Why is it so hard to get people together to play?

[invokethehojo]

I feel your pain man. My group is very similar, they all talk about how much they want to game but then they bail at the last minute. I really think that the difference is the hobby is important to me, its a passion, but to them it's just a hobby. If I say I'm going to be there nothing short of a family emergency will keep me away, but with them it's any little thing that catches them up, then they complain about not playing often enough.

I can tell you that was has helped is that we have abondoned games that require x number of players to have an effective party, and any campaign we run is written around the concept that people will jump in and out. So a pirate ship that sends a few guys to the city to negotiate a trade of black market goods, but the next week sends a different group to explore the ruins, that kind of thing.

 

[Oryan77]

I've figured out a sure fire way to get both guy & girl gamers to be very committed to playing every single session.

To get guy players to commit: you gotta be a very hot female DM. For male DMs like myself, turning into a hot female is going to be a bit of work. But it can be done. There have been a lot of advancements in the corrective surgery field. I sort of want to get a head start on things, so I'm going to pick up a tiny bikini and wear it to the next session. *crosses fingers that this will work.

To get female players to commit: ask Brad Pitt to join the group. Luckily there is always a celebrity that the girl is attracted to. So if she doesn't like Brad (yeah right), just get one of the other hunky celebrities to play. The problem that you may be asking is, "Well what if Brad isn't committed to playing every game?" That's easy, just go back to initiating my idea for getting male players to commit. It all falls into place in the end.

 

[DumbPaladin]

I most agree with Crothian and Dausuul.

Simply saying you are committed is nothing, and unimpressive: you can prove you're committed by coming on all dates you promise to come to. People in your group who aren't doing that, quite simply, aren't dedicated to your D&D group and you should file this fact away for future reference accordingly.

Also, the DM should step up and say that the game will continue, with the campaign that people want to pick as the "main" campaign, as long as a quorum of X people show up.

I politely disagree with Wik about weekend groups; they work well for working people. Our group meets twice a month on Saturdays (occasionally Sundays), and we've only had one month without two game sessions since we started doing D&D twice a month in summer 2009.

But the reason our group works is that we have all agreed to meet as long as we have 5 of the 7 players available to show up, and 6 of our 7 current players are truly dedicated to showing up each week. The 7th have flaked out repeatedly, but we no longer schedule dates based solely on her say-so, and when she agrees to dates the rest of the group has agreed to, and doesn't show up, we continue to game regardless.

The other people in the group have all proven through their actions that they want to be part of the group, TRULY want to be there, and they will make it unless some emergency arises -- or they tell us beforehand they can't be available on certain dates.

There is no excuse for the players in your group to not be able to do the same. It's very rude to leave other people hanging this way.

 

[Katana_Geldar]

My group usually will play every week, we're rather big so we can usually have enough players to make it a viable game. We also have a message board where the DM or host posts the date for the next game, the venue is organised and people post whether they can come or not.

This is also where people can work out if they need lifts home or not.

Also, at the end of each session I tenatively ask people whether they can commit to next week...or if not when is the next best date.

But we game saturday nights, as it's usually the best night that suits most of us. We play at a church hall that I hire for the occassion ($20 for the night) and is in a location that we can all get to. There's also quite a number of take away shops around so people can get dinner.

We game from about 5pm until around 10.30, but the dice don't start rolling until around 6pm. There is an understanding that the "regular time" to show up is around 5, this gives us enough time to get dinner and eat. We start playing usually when the DM finishes eating. I consider it good if we start dice rolling just after six, though I sometimes have to crack the whip to get them moving. But sometimes we can be there from about 4pm and finish early.

But believe me, organising a regular meeting is about the hardest thing in existance to do.

 

[SoulsFury]

This is why me and my friend play D&D in one on one groups. We can never get a reliable 3rd or 4th, much less a 5th. We still invite friends to play when they can, but the stories center around our characters. If we find a reliable person to join in, then we shall add that person. With just us, we play once to twice a week. I think we have done 6 sessions in the last 4 weeks. We took the new characters from 1st to 6th level already and have done two complete modules already.

