Attendence Problems.

[mythago]

No, run the kind of campaign you like, for players who will appreciate it.

Some people have a short attention span and/or screwy schedules. That's OK, but they and you need to be clear on what the situation is. You need to tell them "Look, if you miss more than one game you're going to be lost and bored." They need to tell you that they have to stick with short game cycles where they can be in and out in a couple of sessions.

 

[Sanackranib]

type of game to run . . .

ditto! run the good game and weed out the bad players.

 

[Drawmack]

If you miss this session you bring dinner next session and we want steak, serloin tip.

 

[Sanackranib]

dinner

If you miss this session you bring dinner next session and we want steak, serloin tip.

I never thought of that but I like it.

 

[StalkingBlue]

There's two way to deal with this: find players who appreciate your GMing qualities and turn up for your games; or change your style and run adventures that are loosely connected, if at all.

You may actually end up with two groups, like me.

In addition to the game I run at home, complete with plot lines, recurring characters, personal character goals and all that, I play/GM in one group where player attendance varies widely. This game is at a club house and on an average night, about half a dozen games in different game systems are being played.

The D&D group at that club has three core members, myself and two others, who take turnns GMing, plus five or six others who join occasionally, depending on what other games are on that night. Sometimes people bring guests. Most players have several characters going at different levels, so they'll be able to join even if the other PCs that night are all only second level and their favourite wizard/fire elementalist is 10th going for 11th level.

In these circumstances, there's not a chance in hell you can run any involved game, much less one with slowly unfolding plot lines and deep character development.
So what we do is run short adventures that will be completed within two or three sessions. (One GM uses Dungeon modules a lot.) If most of the PCs change in mid-adventure, fine. As long as one of the original group remains, we regard the adventure as intact. Naturally, things may get a little tougher if the group changes and shrinks as they approach The Big Showdown ... but that's life.
I will accomodate for varying player attendance to prevent an automatic TPK, but not much more.

I was pretty sceptical at first (and still prefer my home game - how couldn't I?), but actually I find that club game very relaxing - tons of fun, plus great for cutting back your ego as a GM. I'd almost forgotten that you don't need to be a world-class plot designer to run a perfectly enjoyable game.


Let us know what you decide on and how things work out!

 

[Galfridus]

I run a weekly game at a game store and have had attendance problems -- my favorite was the player who completely vanished just as I introduced the major plotline (and multi-session adventure) centered around his character. Doh!

You need to keep your players happy -- I've tried things that I love as a DM only to find out my players hate it. I changed, since the alternative was eventual loss of several players due to disinterest. Trust me, if you stick to "I'm the DM, I'll run what I want", you will go through a lot of players.

I have a standing policy where anyone who misses three sessions in a row without making advance arrangements is out. Someone who skirts the edge of the policy (consistently skipping two then making one) can be booted as well. When someone approaches this line, I make sure to talk to them and let them know what's happening. It's forced some people in and some people out.

Lastly, run a kickass game. People tend to show up for those.

 

[Quickbeam]

Here's the method I use to help avoid high levels of absenteeism.

1) We attempt to schedule sessions up to a month in advance using a group calendar.
2) At the end of each session, we verify the next gaming date, location and time. Anyone who has a last minute conflict is asked to send an email with a copy of their character (we use an Excel PC sheet) to another player and the DM.
3) We never schedule game sessions when less than five out of our seven players are available.
4) Everyone is asked to make the D&D game a minor priority in their lives. During the autumn, I play football every Sunday morning according to my team's schedule. Missing a game is not acceptable without good reason. I also sit on the Board for our community Little League organization, and they have monthly meetings we're expected to attend. I treat D&D the same way -- players are expected to show up according to the group determined schedule. Maybe I'm lucky, but I've found likening our group's D&D sessions to a sports team schedule has worked quite well.

Good luck finding a solution that works for you.

 

[tabrumj]

Hm, player attendance hasen't been much of a problem for me lately. My main group is pretty close knit, we all respet each other too much to just up and cancel a game on the other players. Another factor is that my gaming group is one of the best in town, we know that with just a few phonecalls we can get other players to join the group. We are very selective of those who play with us and expect them to show up or let us know that they won't ahead of time. Of course most of us have to take gaming seriously since there are two freelance writers and a freelance editor in the game.

All of the GM in the group are incredibly good, even the realtively newbie GM(my wife, she runs a darn fine game of Buffy). All of us run very character intensive games that we all want to show up for. We really can't afford to have a player not show, it just messes up the group dynamic too much.

When a player can't show I usually just cancel the game. On those rare times when we game without a player, the rules are simple their character is a silent presence run by the GM who will take general directions from other players. In addition the PC earns no XP during that came but is still counted for XP division.

The one time a player skipped out on the group with almost no warning (she called about two hours before game) I cancelled the campaign then and there. I told players what my plotline for the rest of the game had been and we created characters for a new game; without including the missing player. And before you ask she chose to go to another form of entertainment, which is okay, but she could easily have given us more warning.

 

[mythago]

Wow, that's kind of hard on the rest of the group. "Bill had a car accident just now and can't make the game because he's in the hospital--roll up new PCs."

It's true IME that the best ways to avoid losing players is to make sure you match the game to the players, and to avoid having flakes in your game.

If you want to run a slam-bang Feng Shui type of game, and your players are more the deliberative Harn type, you'll have problems getting people to show up.

And sometimes you just have to kick the flakes. Recently one player in my DG game, who brought another player with her, 'temporarily' quit because she decided to pick up another hobby 6 days a week. As we had changed our schedule seriously to accomodate this player, I wasn't inclined to be nice about it, and she was permanently dropped from the game.

The kicker was that she saw a post on the mailing list later about her PC and exclaimed "What are you doing to my character?!" Uh, it's not YOUR character anymore. Go away.

 

[tabrumj]

Wow, that's kind of hard on the rest of the group. "Bill had a car accident just now and can't make the game because he's in the hospital--roll up new PCs."

It was because the player who's chharacter I had based huge swathes of plot around decided last minute that she wasn't going to show. I had left the last session off at a major cliffhanger and everyone was really excited to play the next game. She called about an hour before game was going to start and left a message saying that she was going to the county fair to watch a band. She completly flaked on the plot with no good cause. If she had even given a few days warning it would have been okay, we could have all made other plans. I decided then that I couldn't rely on her showing and that I wasn't going to finish the game without her character, around which I had originally written the campaign. So I cancelled the campaign. My players understood and were creating nifty new characters for my Scarred Lands game right away.