (at least the potential for) shifting membership and pursuing their own goals, which may or may not intersect and could even put them at odds with each other.  ("I heard that the other group found a huge pile of gold last week, but didn't have any carts to bring it back...  Let's get a cart and grab that gold before they can go back to it!")

The club I went to seemed to be playing different things each week, as one-offs, rolling up PCs each time. At least, that's how it seemed to me.

I prefer campaigns with a core set of players/PCs. Constantly rolling up new PCs for new scenarios would drive me nuts, I'm afraid.

Quote from: nDervish;875518The way you play is definitely common, and almost certainly the most common model today, but my understanding is that, in the very beginning, you'd have groups of 30 or 40 players in a shared setting and a randomish 10 or 15 of them would show up at any given session.  Over the years, the hobby has evolved into mostly smaller groups of more consistent players, but I prefer to at least attempt to revive the earlier style.

OK, my first group sort-of had this, as we had a core of 6 players and another 4 or so who came in and out of the game, so I see where you are coming from.

Quote from: soltakss;875323I went to a RPG club once and it didn't suit me at all, no continuity, lots of people I didn't know, games I didn't really want to play, or games that I wanted to play but not on a piecemeal basis.

So you have experienced and know of open game tables, you just didn't like them.

That's fine. You like what you like. I was just perplexed at the idea of someone had never even heard of the idea. I mean lots of gamers don't like D&D, that's fine, but it would be weird to be a gamer who's never heard of it.

Quote from: nDervish;875518The way you play is definitely common, and almost certainly the most common model today, but my understanding is that, in the very beginning, you'd have groups of 30 or 40 players in a shared setting and a randomish 10 or 15 of them would show up at any given session.  Over the years, the hobby has evolved into mostly smaller groups of more consistent players, but I prefer to at least attempt to revive the earlier style.

I started playing in 1976.  I have never GMed an open table, I've never been in a campaign with one, and I doubt I'd like it.  Of course I heard and knew of them, but suggesting that open tables were some kind of monolithic ur-style is crocked.  As with so many other aspects of gaming, people just assume that the standard way of doing things in their own gaming circles, at the time they started with RPGs, is The Way It All Started, world without end, amen.

Open game tables is the way it started, and the way many people do it still - I've done it myself. This doesn't mean everyone has to do it now. But it's an idea that should not be dismissed out of hand.

Reasons for at least considering an open game table are the same as those starting this thread: players are sometimes absent, and they do move on. If you're entirely insular then at some point you may find your game group has not enough players left.

So it can be worth being open to new players to some degree. Remember, just because you let them come once doesn't mean you have to let them come a second time. If they don't meet your exacting standards for gaming excellence, send them away.

What I've commonly seen is that people use a club or open game table as a way to spend a few weeks choosing players for a long-term closed game group. It's one of the obstacles to setting up an rpg club.

My game groups in recent years have usually been made up of people met at the Geektogethers I organised, and people from open game tables.

The Geektogethers came about because I saw that most gamers are quite insular, it's all very "stranger! danger!" which works fine for a bit, then someone gets a new job, marries, divorces, moves house or just gets sick of gaming for a bit. And with that person absent maybe someone else leaves - maybe that guy was someone else's ride, maybe it's just not as much fun without that one guy, whatever. So your happy group of 5 is now 3 and things are a bit flat.

But, I thought, in fact usually in each group there's someone who is in or was recently in another game group. And most of us know a few people who used to game and could with some persuasion come back to it. So your little group of 3-5 actually knows 10-15 other gamers. But because they're insular they don't see them.

So I said, let's all meet at the pub to have a few drinks and tell some tall gaming stories, pass the word around - and I'd mention it online. And I booked a booth. That's all I did. And we'd get anything from 10 to I think 25 gamers show up. Always someone found a new gamer for their group, or started a new game group.

The open game table I've done often, most recently at GoodGames in Melbourne. It's basically a CCG shop but does have some rpg stuff for sale, has maybe 20 tables, usually 8 are CCGs, 6 are wargames, and 6 are rpg sessions. So you sit down to play and people wander past and ask you about it. Occasionally someone joins in.

