I am beginning to wonder if that is "Strange"?
For example: I spend just as much time actually playing billiards; as I do reading, watching videos, etc. And I'd rather actually play, too. Actual play IS the goal.
Yes, I probably average 8-10 hours a week playing RPGs (bit less right now, more when work less busy) and probably 40+ hours on places like this!
Design, write, and illustrate, yes, but otherwise no: I play way more than a read or discuss them. Unless it's re-reading the stuff I wrote. That can eat up a good chunk of time.
I haven't been able to get an RPG session together in months. So I spend far more time reading or discussing than playing.
Quote from: Imaginos;1063623I haven't been able to get an RPG session together in months. So I spend far more time reading or discussing than playing.
Pretty much the same here.
I also spend a quite a lot of time world-building (or at least trying to), if you consider that "playing", but it rarely goes anywhere because (without an actual game to focus on) I keep flipping between different worlds too much to actually make significant progress on any of them.
Been playing far far more than reading lately.
Not unless you count:
1) reading up on medieval history, weapons and armor, mythology, etc. (which I consider a separate, if related, hobby).
2) forum-going (which I consider a form of socializing with people with familiar interests).
Quote from: Razor 007;1063594I am beginning to wonder if that is "Strange"?
For example: I spend just as much time actually playing billiards; as I do reading, watching videos, etc. And I'd rather actually play, too. Actual play IS the goal.
"Strange" as in outlier? For sure. The average TTRPG player does not visit RPG forums. We are non-representative of the overall norm (which is important to remember when we all come to some agreement about game-play-style or the like). Strange as in... I don't know... shorthand for doing something wrong or damaging? Not really, unless you are doing it at the expense of your real world responsibilities or the like. I guess maybe you might consider it problematic if you then can't game with other people (whom you want to game with) because they are steeped in the 'online culture' of the game. I don't know, I'm grasping at straws here to find a problem with this.
It's erratic. Both of my games are on odd schedules. My preparation for the games is even more irregular, because my available time to do it sometimes coincides with too tired to do much of anything. Forum time is usually 5 minutes here or there. I'd need to track time spent to say for sure, but I'd guess it comes out somewhere around equal thirds between gaming, prep, and forum/reading over time.
I've spent more time writing my RPG (16-ish hours a week) than playing (4-6 hours a week), but I can surf through the daily posts on most gaming sites in 10-15 minutes or less (so under two hours a week).
I definitely do, because I have no group these days, so I'm doing no gaming.
I find the amount of time I spend posting about rpgs on message boards and reading rules is directly in inverse proportion to how much I play.
Yes. It was a big part of my life in my teens and early 20s.
My groups fell apart. I moved across country. The online site where I used to play regularly is long since defunct.
It's fun to read the books and daydream about someday playing again. Life, growing up, and the sometimes odd sensation of making friends at this age. I was supposed to run a Deadlands game a few months ago for my friends back north and it fell apart before it could begin.
The books are still fun. The odds of playing are zero if I'm not involved at all. So I read them and talk about them.
I play twice a week for an average of 8 hours per week.
Sometimes that is more than I spend on forums. Depends on how busy I am.
Sure. "Playing" is a few hours every other week at best, because other shit gets in the way. Can toss in an extra hour here or there, even some of the online stuff I do is "as you can squeeze it in."
Looking at a PDF, picking up a book to read for a bit, planning out shit for later - this stuff can happen when I'm doing other things. Last night before bed I was reading VS' "La Bas Chartreuse" and figuring out how to fluff it out a bit and involve it in my campaign.
Doing that sort of thing, talking about it here and other places - all of this stuff consumes more time than I get to play. And that's fine with me, I enjoy that aspect of the hobby every bit as much.
Quote from: Razor 007;1063594I am beginning to wonder if that is "Strange"?
For example: I spend just as much time actually playing billiards; as I do reading, watching videos, etc. And I'd rather actually play, too. Actual play IS the goal.
Yes, unfortunately. I'm in a Pathfinder campaign that's very spotty. (Players have lots of real life commitments) I'm in a biweekly Starfinder Society group that I usually make it to, but X-Wing miniatures sometimes happens on the same day, and I usually give X-Wing priority. I also have a 2 player campaign I was DMing that fell off the radar, but I might pick up again.
