Gaming Group Struggles

[Imaculata]

If your group isn't consistent, then you may have to rely on short one-off adventures.

 

[Retreater]

Yeah. The awful thing is that at Session Zero, everyone said they wanted a political intrigue campaign with more roleplay than combat. Several of the players created lengthy backstories for their characters. One of the players who just dropped - his campaign arc was going to have a climax next session. I'm really frustrated because I put in a lot of time planning the whole campaign world.
The West Marches (or one shot) idea might work, but it goes against what they told me they wanted to play. [Which I guess reality kind of makes that story-driven style of game hard to pull off.]
I'm not sure about Gloomhaven. Maybe? It's tricky that whenever I've suggested a board game night instead, people just stay home and attend even worse than D&D nights.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One solution for the revolving door of gamers is to have copies of each PC. When X can’t make it, you run X’s PC as an NPC.

I have also been in groups where players trust other players enough to run their PCs in their absence.

 

[cmad1977]

Honestly. 5e runs fine without the ‘Rolfe’ being filled.


Edit: That’s ‘Roles’. Keep Rolfe filled because he gets grumpy when he’s hungry. The roles though are a vestige of prior editions that don’t really make a codified appearance in 5e.

I’ve run groups without a ‘healer’ or ‘tank’ and they worked great.

Also: bear in mind that the game is (I believe) designed/‘balanced’ around a 4 person party.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah. The awful thing is that at Session Zero, everyone said they wanted a political intrigue campaign with more roleplay than combat. Several of the players created lengthy backstories for their characters. One of the players who just dropped - his campaign arc was going to have a climax next session. I'm really frustrated because I put in a lot of time planning the whole campaign world.
The West Marches (or one shot) idea might work, but it goes against what they told me they wanted to play. [Which I guess reality kind of makes that story-driven style of game hard to pull off.]
I'm not sure about Gloomhaven. Maybe? It's tricky that whenever I've suggested a board game night instead, people just stay home and attend even worse than D&D nights.

I can suggest Blades in the Dark as an alternate game that may work if the other solutions offered don’t work for you.

Blades is intended for each session to consist of one “Score” or mission plus a round of downtime. So a rotating cast would be fine.

It’s also designed to require little prep. It’s very sandboxy in that sense. Learn the setting...which consists of one city and its different factions...and then just turn the PCs loose.

The game itself is different than D&D in a couple of was though. There’s a lot more narrative responsibility on the players. They have resources at their disposal that can really push things toward their desired outcome. It’ll help if you have creative players (and it sounds like you do).

The action is also intended to be driven by the players. After a few scores, the GM should step back and let the players start to decide what they want to do and what kind of score they want to pursue.

The setting itself is a kind of haunted Victorian type city that offers a variety of games. The PCs can be a gang of mercenaries or they can be spies or power brokers or purveyors of illicit goods or just about anything. They get to choose the type of crew they’ll be, which will help determine the kind of stories they want. You can do politics and intrigue or you can do gang war or labor disputes or whatever they may like.

It’ll be a bit of a shift in the way you play, but it sounds like a feasible option for your group, if they’re willing to try something new.

 

[GMMichael]

We decided as a group we couldn't run a class-based system (aka D&D) since not all the roles would be filled. I converted the campaign and their characters to a different system.

So now several of the existing players are leaving to find "D&D" groups. Obviously, I let the players find a group that is fun for them. I'm just at a loss of what to do. I can't run a regular D&D game for the 3 players willing to stay behind. And I can't keep the players who are leaving unless we play D&D. But we can't play D&D because half the people miss regularly.

What's a guy to do?

"Different system?" Why are you keeping us in suspense?

Play some O.L.D. so you can continue the fantasy theme and the players can design a small, well rounded party, and when the literal retreaters hear about all the fun they're missing, they'll come back.

 

[Retreater]

We tried Savage Worlds. I'm guessing it didn't work for a few of the players. I haven't taken a look at O.L.D. yet - embarrassed I know so little about it.

 

[pogre]

Not sure if this works for you, but what I did was invite 8 people to play in my campaign. It's episodic, meaning every session is pretty much self-contained. Players can drop in and drop out as needed. The player pool expanded to 10 and I average 7 or 8 per session, which is a bit much, but still works for us.

Here was the key for me: The game is every week on Sunday at 2 PM no matter what. That consistency and a great group of players has made the game a resounding success and a lot of fun. One of the early sessions I only had three players make it, but as the campaign has continued LOW player numbers has not been a problem.

Good luck - that's a very frustrating situation.

 

[billd91]

Yeah. The awful thing is that at Session Zero, everyone said they wanted a political intrigue campaign with more roleplay than combat. Several of the players created lengthy backstories for their characters. One of the players who just dropped - his campaign arc was going to have a climax next session. I'm really frustrated because I put in a lot of time planning the whole campaign world.
The West Marches (or one shot) idea might work, but it goes against what they told me they wanted to play.

I guess the question to ask is "What changed?" Did anyone's schedule change? Did other obligations outside the game become more complicated for people? Or did people answer your questions about what sort of game they wanted with their greatest ambitions, but not their capacity to put said ambitions into practice?

I'm not sure about Gloomhaven. Maybe? It's tricky that whenever I've suggested a board game night instead, people just stay home and attend even worse than D&D nights.

While that sort of thing works for some groups, some just want to play D&D. And that's OK, even if it is disappointing when you want to broaden your options.

 

[Lanefan]

One solution for the revolving door of gamers is to have copies of each PC.

Better yet: the standing rule becomes that character sheets stay with the DM between sessions. (I'm always surprised to see others don't do this - it's been SOP around here since forever)

When X can’t make it, you run X’s PC as an NPC.

I have also been in groups where players trust other players enough to run their PCs in their absence.

We usually do the latter. For example, I'll be missing* our next session in full knowledge that someone will run my PC (and her hench) pretty much the same as I would have.

* - a rare occurrence; first in years.