On Thu, 11 Oct 2001, A. E. Naughtie wrote:
> 1) I didn't like my players.
I've run into that.
> I liked them as friends but not the characters they ran,
My problem was, after gaming with them for about seven years, I realized
that I really didn't like to spend time with them anymore. My best friend
was kind of like your description here... I liked him, but I really
didn't like gaming with him. But after my favorite player left town, and
my best friend dropped out when his wife had a baby, I was left with a
hodge-podge of people who had no other friends outside the game, and I
didn't like them.
This hit me when we were playing card games or something, and my wife
wandered off to play on the computer instead of playing games with us.
(She was a regular gamer, roleplaying and otherwise, for years... but
lately she'd started avoiding playing games with the group.) I went into
the computer room to ask her why she wasn't spending time with our
friends. She replied, "They're not *my* friends." To which I replied,
"Well, they're not my friends *either*." And I realized that I meant it.
But it's hard to disband a group that's been together for years when they
have no real social life outside of the group. I eventually begged off
gaming in my senior year of college (in my very late twenties; I got laid
off from an aircraft job and decided to finish my degree) due to a busy
schedule and when I finally put together a new gaming group, I didn't
invite the not-friend players.
> we really don't see each other except at the game
> or game-related events.
I'm kind of bothered by groups like this... I want to game with people I
want to hang out with outside the game. I really had a problem with my
last game because two of the players practically *avoided* extra-game
contact. I really got the impression that they really didn't want to know
the rest of the group and were just "using" us for their gaming pleasure.
--
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net) Gamers List Owner
[ Fudge Factor, a Fudge zine -- http://www.fudgefactor.org/ ]
Life is complex. You know - part real, part imaginary.
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