Far more time working on my Transformers RPG and various adventure materials than I'll ever use.
World building is a necessary time investment for DMs, so that's just part of gaming.
What I was really getting at; is that it seems that many RPG fans spend a lot more time thinking, reading, and talking about RPGs, than actually playing the games. It's akin to being obsessed with fishing, but not spending much time with a hook in the water.
This year, yes. Work has reduced my opportunity to play tremendously.
Ordinarily, no. I like reading role playing game books and forums, but prefer to Referee games.
I'm not sure, see, it's hard to separate the "read and discuss" internet time from the "move the play by post game along" internet time.
Even back when I first started, before I had any inclination that an internet existed (which started before D&D was published...) I probably spent as much time reading magazines and modules at home as playing games face to face.
Model Railroaders call this kind of thing "armchair model railroading"... I'm a real good armchair model railroader...
I GM - I'm always reading.
I'm a reader - I'm always reading.
I can't avoid it.
As a followup this question, how many games do you play in weekly? Figure if you play in 1 campaign but it meets 3 days a week, that is 3 games a week. Just with my work and fatherhood schedule, i'm lucky to get free time every other weekend at best. And then, trying to coordinate that weekend with the other guys in the group? Madness.
Quote from: Imaginos;1063696As a followup this question, how many games do you play in weekly? Figure if you play in 1 campaign but it meets 3 days a week, that is 3 games a week. Just with my work and fatherhood schedule, i'm lucky to get free time every other weekend at best. And then, trying to coordinate that weekend with the other guys in the group? Madness.
Weekly. Minimum of 8hrs.
I *easily* read more than that.
I have a group that meets every Friday, but lately, outside of a once-a-month 5e game when everyone can make it to the table, most Fridays have boiled down to just me and two others who mostly do board-games, though I'm trying to convert that into something like Gloomhaven so I can get some pseudo-rpg stuff going on. I have a different group that does every-other Saturday night, and that's a fairly consistent low-fantasy hack of 3.5 right now. But weekdays I spend a lot of time between stuff at work browsing sites like this or going over other gaming stuff, so I probably net more time reading than actually gaming
Yeah, at this point I have a bi-weekly game and a irregular boardgame/RPG weekly game night - but that's definitely less that the time spent in discussion here.
Sadly yes, I seem to live in a relative gaming desert so my gaming is measured in sessions per year. We have a game store in town, but it seems to be entirely focused on trading card games and has so far proven to be void of any tabletop gamers. I'd be thrilled if I found a regular group that played once a month.
Currently designing and not playing. I took a break, which is helping me recharge my creative juices.
Once I form a group, I will expect to play weekly. I'm looking for like-minded enthusiasts this time around.
Quote from: Imaginos;1063696As a followup this question, how many games do you play in weekly? Figure if you play in 1 campaign but it meets 3 days a week, that is 3 games a week. Just with my work and fatherhood schedule, i'm lucky to get free time every other weekend at best. And then, trying to coordinate that weekend with the other guys in the group? Madness.
I have a weekly online Saturday morning game and typically run one tabletop game a week, so two games. This week coming up Monday-Sunday I'm due to run 4 games & play 1, but that's unusual - this current week I have just the online game. All 5e D&D.
I'm actually in a relative burnout phase right now (& the long dark of winter contributes to low mood), but my Stonehell Dungeon campaign is really easy to keep going on momentum.
How do people sleep, or even function, without reading?
I read history, novels, and rpgs almost constantly.
RPGs are games for readers.
Quote from: Imaginos;1063696As a followup this question, how many games do you play in weekly? Figure if you play in 1 campaign but it meets 3 days a week, that is 3 games a week. Just with my work and fatherhood schedule, i'm lucky to get free time every other weekend at best. And then, trying to coordinate that weekend with the other guys in the group? Madness.
Roll20/Hangouts scheduled once a week (but miss sessions due to missing players) alternating weeks between me GMing RuneQuest and playing The Fantasy Trip
I play in 4 play by post campaigns
I run 4 play by post campaigns
Quote from: Razor 007;1063594I am beginning to wonder if that is "Strange"?
Playing/reading RPGs is about the same. 50/50.
