My opinion that the time to play the hobby is succumbing to laziness from its enthusiasts, who do not make the time, is based on my experience with players who will not recruit. Or who view recruitment as a kind of unsavory multi-level marketing task. If that is what /enthusiasts/ think about the hobby they play then how can it be otherwise but a foregone conclusion no one new will play? There is a creepy cognitive dissonance here. This was a subject discussed 6-months ago over at
www.theadventuringparty.net/ podcast.
Whose job is it to recruit players?
Conflicting schedules are a logical problem. Recruitment would solve this! Maybe a small group should focus on becoming two small groups: finding 8 players through 4? Should this be one person’s responsibility? Someone saying I can only handle 4 people max is bullshit. I realize it is more /comfortable/. My answer to that: step out of your comfort zone if only for a few games. Rotate the GMs. Co-GM. Chances are someone will step up to become a second GM as the group grows to 6, 7 even 8. Then alternate games: 4 play odd weeks, 4 play even weeks. One group loses players, fold the groups together and keep recruiting.
If recruiting adults sounds like a man’s job well, maybe, playing tabletop RPGs that accommodate adult schedules are not for boys? Maybe a computer and headset is a better choice.
There are many recruitment services on the Internet: findagame, nearbygamers, WotC, Pathfinder, MeetUps, what-have-you. Should there be only one set of eyes from a group of friends viewing these sites? Only one set of hands typing up postings to these groups? And there are many forums like HappyJacks as well that offer a LFG forum. What? No one has the time to aid and assist in this? Bullshit.
You know when it becomes a chore? When one person does it for a thankless group. Yes, I have been there and do that so it is fresh in my mind. Nonetheless, my projection holds where it occurs. The experience is real enough.
Here’s a radical idea from example. In a group of 4 adults, one person decides to give up the hobby. He or she is quitting the group. Is that it? Let’s say this person knows full well the group needs 4 and it is now down to 3. Is /that/ it? See the excuse “I have no time to play” is, well, rather offensive to the people left behind who now need to put in extra time to replace the one that left.
Role-playing is a social game so it’s not simply a game. It is not like lawn bowling or playing in a WoW guild. It’s more like leaving a bridge game. The departure may leave the game unplayable. If there is a lack of responsibility associated to playing with a group of people in the first place, the idea of recruiting a replacement is not only foreign but a joke to the departing.
One popular way to handle this: everyone plays two characters.
If the “burden” (because that is the clear message from people who do not do it) of recruiting falls upon 1/3 of the remaining group, the group may fall apart.
Shamefully, the podcast has to suggest reasons why is it good to continuously recruit (to enthusiasts). Seven people in a group can stand an eighth – or two groups of four. If the game does not require everyone to show up for a game, the chances are better the game will occur. When people have conflicting schedules, it does not mean their group has to collapse or that they have to leave the hobby if sufficient replacements are waiting. Games regularly /scheduled/ will attract new players rather than ad hoc meetings.
Also, the pressure of organizing is off any one individual’s shoulders too.
When the responsibility of the group drops on one person, that’s not very social. But it is very lazy. People too lazy to consider others even to responsibly schedule their own time are part of a social activity in name only.
Obviously this is my opinion, and I grew up in what was called "The Me Generation." But are my observations so far off?