Gaming has always been a social hobby which has required the coordination of many different schedules to make things run smoothly. When I was a teenager, this was never a big deal. Most of us had more time to spend on hobby pursuits. As we got older, things became more challenging to schedule. That twice a week game became once a week. Then the once a week game became that once a week game that skipped a week or two from time to time. Then it became a twice a month event, which still needed to miss a session now and then.

At least this is how it worked out for me.... until recently.

I've been a part of many gaming groups, having spent over three decades playing RPGs (Holy crap!). This last group was fantastic. We met over a game of Spirit of the Century at a local RPG Meetup in early 2007. By the end of Summer in 2007, we had formed up a group with the goal of gaming on two days per month (for about 6-7 hours each session). We started with a Star Wars Saga Edition game, which did a great job of starting us out on a good note.

During the past four plus years, we have played:

Star Wars Saga Edition: An Old Republic series
Primetime Adventures: Defenders of Time (Time Traveling Law Enforcers)
Coyote Trail: The Cross of Coronado
Star Wars Saga Edition: A thrilling sequel to our first series
D&D 4e: Set in a homebrew setting
Spirit of the Century: A Pulpy Adventure set in Central America
Labyrinth Lord: The classic "Keep on the Borderlands"
Shadowrun 4e: Battling Ghouls just for the Bounties

We haven't been able to game since December 2011. A third Star Wars series was in the works, along with a D&D game, and an adventure using the Dresden Files RPG. People's outside obligations and work schedules have just made it virtually impossible to keep going. We recently realized that things just aren't going to work out anytime soon. So the group is now on long-term hiatus.

It sure was awesome while it was rolling along. I've never gamed with better people. It was truly one of the best groups that I have been a part of.

Yeah. I'll miss it.

Damn! Sad to hear that, RedBlok! That sucks! Hope you find a group even better!

-clash

I've talked about how the increasingly time-consuming nature of the hobby is turning off newbies and even experienced players and how it kills entire groups recently on ENWorld recently (and back in the days, here, when Skach almost had an aneurysm over the notion that DCC is too complicated for its own good).

There's not much you can do about time, except save some. Shorter sessions are easier to schedule for everybody. Shortening your sessions works surprisingly well but you need games that operate faster, so everyone at the table feels like they did a lot of stuff.

The hobby is going down the drain because of all the complexity, thickness of books and obscene handling time in play. Most veterans are so used to it that they are oblivious to that fact.

Cut the fat, use leaner games and schedule shorter sessions. It worked for me and the campaigns are better than ever. There's all kinds of other benefit, including saving prep time for the GM.

My personal experience has been that if you ask people if they're interested in gaming with you, you'll probably be rewarded. I was in a similar situation where I wasn't able to game very often, but I put myself out there and asked some people who I knew had the same schedule as me; my co workers. Not only were they interested, but their wives were interested. Now I'm running a group of 7 people, and have several inquiries from others about wanting to join up.

It's never fun to lose out on a group, or to be unable to return to the adventures you've had together. But if you're not gaming at all right now, maybe someone outside your normal circle would be interested.

There's a lot of truth in what you wrote there.

Unfortunately, shorter sessions wouldn't even work for us right now. And we've gone rules lighter on a few of our games too. I'd love to get back to a once a week four-hour scheduled game, with the flexiblity of skipping a week as needed. But for right now, it just isn't going to be....

This is a possibility. I'm a little bit socially introverted though so it requires more effort on my part. I suppose if the gaming itch becomes too strong, I will feel much more inclined to branch out and recruit new faces.

I will suggest a theory. First, the premise as I have seen it presented. Make shorter games!!! Game less often!!! I think one of the fundamental problems here is that this leads to less REGULAR gaming. I would propose that this is the root of enjoyable gaming. Whatever method you use (trad, story, diceless, etc) if you game happens sporadically, you will not get the continuity that lends itself to that sense of suspension in the setting. Note, I am not saying frequently but regular. Meet once a month 12 times a year and your mind becomes accustomed and you anticipate that departure from our world to the game world.

Unfortunately, when many of us were young it was a case of being able to game weekly or even more often. As we grow older, we break that weekly cycle and find it difficult to replace it with a different schedule.

Again, just a theory...

RedBlok: I understand what you are talking about.

I had a local group that gamed together for 2 years until schedules became too difficult to juggle and the group broke up.

I now game with a group of gamers online using Skype and an online game table. While gaming in person is always preferred, the way we game comes damn close.

Funny enough, the group I game with online is more reliable then the face to face group I had and there are lot less times where players cannot make it

That's very interesting.

I would have actually expected the reverse.

Sorry to hear about your group - I wish I had some helpful advice, but I don't. If you're community is anything like mine, the surest way to a new group is to hold your breath and play D&D for several years before finally convincing people to try something else. It's a time consuming method, but the good news is that once you've convinced people to taste the sweet ambrosia of other games, few will want to go back to being monogamers!