"Smokers Slow Us Down?" Topic

Is it true that, in general, players who smoke slow down games? TMP link

No idea. No one smokes in our lot.

x42

It depends on their level of addiction… but yes, I have had friends who smoke that need their 15 minute butt break every hour.

I wouldn't know. Nobody in our group smokes.

I was a memeber if a particular club back in the 1980's that met weekly in a Social Club. We had a very large ante-room adjacent to the bar. A lot of us smoked and drank whilst playing. Every few months we play a whole Saturday – and that was a good drink up!

Is a slow game a bad thing? A relaxing sociable event would be the ideal I would think.

Of course, if you think otherwise, bring along a brace of energy drinks to your next session.

Nobody I've seen has stepped out of a game to have a smoke.

What Winston says.

I think that function has been taken over by mobile phone users?

No.

What Martin said.

Martin +2

No smokers in my circle of friends.

The older the group the fewer will survive. It is now highly generational with fewer users. Most game venues, public and private, discourage smoking. In the US, it has also acquired a connotation of lower income, less education, and social rudeness. Hardly aspirational goals!

Hopefully soon the entire smelly, filthy habit will die out with those that partake …

However, the Tobacco industry/lobby has & makes a lot of money. As do those that support them. I think they should concentrate on sales overseas.

Martin +3

..phones ..not smokes…stupid I phones…

They slow it down. The problem with a smoker is they are never there win it is his turn. We wait and wait and wait. We finally let someone else on the same side do his turn. Cell phones are bad because that player is not paying any attention to the game. Constantly flipping through their messages. Put the phone down and get into the game!

Years ago, in my old gaming group, yes.

I think that function has been taken over by mobile phone users?

I would assume that's many times worse.

At the club some chap had a loud clang from his phone whenever he had a facebook message. I had to ask him to stop after the first 5. Maybe that is just the new culture?

It is also a bit irritating when folk give precedence to their phone at all times. They let the hone dictate what they do, rather than the other way around. If you want them to make a move it is easier to phone them than ask them directly.
If I had a phone with me I would turn it off during a game as a matter of good manners.

Of course I use my phone mainly and often when in the cinema, eating out with friends and whilst driving! I like to check it every five minutes in case there is some world event that needs my input. I also have to talk loudly into it to as the hole is so small. It does help clarity by making hand gestures whilst speaking. Best of all, I have some loud music from Star wars to make my call that extra bit special. the future is with us?!

Just my perspective. Got that out!

I've been blessed by having neither absent smokers nor distracted cell phone users in my games. It seems that people come to play and not be distracted by their addictions, whether to drugs or to communications.

Players do sometimes take cell phone pictures during games ("and here's where my best unit walked into a trap!"), and either post or save them, but it has never been a problem.

After games, it wouldn't surprise me if players go for a smoke and/or drink. They've been thinking full tilt all day.

I remember when I first started gaming- I was about 10 and it was '93. Nearly everyone my father gamed with smoked (except my dad). Now the guys from then, and all of my new gaming buddies, have either quit or never smoked in the first place. As a matter of fact I almost never see anyone smoking anymore.

The two topics are like a recent ad for lemonade.

A kid playing tee-ball (I once struck out in tee-ball, but that's another story …) gets a base hit, then keeps going down baseline, out of play to a mom sitting by a lemonade table. The dad goes from elated for the hit to worried and walks over. He motions the kid to go back, but then waves it off. He's cool.

So when does that kid learn that in the social arena, he made a commitment to others and the world does not revolve around him and his immediate desires?

No. Go smoke if ya want. Fine with me.

In one my group, we tend to have a couple of social breaks during a five or six our game. Cigars are smoked on these occasions and during the post mortem.

years past…mea culpa. ALways went outside to smoke, but as posts above, in bad form snuck out for my nicotine fix
both as a player and even as a GM. Yes it did slow down the game. 40 years ago, gamers even smoked in the shop where we gamed. Other than one gamer who does enjoy his celebratory cigar after a game, I don't think there is anyone left who does smoke. At one time, probably 35% of us did.

Sadly a friend since high school and MP Veteran, we worked together as PIs. Died last week from lung cancer, he was a 2-3 pack/day smoker … No real surprise but still sad …

RIP Mike … I'll see you on the other side … sooner or later …

Barring accidents, my relatives live a very long time, an average of 90-105 years. So I used to joke with my Dad (he's 95 in August) that his grandmother could have lived another 20 years if only she had stopped her daily sampling of cigars when she used to roll leaf at the tobacco plantation. She smoked one or two cigars every day for most of her life. And loved to sip rum on her balcony in the evenings.

But he always reminds me that when she died at 97, she was in better health than most people half her age, and that she died of exasperation and boredom right after they told her she couldn't smoke on her own balcony any longer.

How much of that is true, I'll never know. But I remember she was tough, feisty, had really rough hands from having worked tobacco most of her life since she was in her teens until her late 70s, and she definitely did not like to be told what she could or couldn't do in her own house, specially when she was having some well deserved me-time.

Still, it would have been nice if abuelita Cicí had lived another 20 years. :)

The youngest of my uncles to die smoked 2-3 packs of cigarettes a day and died a young man of 78. He died outside of a domino house, run over by a drunk driver as he was taking a smoke break between games.

So I guess that tobacco does kill, even our family. Or maybe it's just when people mess with our leisure time.

Dan