I love D&D and have an on-going game that occurs twice a month on the first and third Saturday evenings of the month. The game has been going for a little over two years and I love it so much.
I am a father and husband too. Unfortunately, my wife is frustrated with having those Saturdays taken up on the schedule where she has to schedule things around them or go without me (vacations, family outings, etc). Admittedly she has done well at scheduling and should be given credit for her tolerance thus far.
Those of you who are successfully managing family schedules and gaming, what is your secret?
I’ve been playing on Wednesday nights with my regular group for multiple years now. It helps that we have a regular time and it’s not a high activity day. However, it took a little while for my spouse to get used to it. Also it helps that we’re flexible as a group. We play if 1 player is missing and will cancel / reschedule for vacations. Some of these cancels are non cannon play or other games.
So flexibility really helps.
I don’t play on weekends. There’s always something that gets in the way. Fridays are okish, but Saturdays are murder.
Yeah, it seems that way. I know I am lucky to have gotten away with it so far. Changing the night it runs would be tough at this point as it works for so many other people’s schedules.
Which is more important, the game or your family?
Well I mean if you put it that way the choice is obvious but I don’t think there’s any ultimatums being leveled here. She would think quitting the table to be an extreme and overreacting choice.
I’m not saying you have to quit, just see if you can figure out a better time. Have everyone take a look at their calendars.
@SheeEttin @cosmosparda THE GAME!
Seriously, it’s always hard to find a place, but we have managed to find a time for each member of the couple without losing quality family time. Hard but possible!
It needs planning within the families and with other people, but we managed to get a game session each month, more or less.Well I just lost the game. Thanks a lot.
@SheeEttin It was an irony, I thought it was understood by the ‘seriously’ afterwards, but maybe I’ve not expressed myself clearly (english is not my native language). Excuse the confusion, of course family is always first :)
Oh, you probably aren’t familiar with The Game then.
@SheeEttin haha, yes i did not get it :D
My group plays on one Friday evening each month. It’s not much, but as we are all grown ups with families it’s just about what we can spare in out lives.
So I would probably move the game to a non-weekend evening and maybe just have 1 per month. If your wife can’t accept that she might as well be telling you to stop playing all together.
Don’t play on Saturdays.
I’m sensing a consensus
I’ve played with the same group for 7 years, almost every Friday, but we do take some weeks off here and there for family/work/etc. My wife is accommodating, but it was taking a toll since we do love hanging out with each other. Then, a couple of years ago, we invited her to play again, and she actually did. Now she’s part of the group, and we are all having a blast on Friday nights. Lucky situation, I grant you that, but achievable.
I envy you haha. I have tried to get her to the table but it just isn’t her thing. A different less crunchy system would probably appeal to her better. That said, maybe I can ask her to try it again.
I definitely think it’s worth trying. My wife is similar, I believe, as the rules and general way of playing were daunting, and made it not necessarily seem like something she would enjoy. We assured her that we would take it slow while she got the hang of it. She is still getting ideas for what’s possible, but she has her own character’s mechanics down, which is great. Best of luck to you!
Family vacations should definitely take priority. I know it’s hard when you have a whole group depending on you, but it sounds like you’re being inflexible in a way that is putting a burden on your partner.
Rereading the post I see how you can think that. I am not generally inflexible on these dates and am willing to cancel if it’s important. I make that clear and have definitely missed more than a few for vacations. Vacations take priority, in that we agree. She does try her best to avoid game days as she knows it’s important to me.
Vacations are also easier as they are known well in advance. More of the frustration comes, I think, when a one off event happens. For example on Monday, we got invited to a Christmas party for this weekend. This is also a D&D weekend thus conflict.
My partner is in my group. That’s the best solution
I have dreams. This is one of them.
My group is almost exclusively dads with fulltime jobs. We play remote (FoundryVTT), run one game a week that runs between 2 and 4 hours.
Full disclosure I’ll say that remote is about 85% as good as playing in person, but I’ll take 80% and easy scheduling over 100% but constant missed games or conflicts
I like that idea but my DM is pretty solid on the in person thing. If I do end up leaving the table (hopefully not) I’ll pursue replacing with a virtual game I think.
