Does your group send session reminders?

[diaglo]

we send reminders and some of the players still forget to let us know they aren't gonna make it.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

We have a set place, and try to play every other week, but it often ends up being every third week, so I send reminders to make sure everyone knows when we are playing.

 

[was]

We just use them to keep in touch with the group.

 

[Harmon]

We send out a Weekend Update. It talks about food for the coming Saturday and whos showing, what are we doing for dinner, stuff like that. Once in a while one of the two GMs will put in a "this is where you were, what are you going to do?" message that includes some reminder.

Most of the time the Weekend Update is forgotten and the "what are you going to do?" is ignored.

The campaign stylings have changed a bit over the last few year or two (or months really) so the Players need less help.

 

[Henry]

We have a Yahoo Group also, where we both discuss the previous week's happenings, and we plan future session dates. 9 out of 10, we meet weekly at the same time and place; however, we occasionally vary this, and it helps to confirm it in any event.

OTOH, in my case, if a reminder that plans have changed after firday at 5pm, I usually don't get the reminder. It happened for us this week, but we still had a fantastic Magic the Gathering session.

 

[sniffles]

We have a Yahoo group, but we still do reminders. We have a rotating schedule of about 6 different campaigns, so the reminders are really more to remind everyone which campaign will be occurring next than to remind them of a date.

 

[Imperialus]

We don't usually have to worry about reminders though that is probably more because we have a regular weekly session though. I can only remember one time in the past 5 years or so that our wires got crossed. We generally take 5 minutes at the end of each session to make sure that everyone is good for the next week and run from that.

 

[DethStryke]

I run a game every other week at my place, but we have a dues system that pays for food and props for the group (I'm far too poor to blow my money on miniatures that will only be used for this group). Since we have things like veggie beef stew and fresh baked bread, I need to have things set in advance.

As such, we have a Yahoo Group and the calendar system sends out two notices to everyone for every session. Some of the players have no problem understanding what bi-weekly means, but a couple need to be explicitly told every single week. That's just where their priorities and personal organization is I guess. I urge everyone to post their own times that they cannot game in case we try moving a week because of a majority of no-shows. I have also made it crystal clear when and how I should be contacted in case someone cannot show. Since I did that, it hasn't been a major problem.

Still, some people are just really fricken busy. I've only been able to run my normal game half of the sessions. When we have three or less out of five, we play a fast and loose version of D&D to fill the gaps and toss some dice.

 

[Katcracker]

My current group does not send reminders... we more end up discussing a good time for all. And with the amount of e-mail and actually talking and other things we do with each other, it's hard for someone to forget. We tend to be at the same place, so that makes that part easy at least.

 

[buzz]

we send reminders and some of the players still forget to let us know they aren't gonna make it.

You are not alone.

All three of my groups send reminders, if only just to confirm who can and can't make it. One of the groups rotates locations each session, so it also helps use keep straight where we're playing that week.