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Hosting A Game

© Johnnie Lohmann

If you play any type of game, from pinochle to GURPS, if you are a GM, a player, the wife/husband of a player, or the player's dog, at some point you will be expected to host a game.

This means hordes of your friends will descend upon your inner sanctum, expecting to be entertained, and to be fed. They will want snacks, beverages, and they will want them to be handy, tasty, and preferably free. (Well, we are speaking strictly fantasy here.) You may need to provide props if you are to be the game master. Music is nice in any event. All of this can be daunting. However, from years of experience, I have collected some handy tips for the host.

Really there are three ways you can handle the snacks, everyone takes turns paying, pot luck, or collect the money at the door. There are pros and cons to each.

First, everyone can take a turn paying, the optimum way this works is whoever is hosting pays, with hosts being rotated often. This offers the benefits of having the snacks available at beginning of session, everyone is sure that, at least on occasion, they will get to make all of their choices top priority. However, as we all know, this is not a perfectly balanced world. Someone will always feel they have been paying the lions share. Either the rotation will not be seen as fair, or someone will be bar be queing a side of beef, while another will buy a snack sized bag of chips, and two cans of soda for six people. I have seen groups torn apart over this issue.

Pot luck, everyone brings something, works well, if a few guidelines are met. Here, communication is the key. The host should keep a list of who wants to bring what. Otherwise you will end up with eight six packs of soda, and a hairy piece of candy from someone's pocket. Also, unless you plan it for a time when everyone has money, guaranteed, someone will show up empty handed, or, worse, not at all, pleading poverty. Still, if everyone has a sense of timing, and fairness, potluck is a great way to take the burden off of any one person.

The third, collect the money at the door, can work well in one of two ways. The host can buy all of the supplies ahead of time, and divide the cost by the number of people. This works well, providing the host can foot the initial expense. Everyone knows exactly how much money they will be spending, it is fair, and the host gets to choose their favorites.

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