D&D 5E Campaigns losing steam

[Beedo]

My group is a handful of dads (and their boys) and it's typically difficult to get the full roster every week - families are demanding. We'll range anywhere from 3 to 7 players any given night. I've been enforcing some techniques that work well for transient players:

• Adventures are short - the dungeons are set up as 3-5 room delves, to allow the players to start and finish an entire lair in a single 3-4 hour game session.
• Every game starts and ends back in town (at the Adventurer's Guild Hall) so it doesn't matter if you miss next week.
• I target five players with encounter prep, scaling encounter difficulty up or down based on actual attendance.

I'm very much an old school DM andthe game is a bit of a sandbox. it's much easier to structure an episodic game with a rotating cast if you don't try to run a scripted game that requires every week attendance.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I guess one of the problems with both of the campaigns I tried to run was that most of the people I was playing with, apart from a couple of them, were brand new to RPGs, so they maybe weren't as enthusiastic about playing them as I am. They also had a lot of other things going on in their lives outside of D&D, like other hobbies, work that had awkward hours, etc. (not that I don't have other hobbies vying for my attention, most of mine just don't have specific times when they need to be done).
I don't really know what my point is, I guess I'm just venting to other DMs! Have any of you had similar problems?

D&D isn't for everyone. 5e, in particular, is aimed squarely at long-time and returning D&D fans. If you already like D&D, or remember liking it, it's familiar and fun. If not, it's less approachable.

My advice would be to find an organized play (Adventurers League) location near you and start participating in that. You'll meet other players and DMs who are already fans of the game. If you do bring a new player, you'll have a tablefull of experienced players to help initiate him into the mysteries of the game.

Failing that (not every town has an FLGS), look for other established gamers. ENWorld, IIRC, has a gamers-seeking-gamers forum of some kind. So does WotC. And, there's always meetup and other on-line services.

 

[Shiroiken]

This may be considered Heresy, but there are far more important things than D&D.

My current game has 1 player who is (more or less) permanently MIA. I have another who is a bit flaky, and shows up about once every 2-3 sessions. Another player usually has to work, but tries to join in after. I have two other players who've had classes the last few months that have caused their attendance to be intermittent. In fact, I don't think I've had a full group the entire campaign.

My group is large enough (8 players plus me), that we have enough to play even when half don't show. I just plan for 5 PCs (the average at any given time) and run with it. You can do similar with a smaller group, but you have to set your plan lower (for example, 3 PCs in a 5 player group).

 

[SubDude]

The comparisons to a sports team is spot on. I've coached a church softball league for about 10 years now, and even with a roster of up to 25 players, sometimes fielding a full team of 10 is just not possible.

I do think the only viable solution is to schedule a time that works best for your group and press on.

I played a lot in high school, and so I fondly remember all-night gaming sessions. That just is no longer on the table now that all my friends think I'm a "grown up", so a three-hour tour, every two weeks or so is probably the best I'll be able to get.

 

[redrick]

I totally feel your pain and you're definitely not alone!

I got back into D&D after many, many years of not playing, and was very eager to get games together. I taught my girlfriend and ran her through a series of one-shots. I tried to get groups of friends together for games. Ultimately, the problem was that, for me, this was something that I really, really wanted to be doing, and, for them, it was just another way of hanging out.

Roll20 was definitely a godsend for me. It's not the same as playing in person and, personally, I also find it to be more work to prepare, but the nature of the internet is that there are tons of other players out there who really, really want to play role-playing games, and GMs are in short supply. So, instead of feeling like you're dragging all your friends to some stupid ballet (or crummy dive bar, or whatever), you are running a game for people who are truly grateful. And even then, not all people have the same interest level as you do. We lost a player or two to changing schedules, and I kicked out a player because he would miss sessions or show up 2 hours late without any advance warning, but now we have a core group of 4 players who keep showing up every week.

