Joining together to play

In my gaming career my style of gaming and preferences of games have changed a lot. But also the groups have changed and today I don't have a group. One player. This is small history of my joining together to play.

Early Days Ages 11-15


This was simple time. All who I played with were my class-mates and friends I've known from first class. So it was easy to just play roleplaying games same way we played with toys, did sports, played video- and board games or were just hanging out together.
We spent time almost daily and weekends usually were rpgs.
It was simple. We just had to choose what we want to do today. Do something else or play roleplaying games. There were no schedules or anything. We played when we wanted to play.

Picture from Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Teenagers 16-18


Some of us went to schools in other towns. Also studying became more or less serious business so gaming wasn't as simple in weekdays as it was previously. But still most free-time, holidays and weekends we spent playing as much as we could. We rarely partied so gaming was good pass-time.
There was more working out with schedules but still gaming was easy.
At this point some of our regular players had stop gaming and we also wanted to spend time with them. They were same friends from elementary school after all.

Young Adults 19+


Now it got complicated. Schedules were harder. Some of us had a job, some still studied, some had girlfriends and new friends from other schools and work etc. And some of us wanted to party weekends in bars and nightclubs instead of gaming. That was lame.
Soon we had no regular gaming or gaming group anymore. People wanted to do other stuff.
Fortunately I had one good friend still interested in roleplaying games I played one-on-one games regularly as often as we could. Some times a friend or two joined us but mostly we played together.

Then I found more people who played roleplaying games. I played with them few times, but there were more problems with schedules. Different groups, totally different lives. But it was ok and I got to play with groups instead of one or two persons.

20+ Is Gaming Dying?


20+ gaming become more rare. Even with one player still regularly playing with me it was a event. All the schedules and being busy was not good at all. We played sometimes once or twice a week. Sometimes once a month. It was not good because I were used to play roleplaying games often and basically when I wanted to play.
So instead of playing I started sort of collecting roleplaying books and reading them and writing random material.

Serious Girflfriend


I was not searching but it happened. Soon after we moved together (still together after 10 years). I sometimes played with my friend still one-on-one and because I was (and am) a gamer I introduced roleplaying to my new-ish girlfriend I already lived with. She already liked computer games.
Our first session with my friend who still played with me and my girlfriend didn't go well. She wasn't that interested and got occupied in the beginning. We played Finnish gritty low fantasy rpg Praedor. Not that interesting to her.
Then later I introduced her to Vampire: the Masquerade and that hit the spot.

Today


No group. Where we moved some years ago (countryside) there are no players near. There are some in near towns but because of my busy life it's too hard to drive one hour or more to join a group. But fortunately me and my girlfriend still play together and she's also interested in trying and playing other games and not just Vampire. We have tried several games and still continue to testing other new games we or even I haven't played before.
Now we usually play twice a week and that's good.