Play the damn game!

This stems from a number of conversations I've had over the past few days.

A lot of the Disorderlies gaming mindset is very "event" driven. We need external motivational factors to get us pointed in a direction. Like Conte said to me the other day, "Well, we're not called the Disorderlies for nothing."

Tournaments, megabattles, storyline events - all of these things are, in fact, great motivators for the group to get armies painted, line up times and places and generally get our largely lazy asses focused for a goal, and that's all very noble in the cause of actually getting together to play.

However...

I think to some degree this mindset has hurt us as much as it has helped. Yes, while a stated goal has helped us wrangle together the largely chaotic and fractured schedules we all keep, it also means that some people feel compelled now only to move for an event.

Basically, if it's not big and showy and flashy, it isn't really enough to capture their attention.

Over the past few months, I've actually been very good about getting regular games in. Despite all of the other things going on in my world, we successfully ran the D&D "Unhallowed" league, I've played several games of 40k, we were having semi-frequent Hordes games, and had a long-discussed Warmachine/Hordes scenario battle.

In short, I've done a lot of gaming.

I really think a lot of the onus of this has been simple: I want to game. I know I'm fickle, and I jump from army to army and game to game faster than some members of the Disorderlies change their undergarments, but you know what? I'm fine with that. I don't give a damn what somewhat else's opinion on the matter is.

So I've scheduled whatever I want to play and for the most part I've stuck to that. The DDM League ran four weeks, interrupted once for me going to play Horrorclix, but beyond that it stuck. It was only four players, but in the end, it would have still worked with only two.

One opponent and me is all I need for a game. Yes, I imagine I would get bored playing the same person forever. So far, that hasn't been an issue, and I don't imagine it will. But I don't need an event to pique my interest. I don't need to give myself the headache of wrangling as much of the Disorderlies as I get together just for me to have a good time - in fact, honestly, wrangling the Disorderlies is about an unfun as I can think of. We are busy, disparate people, and it's too damn much like herding malevolent cats on crack sometimes.

That might be an oxymoron. But it works.