I play only one RPG though. But read about all the other RPGs I come across.
Quote from: Razor 007;1063594I am beginning to wonder if that is "Strange"?
For example: I spend just as much time actually playing billiards; as I do reading, watching videos, etc. And I'd rather actually play, too. Actual play IS the goal.
At the moment I spend way more time designing and implementing 5E as a CRPG than running or playing it, and I count online discussion of 5E adventures/monsters and especially "builds"/spells as part of that design time. It simply isn't a very interesting TTRPG and I'm not very motivated to play it (let alone run it) but it has a lot to recommend it as an XCOM-style CRPG, and discussing 5E is a way of motivating myself to work on getting the game into a playable state so I can play it. :)
If life were less busy I'd make more time to play some games like DramaSystem or Shadowrun or Microscrope/Unity or AD&D 2nd edition, which ARE good TTRPGs and tend to be thought-provoking and at least a
little life-changing. (Hmmmm, maybe I should look for a good Seattle-area once- or twice-a-month RPG Meetup group.)
Quote from: Razor 007;1063677World building is a necessary time investment for DMs, so that's just part of gaming.
What I was really getting at; is that it seems that many RPG fans spend a lot more time thinking, reading, and talking about RPGs, than actually playing the games. It's akin to being obsessed with fishing, but not spending much time with a hook in the water.
It's not that weird for DMs, since a big part of DMing is designing adventures, which entails pre-planning. It's not like playing chess where you just show up with a chessboard and start playing--and yet even chess players spend time outside the game studying their openings and reading about classic games.
Maybe some DMs can plan an adventure on the 20-minute drive home on game day, but I find that successful DMing requires prep work. Giving players a good 4-6 hour experience typically requires, I dunno, 4-8 hours of thinking/writing beforehand. Though to be fair, it requires very little Internet browsing, and only a few Internet lookups of material previously read.
I definitely spend more time reading, thinking, and discussing games than I do actually playing or prepping. Work, family, church, and other commitments (along with the schedules of the rest of the participants) make it hard to have a regular group that meets more than once a month. I do hope to share this wonderful hobby with my kids as they get older, so someday maybe I'll be one of those weekly gamers again!
Quote from: Hemlock;1063860At the moment I spend way more time designing and implementing 5E as a CRPG than running or playing it, and I count online discussion of 5E adventures/monsters and especially "builds"/spells as part of that design time. It simply isn't a very interesting TTRPG and I'm not very motivated to play it (let alone run it) but it has a lot to recommend it as an XCOM-style CRPG, and discussing 5E is a way of motivating myself to work on getting the game into a playable state so I can play it. :)
If life were less busy I'd make more time to play some games like DramaSystem or Shadowrun or Microscrope/Unity or AD&D 2nd edition, which ARE good TTRPGs and tend to be thought-provoking and at least a little life-changing. (Hmmmm, maybe I should look for a good Seattle-area once- or twice-a-month RPG Meetup group.)
It's not that weird for DMs, since a big part of DMing is designing adventures, which entails pre-planning. It's not like playing chess where you just show up with a chessboard and start playing--and yet even chess players spend time outside the game studying their openings and reading about classic games.
Maybe some DMs can plan an adventure on the 20-minute drive home on game day, but I find that successful DMing requires prep work. Giving players a good 4-6 hour experience typically requires, I dunno, 4-8 hours of thinking/writing beforehand. Though to be fair, it requires very little Internet browsing, and only a few Internet lookups of material previously read.
You don't think 5E is a very interesting TTRPG, but you are trying to convert it to a CRPG?
Quote from: Razor 007;1063929You don't think 5E is a very interesting TTRPG, but you are trying to convert it to a CRPG?
He's discussed it here and elsewhere before. He thinks it is a decent combat engine, but not a good role-playing game.
*He'd probably characterize it differently, but close enough to explain why he wants to computerize it.
Over the last few years my hobby has converted from playing to almost exclusively collecting, reading and discussing. My old gaming buddies have passed away or moved on and those I've been introduced to simply dont see gaming the same way I do. Perhaps its age, I'm almost 60. I've reconciled myself to the fact that this is the last transition of a fading interest that has consumed me for over 40 years. Any of you in the same boat?
