"Game Groups with 'Odd' Play Times" Topic

It's the weekend and I was checking the LGS on-line calendars to see what game events are scheduled.

Something struck me oddly about their weekday afternoon schedules. Many recurring club events start at 4:00 or 5:00 and go till store close at 9:00 or 10:00.

I live in Northern VA/DC area where afternoon traffic is insane----up to 90 minutes to go 20 miles. Couldn't even make it to a 7:00 pm game last night because traffic was so crazy.

I think I'm missing something on how people participate in these, to me, early evening games. What about you and where you live?

Well, you take the day off, silly

Every week? Of course! :)

Is it a university town? Perhaps the players are all students who don't have classes that afternoon. Or, they all live/work near the store, and don't have to deal with the heavy traffic. Maybe they have standing arrangements with their employers to take off a few hours early each week on that day and make it up on another day. There are lots of possibilities.

They could also be third shifters. When I was on third, unless I had been up LATE after work I'd but rolling well before 4PM with maybe a brief nap before rolling into work around 9:30PM.

Good points. Would have thought folks operating the regular shift would have a different time----but then maybe most of us folkscan't make it regularly exactly because of our work schedules.

We eat together @ 6 and play around 7/7:30, but we all live pretty close (within 10 miles, at a guess) so it's not an issue.

Our group suffered heavily from scheduling problems.

So in so has Karate Practice every Saturday morning, but another guy is dedicated to church every Sunday morning till noon. This guy has to catch his football in the afternoon however. Another guy offers Friday Nights but only until 9 or so while another guy cant even make it till 8pm after his babies get to bed. And on and on.

It was next to impossible to get everyone on board. Typically we played with 3 or 4 guys, sort of rotating from one game to the next with 2/3 of the group not present at any one event. Kinda sucked.

Our monthly D&D group meets on Saturday night at someone's house. Since it is a scheduled monthly event, those of us with kids or other family commitments can still make it, "this is my monthly D&D night with the guys". We used to meet at 7 or 8 and play til wee hours. As we got older, we started trying to end at midnight and moved the start time up to 6, and now it is 5 pm -- the first thing we do is order pizza for dinner.

Even though I'm a dad with young kids (4 & 7 now), my wife and I feel it is important we get time to ourselves, so each of us gets to go out one evening during the week. (Note -- I've noticed we are unusual and most couples do other arrangements.) The trouble is fitting in any gaming, as my kids now have schoolwork to do in the evening, so I pretty much can't leave the house until 6 pm or sometimes later.

The local game stores with tables close at 8 typically. To get in any kind of significant game you need to start at 5 and 4 is better. I can never make that schedule but obviously, once you realize the clean up time it makes sense.

Back before they all got sucked into WOW, there was a local game group that met at someone's house at 6 on a weeknight. It's not that hard to adjust my work schedule to leave early one afternoon a week, and of course some people came later. The host was usually a good sport about letting us play til midnight if we needed to, but ending earlier was better for everyone. I hosted some of these meetings at my own house for a while, but had to end it when my second son was born.

Between work and school I am lucky to spend a couple hours at home every week, let alone actually play a game. The folks I hang out with are in similar situations, so our gaming is largely theoretical. The local shops have gaming times, but they don't seem to cater to the 9 to 5 workers.

Same issue we have – we would love a 7:30 – 11 PM venue on a Friday night but nothing is open that late. I expect the 5-9 time is due to closing time over the store.

A lot of people I've gamed with in the DC area seem to have Full Time Federal Positions; civilian or military or are Contractors. Most of the Federal Employees and contractors I know seem to have "early hours" and are off work by 4PM. Not sure if that has anything to do with the regular gaming time around the area it's just an observation.

I've been told more than once by a couple of FLGS owners in the area they'd stay open later if people bought more during the later time period. In other words, they don't cater to 9-6 workers (who works only 8 hours including lunch these days?) because they don't cater to the stores by buying much already. It's a vicious cycle!