Wofano Wotanto
Hero
Outside of one recent case I haven't joined an in-progress game in several decades (not this century), and I'm not sure the one recent example will help, but:
A while back I was thinking about trying some online PbP when I noticed there was an opening or two in ongoing game that had suffered attrition to the point where only two of six players were still left. I approached the GM privately, got approval to discuss coming in on the OOC thread, and even suggested another possible player who I knew liked the system, resulting in him joining up as well. Seemed to go well and we got in about the equivalent of two-three sessions FtF before it just...stopped. I think it was a GM problem (maybe a change in circumstances that made going on too much of an imposition) but there never a soild discussion of the reasons. Pretty sure it wasn't the new blood clashing with the old, since I'm currently gaming amicably with one of them in a start-from-scratch PbP using a different system.
EDIT: Worth noting that the system involved has a fairly slow advancement system (which is also somehow too fast FtF for multi-year campaigns at the sane time) so I didn't experience any "new character = weaker" issues, and of course I could just read the campaign details from before we arrived. I'd already been doing so casually anyway.
In general though, I'd rather not jump into an ongoing game if I can avoid it. It feels less intrusive (or let's be honest, pushy) when loss of players has lead to a "get new blood or stop altogether" situation, and that does happen pretty regularly with PbP games. So that helps some, but I'm not going to kid myself that I'm doing a group a favor by joining. The day I get that arrogant I'll run for political office.
A while back I was thinking about trying some online PbP when I noticed there was an opening or two in ongoing game that had suffered attrition to the point where only two of six players were still left. I approached the GM privately, got approval to discuss coming in on the OOC thread, and even suggested another possible player who I knew liked the system, resulting in him joining up as well. Seemed to go well and we got in about the equivalent of two-three sessions FtF before it just...stopped. I think it was a GM problem (maybe a change in circumstances that made going on too much of an imposition) but there never a soild discussion of the reasons. Pretty sure it wasn't the new blood clashing with the old, since I'm currently gaming amicably with one of them in a start-from-scratch PbP using a different system.
EDIT: Worth noting that the system involved has a fairly slow advancement system (which is also somehow too fast FtF for multi-year campaigns at the sane time) so I didn't experience any "new character = weaker" issues, and of course I could just read the campaign details from before we arrived. I'd already been doing so casually anyway.
In general though, I'd rather not jump into an ongoing game if I can avoid it. It feels less intrusive (or let's be honest, pushy) when loss of players has lead to a "get new blood or stop altogether" situation, and that does happen pretty regularly with PbP games. So that helps some, but I'm not going to kid myself that I'm doing a group a favor by joining. The day I get that arrogant I'll run for political office.
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