Oh sure, I absolutely spend more time reading/chatting about RPGs because I can do it from my phone any time of the day, every day. It would be true even if I were gaming live eight hours a day once week (rather than mostly at cons with a periodic online game that runs 3-4 hours a session). I don't think there's any special significance to it given the relative ease of access.
In general, no. I know where and how to look to find pretty much any game I could want to play. I'm handy like that.
Recently, yes, very much so. I had a major job change and a big move hit me at the same time, so my schedule is all over the place. It'll probably be sometime in December before everything is stabilized again. Even when I do technically have the time, I'm just so tired. Passive stuff like reading on forums and keeping up with email notifications is about all I have the energy for right now, and even then not every day.
Quote from: Razor 007;1063594I am beginning to wonder if that is "Strange"?
For example: I spend just as much time actually playing billiards; as I do reading, watching videos, etc. And I'd rather actually play, too. Actual play IS the goal.
My first thought was "No, of course not".
However, I play every week, for 4 hours, but I spend probably 5-6 hours a week on RPG forums. If that counts as discussing RPGs, then, yes, I do spend more time than playing.
Quote from: Willie the Duck;1063641We are non-representative of the overall norm (which is important to remember when we all come to some agreement about game-play-style or the like).
Everyone here agreeing? When was that? Is there a link? I was playing all weekend, but I'm pretty sure I would have felt a great disturbance in the Force if that happened.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1064162Over the last few years my hobby has converted from playing to almost exclusively collecting, reading and discussing. My old gaming buddies have passed away or moved on and those I've been introduced to simply dont see gaming the same way I do. Perhaps its age, I'm almost 60. I've reconciled myself to the fact that this is the last transition of a fading interest that has consumed me for over 40 years. Any of you in the same boat?
I find myself in a rather different place, except for the almost 60 part. Of course, I am the lone poster who blocked unanimous agreement here that Adventurers League is bad, so perhaps I am the outlier*. Never playing with people who see gaming differently from you seems as unsatisfying as script immunity to me. I'm sorry that you've found the divide between you and the people you've met recently too great to cross. Maybe playing in a game benefiting a charity, where you can at least take comfort in knowing you helped a worthy cause no matter how the gaming turns out, would help?
*Feel free to pile on about my low standards. It will just be evidence to present when the AL show trials begin after the ALpocalypse happens. :D
How much time I spend discussing and playing seem to be inversely related. When my kids were babies and I couldn't play regularly I discussed stuff or did setting design writing whenever I had a spare moment, often brainstorming hexes at the kiddie park. Now that I have a regular weekly group don't feel the same kind of need for an additional outlet. When my younger son gets a little older and I can start DMing all the time with my kids you probably won't see me on forums for months at a time.
I play an average of 15.5 hours per week. I think I'm good.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1064814I play an average of 15.5 hours per week. I think I'm good.
Slacker.......
Said purely in jest.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1064162Over the last few years my hobby has converted from playing to almost exclusively collecting, reading and discussing. My old gaming buddies have passed away or moved on and those I've been introduced to simply dont see gaming the same way I do. Perhaps its age, I'm almost 60. I've reconciled myself to the fact that this is the last transition of a fading interest that has consumed me for over 40 years. Any of you in the same boat?
I identify with your post. Looking at your picture, we'd probably pass for cousins. Two old southern gentlemen, or perhaps two old farts who live in the south. I'd love to sit down and drink coffee or sip on peach brandy, while immersing my imagination into whatever daring quest might lay before us. I'd roll with anything simple, but meaningful; or else complicated, but specifically interesting. Let the bodies hit the floor!!!
This is probably as good a thread as any to introduce myself. I was hovering near the exit of TBP for a while and I've finally stepped out because of recent mod policy changes that have been discussed extensively elsewhere!
My revived interest in RPGs about 10 years ago coincided with work and personal life getting very busy, so interest, inclination and free time have not yet coincided for me to get a regular group together. I'm still looking but as I've relocated to Asia, opportunities are limited. Never done online play (over voicechat or Roll20 or whatever), but I'd be up for giving it a go.
Welcome Marchand!
Welcome to the front line!!!
Welcome to theRPGsite.