Time and Gaming

This week I had to make a pretty tough decision with regard to my gaming. There's a lot of work that goes in to running a game, it's a pretty big investment of time and energy. For most of my time as a gamer, I've been the one to run the game, and most recently I've been running a fun, if rules-heavy, game called Hellas, which is a space opera game inspired by Greek myth.

Since the girls were born I've been on a break from GMing. I wanted to get used to the new routine before I went back to running games.

Unfortunately, I neglected to take into account a few things, like bedtime and the possibility of the girls needing to be fed or changed in the middle of a game.

Taking the time to have proper quality time with the girls when I get home from work, feeding them their supper, bringing them upstairs and reading to them, just doesn't leave me with enough time to get myself set up to run a game on the night. And, while my wife and I are not given to using her disability as an excuse for anything, the simple fact is of the two of us, I'm the one better able to carry the girls to bed and to quickly go upstairs to check on them if needed.

So, rather than rush the girls or put my players through drastically shortened playing time and moments when their GM has to disappear to check on a crying baby, I've extended my GMing break indefinitely, for weeknight games, anyway. At some point I'll be able to take up the job again, but I don't know when that will be. For now, I have to content myself with being a regular player, and getting some occassional GMing done with weekend games.