All the advices here are good, of course. Being ready to run something, even if only one other player shows up, is important. Make the game something that always happens, and people who miss the game are missing out, instead of just "re-scheduling." Decide how much commitment you want from people, and hold them to it. Want a game that's friendly to parents and people with busy schedules? Expect 24-hour notice for missed sessions, but allow them to come in and out of sessions as their schedules are allowed. Just recruit more players and be prepared for all of them to show up at once! If you regularly have less than 4 people showing up, put the word out and recruit 2 new people. Once you find one player who is committed to your game, that player might start recruiting for you. Having a couple of those people at your table helps to anchor the more casual players who are more interested in having an enjoyable afternoon than they are invested in a particular game. At the same time, those casual players help to bring some reality into play when the people who are way too invested in the game find themselves butting heads.

But jeez, in the meantime, gripe away about your flaky players. They're the worst!

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

This kind of situation is what ultimately turned me off roleplaying games and is the reason why I no longer play actively more often than once or twice a year.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I'm a new DM, and I've now disbanded both of the campaigns I've tried to start (they ran one after the other, not at the same time). It seemed as though the players were enjoying it, it just seemed to be too awkward to organise times to play. There were quite a few times when people ended up cancelling at the very last minute, leaving us with too few players to actually run a session, which got really frustrating (not that I let it show!).
I ended up calling off the campaigns because it just got really disheartening to put so much work into preparing the sessions, carry all my D&D stuff into work, ready for our session after work, get excited about playing, and then get stuck unable to play at the last minute. We also weren't really playing with enough frequency to keep it going.
I guess one of the problems with both of the campaigns I tried to run was that most of the people I was playing with, apart from a couple of them, were brand new to RPGs, so they maybe weren't as enthusiastic about playing them as I am. They also had a lot of other things going on in their lives outside of D&D, like other hobbies, work that had awkward hours, etc. (not that I don't have other hobbies vying for my attention, most of mine just don't have specific times when they need to be done).
I don't really know what my point is, I guess I'm just venting to other DMs! Have any of you had similar problems?

I hear ya! I recommend maybe taking a look at Roll20. In my experience, I find the players are keen, and organising 2-3 hour weekly sessions is much more fun than monthly 8 hour sessions. Easier on prep each week (at least TotM style, which I use), regular fun, folks remember what happened last session - and if the players want to go on a side trek - go right ahead, I only have to improv for 2 hours, not 8.

Zero travel time. As DM you can set the session time. And funnily enough/surprisingly, I find voice only games roll20 games more immersive than in person or voice/cam games.

It's pretty frickin' awesome. Reminds me of playing online shooters and so on with mates.

 

[Uchawi]

I am on the other end of the scale, where I can consistently get 3 players on average to join a game and we all enjoy roleplaying, but we don't have time to prepare as DMs. That is where I hoped 5E would offer more in regards to adventures, and/or adventure paths. If a lot of the prep work was cut down, then we could just jump into a 4 hour session each week, or bi-weekly.

We tried online tools, but as others stated, it is even more prep work to make it interesting with good maps, etc. because you loose the table experience.

 

[dd.stevenson]

It pays to be a bit of a jerk about attendance, and get rid of the players who can't/won't respect the schedule.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

There were quite a few times when people ended up cancelling at the very last minute, leaving us with too few players to actually run a session, which got really frustrating (not that I let it show!)... Have any of you had similar problems?

I'm a new-ish DM too. I have had people cancel, but I don't recognize this concept of "too few players to run a session." I only have three players anyway, but at least once I've run sessions with only a single player there, and semi-frequently with only two. In one case I ran the missing player's PC as an NPC because he'd been an NPC originally, but usually I'll just ask the players to come up with a plausible fiction why they are the only ones there right now, and away we go!

It probably helps that I run a sandbox (so there is no plot per se that I'm trying to show to everyone, just a bunch of things to do and places to go and things to get involved with) and that my players are brave to the point of foolhardiness. For example, the 8th level necromancer split off from the party last session to go fight a Death Slaad, alone. In a way it will be simpler if the other players don't come next session so I don't have to manage the split party, but we'll work something out either way. (Personally I think the necromancer is going to die, but perhaps the skeleton army will prevail.)