In practice you don't find a different 5-6 people every session, instead there are 3-4 regulars and 1-2 people who drop in for 1-4 sessions and then drift off.

Obviously this means you can't have profoundly thespy games. But most of us don't do that anyway. And if you have an ongoing plot, 1-2 of the people there will have no clue or interest in that plot. But let's be honest, that's normal for closed game groups, too, there's always someone who's just there to roll dice and eat snacks. And this is true of the great stories of movies and book, too - someone will be Frodo and Sam, and someone will be Merry and Pippin. 1-3 main characters and then a bunch of sidekicks.

I had some regular players at GoodGames who kept complaining about the noise and smell and the other geeks. They don't game at all now.

Maybe 1 in 6 of those who came were annoying or weird enough we didn't want them to come again. Usually they knew they weren't welcome, the dislike was mutual so they just went away without anyone having to say anything. One time one of the less regular players brought some guy who was his cousin or something, he was apparently retarded or Aspy or whatever, his mother hung around very pleased that he had friends, but he was too weird and nasty for us (his character doing weird murderous stuff, I don't remember the details), and it seemed we were being used as a group therapy class, so we told his cousin not to bring him anymore. That was about the most offensive incident, not really enough to warrant "stranger! danger!"

I would still be doing this at GoodGames, but having a business and child at home means I can't go out regularly, so I host a game instead. Julian is from a Geektogether 5 years ago, Dan from a Geektogether followed up by an AD&D one-off, Theo from the GG open game table, and John a sidekick of Theo's. Former members Paul, John, Grant etc were open game table guys too.

Being open to new gamers helps ensure you keep gaming. There are degrees of this, not everyone has to sit in a club somewhere like that. But it's worth considering. It's made me a better GM, for one - learning to accommodate strangers quickly, come up with adventures etc on the fly. And it's just more friendly and social, instead of everyone sitting at home at their keyboards complaining about games and gamers all sucking.

But then, I try to be open-minded about these things. I even played Synnibar 2 with Raven McCracken.

Quote from: soltakss;875520The club I went to seemed to be playing different things each week, as one-offs, rolling up PCs each time. At least, that's how it seemed to me... Constantly rolling up new PCs for new scenarios would drive me nuts, I'm afraid.

Yeah, that would drive me crazy, too.  I always find starting fresh to be the hardest part of any RPG, so I don't like to make new characters (as a player) or settings (as a GM) more often than once or twice a year.  Ideally, I'd like to have a 20-year-old campaign one day, but I have yet to make it past a single year.  (Note that by "campaign" I mean "setting which has had people playing in it", not a single party or storyline.)

Quote from: Ravenswing;875636I started playing in 1976.  I have never GMed an open table, I've never been in a campaign with one, and I doubt I'd like it.  Of course I heard and knew of them, but suggesting that open tables were some kind of monolithic ur-style is crocked.  As with so many other aspects of gaming, people just assume that the standard way of doing things in their own gaming circles, at the time they started with RPGs, is The Way It All Started, world without end, amen.

Perhaps I should have been more explicit that, by "in the very beginning", I meant "at Arneson's and Gygax's tables, and in the Braunsteins which preceded them", not the entire world of RPGs which descended from their experiences.  I have no doubt that other styles existed in 1976 at other peoples' tables.

Quote from: nDervish;875664Perhaps I should have been more explicit that, by "in the very beginning", I meant "at Arneson's and Gygax's tables, and in the Braunsteins which preceded them", not the entire world of RPGs which descended from their experiences.  I have no doubt that other styles existed in 1976 at other peoples' tables.

It's not always clear when people discuss what happened in the beginning, whether they mean how the hobby started in the sense of how the people who wrote the rules played their games or whether they mean how most people played when they first started playing.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;875646Open game tables is the way it started,

That depends on what you mean by "started." Sure that's how the people that wrote the rules started, but it's not how everyone who bought the rules started play. And that was Ravenswing's point.
   

QuoteBut it's an idea that should not be dismissed out of hand.

