Life is hell on gaming.

My Dungeons and Dragons campaign's been running for about five years. I've got about 10 active players ranging in age from early 20s to early 30s. Most have girlfriends. About half are married. A few have kids. A few are thinking about kids. All have day jobs and horde free-time like gold-starved dwarves.

Our campaign meets weekly, and between any given session all hell can break loose. One friend may need us to move the game to his house, so he can put his son to bed while his wife's at work. Another may need a ride from the train station. And others need to bail for reasons that range last-minute trips to going out on dates. And then there're the various meta gaming issues -- arguments about rules, new ideas for the campaign, PC planning for the next session -- you get the idea.

And it's only going to get worse. Fortunately though, we have an ally on the net. And a powerful ally it is: Yahoo! Groups.

Yahoo Groups stated out as a company called eGroups, which was later absorbed into the search engine's empire. It's made up of several components, each of which makes organizing a campaign a heck of a lot easier.