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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ptolemy18" data-source="post: 1946649" data-attributes="member: 24970">I like playing and DMing RPGs. I don't buy more than one new sourcebook every two months or so, and I rarely buy miniatures, and I'm only in one campaign (weekly), so I'm probably pretty mild by the standards of this message board, but I do like them a lot.I'm currently DMing a weekly campaign... or at least, it's supposed to be weekly. There were originally seven players, but two dropped out (one because he was too busy, the other one because he decided he hated several of the other players for out-of-character personality reasons). Now I have five semi-regular players (one sixth player showed up for two sessions, but then dropped out because he spontaneously decided he'd rather watch TV that night. I just wish he'd given me some warning signs... instead, he had his friend tell me he wasn't gonna show up any more.)We play on weeknights after work, at my office, and we're all in our late 20s or thereabouts.Unfortunately, I find that time and again, as with most campaigns I run, I, the DM, always end up being the person who cares the most about the game. I just can't get people to show up consistently. Let me read you a few of the litany of flake-out excuses which have happened... these are divided up among the several different players, of course...* got too drunk at the company party* had a doctor's appt. that night, forgot to tell me* got their work schedule changed to that night, forgot to tell me* got their work schedule changed AGAIN to ANOTHER night after I changed game nights to accomodate their new work schedule, forgot to tell me* keeps claiming they're too busy to show up "just this time", but won't actually admit they're dropping out of the gameNow, I myself am a pretty dedicated-slash-insane roleplayer. I tend not to schedule anything else for a night on which I know I'm going to be playing in a game. With five players, I think you can probably play a game if one person drops out (party of 4, okay)... if two people drop out, you're really stretching it (party of 3, eghhh...). Whenever I prepare for a game thinking "Oh, such-and-such character can get involved in such-and-such plotline" and then such-and-such player doesn't show up, I have a wasted plotline on my hands. :/ Of course I can adjust things for whoever shows up, but I feel like I'm wasting my time to set up plots for people who don't show up. Furthermore, when people don't show up to games, I feel like I have to wear kid gloves when running combat, because it seems so mean to kill somebody's character when they're not there... and if I have their PCs be absent for the fight, I have to adjust the whole encounter to make it balanced for a smaller number of people. ("Instead of the six of you being ambushed by twenty bandits... the THREE of you are ambushed by TEN bandits!!") It's like friggin' herding cats to get people to commit to my games. Of course there are some people who are pretty dedicated, but... sigh...Am I the only DM who feels burned by people not showing up to their games without telling me well in advance? It really bugs me sometime. The rejection! (sob!) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I always feel that, as the DM, I'm the person who cares the most about whether the game happens. But obviously I don't want the players to think that I'm desperate or they'll be even less interested in showing up. Most of them are my personal friends in addition to role-players, but I don't want them to go to games just 'cause they think it'll make me happy or some other lame reason like that.The possible reasons I can think of are:(1) I'm a bad DM(2) I'm a bad DM and/or my desperation to get people to show up to my games is showing through and making people less inclined to go to them(3) I have too many not-really-serious role-players in the group, and I need to trim 'em down so that only the really crazed, dedicated role-players remain (though that'd probably only be about three people besides myself)(4) Most people in their late 20s-early 30s have too many things like husbands, wives, girlfriends & jobs to commit to a regular RPG, so get used to it(5) Regardless of their age, it's inevitable that people will flake out, so get used to itAggghhhh... anyway. What does everyone think? What should I do? Should I take it as a personal rejection and a waste of my time when games get cancelled due to massive flake-outs? :/Oversensitively yours,Jason</blockquote>

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