"So you'd like to host the gaming group." For some reason or another, you may find yourself wanting to offer your home up as the new meeting place of your gaming group. Or maybe you even just want to do it once, perhaps for your birthday or to show off the remodeling you've just done. Either way, it's going to take a bit of planning and preparing to be ready to have hordes of nerds descend on your humble abode. The first and most important thing to consider before you say "Hey! Let's game at my place!" is whether you can actually accommodate the group. Do you have one room big enough to hold everyone? Do you have sufficient seating (or is your group willing to bring lawn chains?)? Is your AC up to the task of cooling the room with that many warm bodies in it? Is there enough parking? Next is to accept the fact that your home may be the worse for wear after your group leaves. People may spill drinks on your floor, grind food into your furniture, and do heaven only knows what else. It's basically like having a party at your house once a week. If you want to keep your things nice, you probably do not want to host gaming, unless you have a mature, sedate group. You need to be prepared to say "no." Some people will think that they can stand on your furniture, help themselves to any food or drink in your home, invite random people to the game without telling you, or stay for hours after the game, talking your ear off. It's important to decide what behavior you'll tolerate ahead of time, and then firmly but politely tell people to knock it off when they go too far. Don't silently stew and then eventually blow up when someone drinks your last Mountain Dew. If you don't live alone, you need to discuss it with your spouse, family, or roommate(s) and make sure they're alright with it. This is especially important if the other members of your household are not part of the gaming group. In this case, you also need to consider how their presence will impact the game. If your group meets in the living room, and a non-player is also in there watching TV or playing video games, it can be a huge distraction. Pets are also a concern. You need to make sure that no one in your group is allergic to or afraid of any animals that you have in your home. Then you have to make sure that your pets are not scared of the group. You may want to make and establish some rules, but if you make too long a list, you may turn people off from meeting at your house. Only announce the rules that are the most important to you, for instance, if you want people to stay out of your bedroom, or if they have to leave the old cat alone because she's cranky and might bite. Anything else can be addressed as it comes up. If you've gotten this far and you still want to host the game, great! Hosting can be a lot of fun, and it saves you time and money as you're no longer driving to the game, plus you don't have to lug all of your gaming books around! And if you do a good job, your friends will all be impressed by how awesome you are. To ensure that your group sings your praises, here's a list of things that I consider essential for proper game hosting. The Bathroom. This is the biggie. Your bathroom should have ample toilet paper, soap, and a clean hand towel. None of this is optional. Do not hang a bath towel, because then people will worry that they're wiping their hands on your personal bath towel, and that's just gross. Make sure that there's at least one spare roll of TP within plain sight, too (assuming you don't have a cat who will shred it), so your group doesn't feel the need to dig through your cabinets in an emergency. A little fridge and freezer space, for people who bring drinks and snacks that need chilling. Bonus points if you have a dedicated mini-fridge in your game room. Cold, clean water to drink. Don't feel pressured to provide any other refreshments (after all, you're already providing the space, and gaming is not bound by the rules of formal entertainment), but it's nice to have water, especially in hot or dry climates. Be home and ready for the group when the game is supposed to start. You don't have to sit around twiddling your thumbs waiting for people to arrive, but stop any super-involved activities half an hour before the group is supposed to get there (this goes doubly if you're also the GM!). Switch to an activity that's either easy to stop right away, or that people can join in on (like a game of Apples to Apples, where it's always easy to deal in a late-comer). Make sure your chairs aren't death traps. Ideally you should have comfy seats for everyone, but if that's not possible, just settle for safe seats. This includes having chairs that are sturdy enough for larger group members. No one wants to sit in a seat and have it collapse, either because it was already broken or it wasn't rated for their weight. Not only is it embarrassing, but someone could get hurt, and that's not cool. Don't host if you or anyone in your household is sick. It's bad form to expose the entire group to the germs, and it's bad form to force your sick family members to put up with rambunctious gamers when they should be resting. Along those lines, if you can't host for any reason, try to let the group know as far in advance as possible. Obviously there's nothing you can do if you wake up on the game day and you're super-sick, but if you're going out of town or entertaining non-gaming guests or whatever, give the group notice a couple sessions ahead of time so they can make other arrangements. That's all for this month!

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Copyright © 2009 By AJ Reardon E-mail AJ at: ErtheFae@aol.com Visit AJ at: www.erthefae.com