I don't think that people are dismissing the notion. But people like what they like and some people don't like (or don't like as well) the sort of play driven by a group with many (20+) players and ad hoc adventuring parties. Some people prefer that sort of play.

QuoteIf you're entirely insular then at some point you may find your game group has not enough players left.

One good player is enough. Given the availability of IM, online gaming tools, and video and audio chat, if you can't stay in contact with one person to game with, then you really aren't trying.

QuoteWhat I've commonly seen is that people use a club or open game table as a way to spend a few weeks choosing players for a long-term closed game group. It's one of the obstacles to setting up an rpg club.

That would seem to indicate that GMs may prefer closed rather than open tables. Otherwise why not just stick with the club?

QuoteObviously this means you can't have profoundly thespy games. But most of us don't do that anyway. And if you have an ongoing plot, 1-2 of the people there will have no clue or interest in that plot.

I don't know what "profoundly thespy" means, but by claiming "most of us don't do that anyway" seems you are buying into the notion that most people play the game exactly like I do world view that you started out complaining about.

But setting "thespy" aside, to look at the consequences for detailed NPC motivations and world actions, maybe the 2 people who were interested in the ongoing events of play are the two who don't show up that day and you have 2-3 people who are vaguely aware of the past and present but don't care about what has gone before and what the rest of the group was trying to accomplish and 2-3 others who know nothing about the background and could not care less. That tends to be fine in a single session dungeon crawl campaign, but it can create utter chaos and incoherence in a heavily political campaign.

QuoteMaybe 1 in 6 of those who came were annoying or weird enough we didn't want them to come again. Usually they knew they weren't welcome, the dislike was mutual so they just went away without anyone having to say anything.

While some people are fine with a ratio of 1 annoying weirdo out of 6, that's not a ratio I'd find acceptable. Which is one reason I've seldom engaged in open table gaming. Frankly that one weirdo would be highly likely to ruin the session for me. I'd much rather game with fewer players than get stuck with multiple sessions per year saddled with weirdos, rejects, and annoyances.

QuoteBeing open to new gamers helps ensure you keep gaming.

Sure that is one approach that people use. But its not the only successful approach. I've been gaming regularly since 1974 and I've never been especially open to new gamers and have never gone to much effort to find new gamers. Yet here I am. Still gaming after all these years.

Quote from: nDervish;875664Perhaps I should have been more explicit that, by "in the very beginning", I meant "at Arneson's and Gygax's tables, and in the Braunsteins which preceded them", not the entire world of RPGs which descended from their experiences.  I have no doubt that other styles existed in 1976 at other peoples' tables.

Yep.  The way I look at it, what happened at Dave's and Gary's tables, pre-1974, was the same deal as what we call playtesting now.

Quote from: Bren;875684That depends on what you mean by "started."

Pedantry is close to pederasty, both in the dictionary and in morality.

QuoteOne good player is enough. Given the availability of IM, online gaming tools, and video and audio chat, if you can't stay in contact with one person to game with, then you really aren't trying.

Sure. But most prefer the group dynamic, the back-and-forth and unpredictability that having 4+ people there brings.

QuoteThat would seem to indicate that GMs may prefer closed rather than open tables. Otherwise why not just stick with the club?

I think most gamers have this dream of the game promised in AD&D1e: a solid group of several players who adventure together for the years needed to reach "name" level. So they pursue this, though it so often doesn't work out, life being what it is.

I did a poll on rpg.net years ago about the average session length of campaigns. I explicitly told people to include the one session fizzles, but they mostly excluded them. Still, we got that most campaigns last 8-18 sessions before they ended, and it was rarely a planned end, usually the group imploded or fizzled in some way. There was the odd group that had lasted decades but this was an exception, I think it was 1 in 20 at most.

Since it's just a hobby this is not surprising. I work as a trainer and find the same thing, most people don't last. The ones who last in training are those who either need it to live a normal life (beat-up older people) or who compete in some sport. For the rest, past the novelty stage of the first few months, they just don't last, it's just too much hard work for a hobby.

