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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GregoryOatmeal" data-source="post: 5545569" data-attributes="member: 6667661">I'm about 3 months into running a bi-monthly game at a FLGS. Wow. I feel like I could have written your post verbatim. Thanks - I feel less alone now.The store is actually more of a comic shop that makes most of its business from Magic. The store just opened and I'm trying to get the store to sell more tabletop gaming supplies. It's frustrating that only about two of the seven gamers that show up at any given time actually bought the $20 essentials book. Sometimes the others buy comics. Mostly they're just bumming my D&DI/PHB book or essentials book the others bought to level the pre-gen characters I gave them from their first session. Some (friends of the owner) insist on running their own games of 3.5 in the store from the online SRDs ("don't worry - you don't need to buy anything"). It's like they just use the store as a free place to hang out.I set up villains and hints from the first game and design quests  specifically to appeal to specific players. I set-up cliffhanger endings where the players have to decide if they want to cooperate with a shady character. Then the character that pushed for that pivotal decision, that has a specific plot-based connection with a pivotal NPC, which the whole next session is built upon, doesn't show for the next game. I find magic items for them  and they lose their character sheets and need to look them up again.  Players that miss sessions miss the recap because they're absorbed in  making characters. I have clearly asked them to RSVP on facebook - at least a "maybe attending" or "not attending" so I know if they got the invite and can plan hooks/quests for their characters. Most don't until I prod them with text messages. I like these guys. I'm not enough of a hardass - I can't tell them "If you forget another campaign session you're out". I should. I think the lesson is if you let flakes be flaky they only become more flaky. I guess I'm going to have to write a set of rules. I don't want it to  come to "sign this player-GM contract stating you will buy a rules book  or you can't play" - I mean I don't feel like I should have to ask.I'm about to send an email to put the game on hiatus. I will continue to run exclusively one-shot games at the store. New characters every game that I'll have to print out in advance. No continuity. The real campaign will migrate to a house once I feel the gamers are committed. It's just too much effort trying to hurd cattle around in the meantime... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /></blockquote>

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