I'd love to have a face-to-face group I am 100% comfortable with, like the life-long friends I left behind in Germany. That would really solve most of my wishes directly or indirectly.
I'd get to play earlier in the evening.
I'd have a weekly game, an every-two-weeks game, and a monthly game.
My gaming friends would all live in the same state.
I'd play more fully-imersed more of the time.
I'd have more time to spend preparing for games and reading rulebooks and thinking about characters and situations and putting pen to paper and dice to table.
I'd play more often. I'd be happy to have a monthly game as opposed to, on average, once a year.
(Man, I envy some of you. I hear about people who have jobs and spouses and spouses with jobs and kids and I wonder "How do they do it? Meguey, Vincent, where do you and your group find the time to do all of the gaming you do?)
I'd relax more and just have fun instead of being such a theory-hungry ****.
I'd do much more prep work on my main campaign.
I'd have a biweekly experimental gaming group that tried out something new each time.
I'd get paid enough for game design that I could live off it.
When I played I'd always be able to play for an 8-12 hour slot. I love long days of gaming.
My perfect gaming schedule consists of the occasional quarterly games when friends come from out of town to visit or we meet somewhere central, like NYC along with two games a week, one in which I am playing and another in which I am running.
I'd love to have a night of gaming for the zany ideas I get, just able to play them as they come.
I'd play a bunch of different games, tapas style, in small morsels. N.B.: The "hey all Forge-ites in DC let's get together" group is actually doing this -- so, a model to copy for those in dense urban areas?
(I know it's sideways to topic, but I'll answer Chris's question anyway - "How do they do it? Meguey, Vincent, where do you and your group find the time to do all of the gaming you do?")
We make gaming with friends a top social priority.
We game with Emily about once a week, sometimes less due to work or illness. It helps tons that we've both been gaming with her since before we had kids.
We game with Joshua and Carrie once a month when they come up from CT, usually a Saturday night.
We talk (well, Vincent talks, I listen and give feed-back) about games fairly often.
Sometimes we play with our kids (Universalis, The Night-time Animals Save the World, and Seb wants to play Capes)
How this parent who games manages: Wait until the kids are asleep. Be content with 3-5 hour sessions max. Sqeaze in bits of game talk at odd moments when the three of us are together and the kids are playing.
I think a relevant point might be that we don't have a TV, as such. We have VCR and DVD players and a TV, but we don't get any TV shows we don't rent, so that may clear up some time. Of course, to counter that, we have two computers and we spend far too much time on-line ;)
I'd be better at not trying to ramrod my ideas over other people's.
I'd be more comfortable playing characters who are either closer or farther from myself; my comfort zone is too limited and I unconsciously return to it when I deviate.
I'd be less afraid of having characters with significant emotional committments that I don't sympathize with.
There'd be more story-propelling play from everyone in my group, less 'sitting-back play'.
I'd figure out the balance between player goals in expressing story and wanting opposition.
More actual play, less idle chatter, better rested players (this is a big 'mistake' from my last games), more play to see if something'll be fun and less talk about what might be fun.
I would play more often.
Have the ocassional longer than 4-5 hour session. (I miss the 65 hour benders)
Get it so my lady could actually play in the campiagn I started for her. (dang work schedules).
Get the other GMs in my group to be lesseed stress about "knowing" rules and being able to keep up.
Get the campaigns that are suppose to meet once a year at least, to meet at least once a year.
* I'd somehow be able, at thirty-something, to still pull those all-nighters from my childhood with a killer gaming group, 2 or 3 pizzas and a few liters of soda and an obscene amount of chocolate, all the while enjoying an excellent gamin experience.
and the more likely and realistic thing i'd change (and i think i'm echoing Victor above..)
* I'd not let the group spend half the time talking about completely unrelated events from past gaming sessions, what new console game they're playing, or other off-topic and non-productive crap that always trickles into any current session.
I'd actually play sometimes instead of GMing every. Single. Game.
I'd actually write up my proto-Confucianistic setting for Dogs instead of just letting it rattle around my head. And get my friends to explore it with me.
I'd play more FTF, and with some new people.
I'd play Dogs instead of GMing.
I'd try more new systems.
I'd worry less about the social dynamics of the group (less of an issue with FTF people than with PBeM).