Gaming does not offer the same health benefits, and as much as TSR tried with tournament modules, we just don't have a competitive arena for it. So it's unsurprising that if the game sessions become too in-depth, or if reaching the session times becomes hard to fit in, people will just bail on it. It's just a hobby.

Like lifting, some of us love gaming for its own sake, and see that it has benefits even if not profoundly life-changing ones. But that's not how most gamers view it.

So for most of us, we can keep striving for this tight little group playing a profoundly thespy campaign with the same 4-6 players over decades, or we can just accept - most campaigns won't last, and players will come and go. And we can adjust to that.

If not open game table, then staying in contact with other gamers through other groups is necessary to avoid that downtime while looking for replacement players. I have had this experience many times: the gamers who came to a Geektogether when groupless, shunned and badmouthed us all once they got a game group. Then a year later they wandered back all friendly again. The scornfully insular were suddenly open again, funny that.

Quotemaybe the 2 people who were interested in the ongoing events of play are the two who don't show up that day and you have 2-3 people who are vaguely aware of the past and present but don't care

My experience is that the ones who are deeply interested are the ones who show up pretty reliably. If people are casual in attitude in the game, they'll be casual in attendance as well; if serious then serious. Of course sometimes things happen, but this is why we have board games and movies as a backup; those casual gamers will be just as happy watching Conan for the 132nd time, or playing Blood Bowl.

QuoteWhile some people are fine with a ratio of 1 annoying weirdo out of 6, that's not a ratio I'd find acceptable.

It's the same in classrooms, workplaces and families. You must spend a lot of time feeling upset with life.

Unlike classrooms, workplaces and families, the annoying dickhead in the game group we only have to put up with long enough to find out he's an annoying dickhead. So an open game table in a club in the end will spend much less time putting up with annoying dickheads than those same people do in class, their workplace or families.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;875987Sure. But most prefer the group dynamic, the back-and-forth and unpredictability that having 4+ people there brings.

What most people prefer is irrelevant. What matters is what the people at my table prefer. I have a pretty good idea of that. Unlike you, I don't claim to know what other people who I don't know happen to prefer in their gaming.

QuoteI think most gamers have this dream of the game promised in AD&D1e: a solid group of several players who adventure together for the years needed to reach "name" level. So they pursue this, though it so often doesn't work out, life being what it is.

I find AD&D irrelevant as well. You provided the data that supports the conclusion that people prefer small, closed groups and dislike open tables. Why they prefer small, closed groups is beside the point, though I suspect a dislike for playing with assholes is one reason. It's certainly one of my main reasons for avoiding open tables.

QuoteI did a poll on rpg.net years ago...

That data is worth about what you paid for it.

[qiuote]So it's unsurprising that if the game sessions become too in-depth, or if reaching the session times becomes hard to fit in, people will just bail on it. It's just a hobby. [/quote]While that probably is true of lots of players, it isn't supported by my gaming experience in which multi-year campaigns with sessions numbering in the hundreds are the rule rather than the exception.

QuoteSo for most of us, we can keep striving for this tight little group playing a profoundly thespy campaign with the same 4-6 players over decades, or we can just accept - most campaigns won't last, and players will come and go. And we can adjust to that.

I still have no idea what you think a "thespy campaign" even is.

QuoteIf not open game table, then staying in contact with other gamers through other groups is necessary to avoid that downtime while looking for replacement players.

The fact that you keep saying that does not make it universally or even generally true. As I said, it's not something I've found necessary and I'm hardly unique in that respect even in this thread.

QuoteIt's the same in classrooms, workplaces and families. You must spend a lot of time feeling upset with life.

I do have a low tolerance for socializing with assholes. So I don't socialize with them. Problem solved.

At work, I get paid to put up with the occasional asshole. But a ratio of 1 person in 6 being an asshole or dickhead is much higher than my experience in life, at home, in the classroom, or at work. Now perhaps I've been really fortunate in life and you've been really unfortunate. Or maybe there is a different explanation for the high frequency with which you encounter dickheads everywhere in your life.