Entirely serious query: gaming on Sundays?

[viktor_haag]

I have a serious query here: were I to start a bi-weekly, Sunday afternoon role-gaming group to play here in KW (five-ish minutes from the Homer Watson exit at the 401), who would be interested in attending to play?

We would seek to play, rain-or-shine, every second Sunday (starting in two weeks), from between 1300-1400hrs for about three hours.

The game in particular would depend on player interest, but would almost certainly get selected from this list: Classic Traveller (with some house rules), Pendragon, Chivalry & Sorcery (4th ed), Call Of Cthulhu, HERO, Earthdawn, EABA, Wild Talents.

I'm aiming to assemble a group of two to four players.

Look up, all you (Ha)Miltonians - can you make it out here every second Sunday?

Comments

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I'd love to, but I would be foolish to try. Sigh.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

That is sad. Is there any means by which we could arrange a regular group? What about a once-per-month Sunday afternoon that played for four to five hours instead of three hours?

What about Monsieur Bitter and Monsieur Mystery? Would you be available for a monthly Sunday afternoon event? (In such cases, I would strongly suspect that the game would tend more to be episodic and "one adventure per session".)

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Well, the thing is, I have two weekend groups that I juggle already, and one occasional weekend group. Adding another one into the mix will mean the scheduling just gets stupidly complex.

Some day, though.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Ah! Gotcha.

[thebitterguy]

Hmmm. Sounds possible. I'd have to check with the trouble & strife.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

What would you favour -- bi-weekly shorter length, or monthly longer length?

[thebitterguy]

bi-weekly shorter term would be better. She can go into work on Sundays in that case.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

Like the others here, I'm intently and very interested (especially in something like CT, CoCm, Earthdawn, and EABA).

But I have the same problematic scheduling issues that both of the others here have; balancing family, work (I'm sometimes on call and can't be too far from the hospital), and other recurring commitments.

The occasional unexpected childhood illness (our little one was on a womittin' wampage last night, so today was a bleary one) and the unavailability of the other caregiver also plays a role in making rigid schedules tough to do. Your place is also about 100 minutes round trip, adding to the time to set aside.

That said, I'm still interested. I'd suggest a one-time slightly longer Sunday gaming get-together event to begin with, and then play it be ear to see if it can be sustained with the intersecting schedules of 4 or so busy adults every 3 or so weeks.

Also, how easy and portable is it for you to drive in somewhere more central (say Hamilton?), once in a while?

::B::

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that, were we able to settle on at least the premise of a regular schedule, that round-robin hosting would be well-acceptable to my family. The chief worry from my end, as I'm sure it is from the end of you-all, is consistency. My family is much more supportable of my hobby if they know well in advance what plans are likely to be so that scheduling around them is possible.

Pyat - back to you - if we thought of a three-to-four week rota that was based around round-robin hosting, starting in Hamilton, would you be more convinceable?

M. Bitter, would you also be amenable to such an arrangement?

I was thinking of this issue on the drive home tonight, trying to think of the best way to play under these kind of cricumstances, and it occured to me that the following play characteristics would be best:

• Episodic - each session would cover the breadth of one story, but might also have cliff-hangery bits open to hook into the next

• Characters that are essentially static (i.e. Classic Traveller, Spirit Of The Century) where it's more the story/adventure that's the focus, and less the laddering up of character

• A "home base" type of environment that would provide a good starting position for the characters at each session so that player absences could quite easily be accomodated

I have a several ideas in mind that accomodate these characteristics, and Spirit Of The Century strikes me as admirable suited to them, as does Classic Traveller.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

I like the idea for using both SOTC and CT for any of the ideas you've itemized above.

::B::

Another solution also came to mind, considering I was at a computer session this am learning out to use a commercial web-casting software for distance learning online for students I'll be teaching. While that solution (Elluminate) wouldn't work, isn't there a way to use Skype or something similar (Apple's iChat?) to get together virtually?

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

It's possible, but I'd far prefer to meet in person. I must admit, I'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to my leisure activities. 8)

If we can get something off the ground, I for one wouldn't mind the driving around as long as I got some of the time to host.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Hello, hello

I would be happy to host something on occasion, though scheduling the time for a regular game of any kind, no matter where, is still problematic.

But... what the heck. Let's see what can be done, even it it just means hanging out a couple of time. You have some good ideas for dealing with player absences.

I've never played CT (and I haven't run it since the 80s), and I'd love try that. But I'd also enjoy Spirit of the Century.

[thebitterguy]

I was browsing through some of my stuff, and could, if necessary, run either Passages (OGL literary adventures in a Victorian Multiverse) or Orpheus, the game of ghostbusting using the WoD rules.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Hey Justin: my thoughts were to be GM for this group (or at least to start with), and based on the comments of Doc M and Pyat, it seems that there's more traction for this to be a monthly affair rather than a bi-weekly one.

Pyat suggested off-LJ that perhaps playing the second Sunday of the month would be good, and for the first two months that works (I have another Sunday thing that runs biweekly, so after April some finessed adjustment would be required).

In theory this would make the first day March 11, and tentatively to take place in Hamilton. That cool with you?

[thebitterguy]

That's my anniversary. So, yeah, that's probably the worst day of the year for it.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Gah! OK: Happy Anniversary, and we'll look forward to your attendance in Day Two!

However, I will in a few days begin trying to get some groundwork down through email, so please feel free to participate in that, too.

It would be good if we nailed out some of the parameters for what we want to do and had characters done up before we started, and this will give me even more time to think up cool ways to torment get your character involved... 8)