 

[Wik]

I envy the people who can play during the weekends; in my experience, it's nearly impossible to sustain over the longterm. But this is probably due to my group of friends, and our age group (mid twenties to early thirties).

I would *love* to play in a "brunch style" sunday afternoon game. I've been quietly suggesting it for the better of a year... but hangovers seem to get in the way fairly constantly.

 

[Piratecat]

I have the unusual situation of running two D&D groups with no player overlap, playing in Sagiro's third D&D group, and being part of a 4th once-a-month MnM game. I also run occasional one-shots with friends and their spouses who we can't game with regularly. Boston is such a gaming mecca sometimes.

We do it like this:

My Grey Guard group (four men, two women) runs every other Thursday, 7-10. Sagiro's game runs the opposite every other Thursday at the same time. My Merchant Prince group (three men, four women) runs the same week as Sagiro's, only on every other Tuesday 7-10pm.

This way everyone can plan ahead for the games. We know I'm either running or playing on Thursdays every week, and that every other Tuesday is a game. People know ahead of time if they're going to be absent or late.

That being said, we're all in our 30s and 40s, established with families, and three of the couples bring their kids to the game and have them go to bed here before we play.

 

[Sunseeker]

I politely disagree with Wik about weekend groups; they work well for working people. Our group meets twice a month on Saturdays (occasionally Sundays), and we've only had one month without two game sessions since we started doing D&D twice a month in summer 2009.

I agree, and as well disagree with some of the posts that suggest this doesn't work due to the under-30's desire to party it up on the weekends. I'm a nerd through and through, so are all my friends, and while many of us enjoy a good drink, none of us have any desire to get hammered. If we've got the time and money to waste drinking, we've got the time and money to waste buying gaming supplies and playing, which we'd most certainly rather be doing.

 

[pogre]

I agree on setting a time.

In my group, I am part of the problem. I am a head high school football coach. That means from August until November I cannot game. We just got knocked out of the playoffs, so I'm getting ready to start a new campaign.

Rounding up the troops after a few months off can sometimes be tough. Particularly because two of my long time players moved to other parts of the country.

I'm going back to an episodic campaign format. I'm designing every adventure to be playable in three to four hours. If folks have to miss, they miss out on that particular "episode", but can jump in at the start of the next one.

I'm also trying to design adventures that can handle between 3 and 6 players so that a couple of cancellations will not stop that week's gaming session.

The cool thing is two of my boys will be in the campaign this time. That should almost build-in the necessary quorum.

 

[DumbPaladin]

I agree, and as well disagree with some of the posts that suggest this doesn't work due to the under-30's desire to party it up on the weekends. I'm a nerd through and through, so are all my friends, and while many of us enjoy a good drink, none of us have any desire to get hammered. If we've got the time and money to waste drinking, we've got the time and money to waste buying gaming supplies and playing, which we'd most certainly rather be doing.

I'm not willing to say Wik's group (or anyone else who has posted) are the type who are too busy partying to play D&D, but rather it simply comes down to the dedication level of the group as a whole.

Of the 7 players + our DM, I would only say that two of the eight players actually have free weekends most of the time, so it's not a problem; both the DM and I and a third person schedule our D&D weekend dates FIRST before scheduling other personal business, but we still make time for the rest of our non-D&D lives.

There's nothing about our lives that makes us unable to do a minor bit of planning ahead of time to determine which dates in the coming month are free, and which aren't. While I'm single, the DM has a girlfriend, so dating status isn't even a good excuse.

Bottom line: some groups simply aren't all that worried about it if they don't meet very often, because most of the players aren't all that dedicated to it. If you find you are in such a group, and you ARE dedicated to it ... well, you may need a new group, with people like those in my group.