While Jeff is abroad at nerd prom with the rest of the hipster elite of the geek upper class and nerderati, I’m firing off pre-programmed blog questions to a) sate my own curiosity, and b) distract you while I am busy trying to get work done (very, very slowly). The question this time:
With whom do you play?
That is, do you play with your high-school chums, your college colleagues, your cousins and their friends, strangers you met through a game-store flyer, or, like, what? I’m always curious to hear the answer to this question, not just because it is an under-examined topic in gamer network (though it is), but because I am a snob about who I play with, sometimes, and I sometimes want to feel like I’m wrong to be that way.
I play with people who were in my college gaming club. I consider that, at the very least, pre-screening for SOME semblance of character concern– though there is the comical situation of some of the ‘B-Team’ roleplayers having to be let into games for social reasons.
I’ve had a pretty pessimistic view of most gamers since I GMed a couple of GenCons for FanPro and had to deal with some of their Shadowrun tournament players– the best group I had was a handful of high school kids who just completely ran with a sidebar they’d developed away from the tournament plot. All the other groups were just really excited to play smashy characters. Hoo. Ray.
My college group is wonderful, though: everyone inherently understands the social contracts between player and GM, and fiats, though rare, don’t brook complaint.
My primary group is almost entirely assembled of my friends from university. Most of us have been gaming together since 2000 or so. People come and go, but the core remains.
I have a secondary group, in the form of a fledgling club devoted to playing small-press games which is made up of people I’ve met online, primarily on the Story-games forum, and a few of the regular group.
I met a few guys during the Mouse Guard playtest that I’m trying to get involved with the story-games group.
I game with my wife and a group of folks that I spent nearly two years gathering together after I moved from Ithaca, NY to Wisconsin at the end of 2006.
Two of them responded to an index card I posted at one of the local gaming shops, and one of them I found through Nearbygamers.com. There were a handful of other people that we vetted and some that we tried to game with but not all of them meshed well.
My “core” group (currently on hiatus) is my younger brother and a close friend. The rest of the group has always been friends of one, and ideally more, of us. I would far rather not game at all than to do so with people I don’t like spending time with. We are fortunate that our gaming styles and preferences are relatively compatible.
I’ve got one gaming group composed of friends and also play weekly games in the university gaming club (some members of which are also friends). There is slight overlap.
I also play with random people every now and then, but it is rare.
Three members of the University of Chicago SF club, and two gamer friends met since then at a party thrown by a different member of the SF club.
My main group is made up mostly of my friends from High School. Guys I’ve known for over 20 years now.
I also have friends I used to game with from all the various places I used to work. I was at the AEG offices over the weekend running D&D4 for John Zinser and some of the old Last Unicorn team. We’re considering getting together once a month or so in Vegas for D&D.
College pal, best friend, wife, college pal’s wife, and someone I recruited from White Wolf’s gamer registry to fill a place vacated when another college pal split.
I am currently involved in three regular games…one 3.5 D&D, one 4th ed D&D and a Gamma World campaign. One of my husbands is in all three games and GM of the 4th ed and the Gamma World. The 3.5 and the Gamma World include son, daughter-in-law and one of our friends (he provides the house for the games because he is in a chair and it’s just easier.)
The Gamma World game also includes a couple of other friends and one friend’s 12 year old daughter and the 4th ed game is two of Sean’s friends from high school, his younger brother and other 1 or two nieces.
I’m not in any of the games at my son-in-law’s store, but Sean plays in a couple there…
(when my daughter was 12 her dad and I threw her to the local gaming club so we could breed for gamers. it worked, as my 15 year old grandson and 12 year old granddaughter are both gamers as well.)
P.S. btw, I refuse to admit that I am a gamer…
I’m in two gaming groups for the time being, and one of those sprung from the other.
The first, which I suppose is my primary one because I’m running it, started with a friend from high school. After college, we added his brother and my girlfriend to our number. That group played a wonderful WtA game for about 3 years. Sortly before D&D 4th came out, we added someone who works with my girlfriend, along with her fiance. Finally, my friend from high-school’s cousin wanted to dabble in our dorkery, so she plays with us now as well, bringing our number to 7.
At 7, fearing the logistics would cause me to break out in hives, I drew the line. We’ve turned down too other co-workers since, although we might look them up if anyone dropped out.
The fiance invited me to the other game, which is a small group of guys who used to work together. I find that I enjoy being in multiple groups when I’m the DM in one, so I can get my player on.
Two friends from High School, 3 friends I made at 3 different jobs and the brother of one of those job friends. All this covering a 23 years time span.
I’m still playing with the people I’ve gamed with since college. For the most part, we’ve only brought people into the group after getting to know them outside of gaming first — we’re definitely pretty picky about who plays with us, and we want people who are there for actual roleplaying and story and character development as opposed to just beating up the bad guys and getting loot.
Most of us also play World of Warcraft, and over the last few years have had friends we’ve made through the game come to Boston. We’ve run one-shot games for those visits, and it’s always been a ton of fun. (It probably doesn’t come as much surprise that we’re as picky about who we RP with online as we are about our tabletop players, so it’s a pretty safe bet that they’re as excited about the games as we are.)
I’ve thought about signing up for gaming sessions at cons, but have yet to give it a try. It’s partly a scheduling thing, partly a huge case of The Shy, and yeah, partly snobbery — will the other people at the table with me be as amazing as the people I’ve been running with for the last twelve years? I’m probably missing out on some excellent games. Next con I go to, I think I’ll give it a try.
I play a regular game with my roomates and some people I met on nearbygamers.com. They’re cool.
I play assorted random games weekly at a nearby store, with a great group of regulars and some occasional walk-ins.
I’ve never been played at a con (I have played at Camp Nerdly, but I don’t think that counts).
While I was in college, I tried to play with folks, but anything long-term that I was connected to seemed to rapidly implode. Reasons are unclear: no big conflicts, I just seemed to suck all the commitment out of the room. The only people who live nearby who I went to college with are the aforementioned roomates. But if even if there were more nearby, I don’t think they’d be my go-to people.
I play board games with anyone I can convince. It’s surprising how many people who spend hours chopping and painting little demons and rat-people look askance when you suggest something that comes complete in a box.
All my digital game endeavors are solitary ones.
I play with friends I’ve met since I moved to the west coast and friends from college who eventually did the same. It’s pretty sweet, honestly.
I met the friends I have from around here through the combination of a friend who dropped out of college and my girlfriend who moved into the large house he’d moved into with said friends.
My group are now:
A gamer friend of a customer of mine, when I worked in comic retail (now a proof-reader and friend of 10 years).
His BFF from secondary (high) school.
The reclusive friend of my brother (flatmate and friend of 11 years).
The guy I tried getting a spot in my other group five years ago, when they were short a member. They didn’t want another member and I felt I had to let him game somewhere.
One of his friends from card/board game nights.
Another of his friends, from card/board game nights (although they’re both in different groups of mine).
The fake surrogate son of a friend of mine, who begged to be allowed to game.
Those make up two of my groups, five players each, so there’s a little overlap.