I truly believe that any of our recent players, would make it to any given game, if they could. The fact that they aren't there, generally means they can't be there. I certainly don't mean it as a slight to the gaming group, when I say that in a choice between my family commitments, my work commitments and my gaming commitments, I have to choose gaming last. I suspect that most of us are in the same boat there. It is just the fact of adult life.
This is the frustration. People miss. A lot. Not only do they miss a lot, but they always have damn good reasons to miss. I can't fault them for missing.
However - it is frustrating that I spend a lot of time coming up with something, the game gets cancelled/postponed for weeks, and by the time I get to run it, I've lost interest in it. Whatever it was I found compelling about it is gone, so I have to put in work on something new which I find compelling.
So - on one hand, I can't actually fault people for having priorities in line. On the other hand, I can't actually run a game without a certain number of people showing up consistently.
The conversation which seems to have pissed so many people off stemmed from a request to explain why I stopped running games. Perhaps I said it badly, but I will try to restate it here (at the risk of again pissing people off):
I stopped running games because people stopped attending.
It doesn't matter that their reasons were valid.
I am sorry if that attitude pisses anyone off or turns them off. I simply cannot run games when no one attends - and it gets frustrating when it happens for months on end.
I can accept everyone has different priorities - I have priorities too, but I try to schedule around them (yet I had valid reasons to cancel once in a while, too). I completed my MBA while keeping a gaming schedule. I wrote 16 published books (and a few unpublished ones) while maintaining a gaming schedule (and doing my MBA at the same time). I kept in touch with my family and kept my job while maintaining a gaming schedule. Heck, I got divorced and remarried while maintaining a gaming schedule!
I took on the responsibility of GMing and I treat it as a responsibility - as one of several competing priorities. Hanging out with my friends is always going to be a priority with me. I have (and will continue to do so) turned down my parents for visits on game day. (Of course, to be honest, I would rather hang out with you guys than go visit my family, so I am not being fair there as I am probably in the minority. Visiting my family is ... well, boring. I even used game day to get out of going to a wedding once!)
However, one's priorities are not the issue here. Believe it or not, they aren't.
I recognize that most (if not all) the excuses are valid and justified. However, the fact remains that if no one attends, I cannot run a game and will eventually stop even trying. It does not matter if the reasons for not attending are valid or not - consistent non-attendance causes game stoppage.
The same thing for leaving early - it doesn't matter if you have to leave because the wife has a hangnail and needs the trash taken out RIGHT NOW, or if the wife fell off a ladder and is being rushed to the hospital - the game is pretty much disrupted to the point of everyone just going home. The reason can be good or silly - it still ends the game.
The conversation that upset so many people wasn't really about the reasons people had, but for the reason why I wasn't running games anymore - and the reason is simple:
people stopped showing up.
That is the issue. Priorities aren't the issue. Reasons being valid or invalid are not the issue. The issue is people are not attending and I need people to run a game, and I need at least a couple of consistent people to run a campaign.
