Via 10 by 10 room, I found this excellent Forge post by Tony Lower-Basch about food as a gaming ritual, and its impact on play.
In a nutshell: Tony serves dim sum to his gaming group, and their gaming session runs more smoothly. Clearly what you eat, and when you eat it, has an impact on your gaming.
My current group meets weekly for two alternating games; I’m a player in both of them. We get together at 6:00, order food (which gets there at 7-7:30ish), watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica over dinner — and then start gaming, usually between 8:00 and 9:00.
That’s a loooong interval between arriving — stoked to play Hunter or Trinity (depending on the week) — and actually sitting down to the gaming table.
Instead of arriving ready to game, I’ve learned to arrive excited about hanging out, eating something delicious and unhealthy and watching BSG. I’m still stoked to play, but I try to keep that excitement on a back burner until dinner’s over. I don’t think this kills any of my enthusiasm for the game — but it’s definitely a different experience from getting there and jumping right into gaming.
I’m not sure if I’d prefer to arrive and start gaming right away, though — we’re all friends, and we need time to catch up, chat about movies and socialize. That time is valuable, and the logical solution — spending less than half an hour chatting before the game, gaming for a while and then breaking for dinner — has its own downsides (like interrupting the flow of the game to eat).
Nearly every group I’ve gamed with (as a player or as the GM) integrates food into their gaming time, either before starting the game or as a break during play. (I’ve never gamed with a group that ate after gaming, and doing so sounds a bit odd.) In nearly 20 years of gaming, sharing a meal has almost always been part of the experience — it’s become more or less integral to gaming, for me.
And every time, when we eat, what we do while we eat and — to a lesser extent — what we eat has made a difference in how the game progresses.
What have you noticed about how food impacts your gaming, especially from a GM’s perspective?
It´s the first time I comment here.
I´m from Brazil and in my group we tend to “race for the pizza”, which means that every time the pizza arrives, we stop everything to eat. Instead of watching a movie or TV series, we prefer to chat about the game, or catch up.
I think eating comes as not only a time for the GM(usually myself) to breathe, but can be a good time for the players to have some exotic or strange idea that they might try IN GAME.
I can always think of some hooks from what they say, and I have a good termometer of how my GMing and Storytelling is…
I was happy to hear from a player that they don´t like to stop playing when I GM, because my adventures are “contagious”, they feel excited about.
Who said that pizza only makes you FAT? It can also make yourself a better GM and more important: it can be rrrreeeeaaaallllyyy FUN!!!!
Food definitely has an impact on the group. Finger foods are usually a bonus – what kind of foods we eat depends on the season. We’ve found that we prefer “lighter” meals in the summer – fruits, sandwiches, veggie dips – while in the winter it’s meatloaf, stews, roasts, meat n potatoes staples.
By far, the most inspiring meal we’ve come up with is nachos – uber jumbo nachos. One big pizza platter, layered with corn chips, refried beans, meat, olives, cheese (several kinds) which is zapped in the oven till the cheese melts. It’s then topped with more cheese, sour cream, tomatoes, salsa and fresh avocado. Yum! It’s always a hit, and everybody is always “YESSS!” when it’s served.
We all split the costs as much as possible – it’s only fair that way. If dinner is already covered, then someone provides dessert and drinks. Dessert again, varies on the season. Warm pies direct from the oven is popular in the winter and cold desserts in the summer.
I think one thing that’s great about food rituals is that they are almost always not solitary things. They are about friendship, hospitality, and all those things that generally give people the warm, fuzzy feeling that things are going well, especially when we’re with people we care about.
As a pretty simple result, gaming has it’s set of food rituals that are different for each group. They remind us of why we’re together in their own minor way.
I seriously like the dinner before gaming method, although I’m a bit biased as that’s what I’m used to. I get my fill of food prior to the game with all my group around, then, I get my dice and snacks and I’m ready to go. Works a charm to keep my head more into the game.
We used to always meet to eat before the game, but our schedules over the last couple of years have gotten in the way. Now it its a treat (brauts on the grill, oh yeah!) and we sometimes eat out so that we don’t have to deal with the cleanup. That time for eating really cut down on the out-of-game chatter as we caught up with on another, now we don’t seem to get as much done during sessions.
on the domestic front: About 5 years ago my wife (non-gamer)and I realized that 1/4 of our fridge was taken up with drinks for ‘game night’. So we bought a dorm fridge. My group has its own fridge, although it has more soda in it now and less beer. We’ve got a fund from all the members in the group to keep it full.
(Daniel) I think eating comes as not only a time for the GM(usually myself) to breathe, but can be a good time for the players to have some exotic or strange idea that they might try IN GAME.
I hadn’t thought about that — about the game-related brainstorming aspect of eating during a break.
During the last long-running game I GMed, we took a food break during every session — and you’re right, the players often brainstormed about the game.
(And welcome to TT, Daniel. :))
Lilith: I’ll have to give your uber-nachos a shot the next time I GM — that sounds ideal, and I can see why everyone would get excited about them. 🙂 (Damn, now I want nachos!)
Kestral: Good point about starting on a full stomach — that does make a big difference.
(hellibrarian) That time for eating really cut down on the out-of-game chatter as we caught up with on another, now we don’t seem to get as much done during sessions.
I’m not following you here — do you mean that there’s less out-of-game chatter during games, now that you handle food differently?
Martin said “I’m not following you here — do you mean that there’s less out-of-game chatter during games, now that you handle food differently? ”
dinner time was very social, the non-game stuff we talked about during the meal now gets talked about during the game (I’m guilty of it too).
My DM has instituted a new food rule – he feeds us lunch/dinner and we bring the snacks/drinks. It works out pretty well for everyone involved. Usually he’ll hit the Safeway and get the Milenna’s take home pizzas. Cheapest pizza out there for the best quality, I highly recommend it.
This system is a lot better than the old one where we’d stop midstream and order food from a plethora of sources, delaying the game for an hour or more.
hellibrarian: Gotcha — thanks for clarifying that. 🙂
Larry: That sounds like a good system — thanks for the suggestion!
Hey,
Our group (8 folks including the DM) has a policy (though not necessarily original; based on a Monte Cook idea). It’s called “Role-Eating”. It means we take turns (on rotation) for each person providing food for the rest of the group. Sometimes pizza slips in, though most of time our thirty-somethings group brings/cooks a heart-healthly / low-cal. dinner.
On the subject of eating as a group, I think that “breaking bread” is one of the most important things about fellowship and meeting with friends.
Regardless of when your group meets, or what age you are, be sure to take advantage of having a meal with your friends. It is probably the most thing you will remember for the rest of your life, even after the great game.
I have tried on occaision to do this kind of stuff. Back 15 years ago or so, I had a group that was open to the idea, and we did cook a couple group meals.
One thing to consider is how to distribute the load of cooking. It may not always be wise to rotate it, it seems like my gaming groups always include some folks for whom cooking is popping some cheapo frozen thingy into the microwave. If we’re going to be doing group meals, I’d like them to be something special.
So with my current group, the food ritual is this:
One guy keeps a bottle of soda in my fridge. He also frequently brings (storebought) cookies or something to share.
The young couple occaisionally bring leftovers from some party over the weekend. And sometimes bring home baking. They also bring various food for themselves (we fend for ourselves for dinner, and share snacks). One time, they brough one of those big buckets of Twizzlers (well, actually some other brand, but you get the idea), which lasted for many weeks.
I am always running around like crazy, so I’m usually just putting my dinner on when people start arriving. This works out ok because I can multi-task that with the usual 30ish minutes of chit chat before we get serious about play.
Frank