Game logistics

[fba827]

When I'm a player ...

How often does your DM try to get the game to run?

He aims for once a week.

How far in advance do you typically know if your going to make it to a game?

I generally know about two weeks in advance, but I can usually say with 100% certainty about a week in advance.

What will prompt you to bail / cancel on the game?

Being sick is the big/main one.
If someone isn't home to watch the kids, then I end up running late by up to an hour but it's never resulted in having to outright cancel (yet).

Is this question just "you say you're going to come but bail/cancel after saying yes?" or does it also include "you know you're going to be busy so you say "no thanks" when first asked if you're free on a day that is often a game day (i.e. Sunday)? If it includes the later, then something like if I have a big research paper due around the same time, I will rsvp with a negative so that no one is expecting me in the first place.


Though generally we aim for a saturday or a sunday, and tend to go for about a 8ish hour stretch (noon to 8) so it's an all afternoon/evening thing.


When I DM ...

How often do you try to run a game?

Realistically, it ends up being once a month (on average).
Ideally, I'd probably prefer it to be every other week.

What will prompt you to cancel the game?

To cancel after the date has been set? Pretty much "just too sick to talk"
Or if we don't get at least most of the players available then we won't schedule a game in the first place.

 

[MortonStromgal]

Lord Zardoz,

It sounds to me like the game you run might not be what some of the players are looking for. This is really at leased a two fold problem.

1. Your style vs players style
2. player style vs player style

I would suggest ending your games 15 min before when you would normally end and let them discuss what they liked and did not like of that particular session. After a few weeks of this that will give you data on what your players like and let you tailor your games in that direction. Don't be afraid to try new things like background music, lighting, props, getting up and moving around, sitting at a table, sitting on couches, etc.

You can adapt to your players style, but if your players are not on the same page you may have to cut some loose and look for players who play in the style of the group.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

MortonStromgal, it is not a question how how much most of them enjoy the game that I run. I am not the only DM at present in the group.

The problem is that as much as they like D&D, they do like to do other things more then D&D. Not even having Arenson or Gygax as the DM would be enough to get them to show up more often. Having Playboy Magazine's Miss December 2010 DM the game topless might get Player E to show up every time, and might get the others to show up a bit more often, but not by much.

D&D is a form of entertainment, and competes against pretty much every other thing humanity is willing to do for entertainment, and against other time commitments. A group of gamers about 30 years old with no children and decent jobs has enough disposable income on hand that none of them would have much of a problem finding something worth doing on the weekend. Up until recently my group actually was reasonably consistent. However Player A is relocating to Toronto after spending about 5 months in hard crunch at work, and Player C ended up having enough other things going on in his life he decided to opt out of the game. I am sure that if I find another pair of players who can show up reliably, that I will have no problems getting the game back to a reasonable frequency of play.

Of course I would absolutely love to have players more committed to the game, but I will take what I can get. But I am a mono-lingual gamer living in Montreal, and I am generally not the most social or outgoing person. Being mono-lingual cuts down on the potential player base locally; As much as I want to game, I am not going to screw up someone else's game by being the only guy at the table forcing every other guy to speak english.

Anyway, I did not start this thread to complain or comment on how often my game actually does run. I started it because I am actually curious to find out how often games are intended to run vs how often they actually happen, and why the games end up being cancelled.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[MortonStromgal]

MortonStromgal, it is not a question how how much most of them enjoy the game that I run. I am not the only DM at present in the group.

I don't mean it to sound harsh just matter of fact. I am a married 30 something and when I have had a awesome GM I have litterally told my wife/boss etc "I can't, I have my game that day". Now this is not to say that this always happends but if I'm having a great time I make an extra effort. Sometimes though servers go down, I get sick, etc and I have to put my gaming on the back burner. What you were discribing to me is the players are having an ok time but its not something they are willing to make an effort to say no to other events in order to play. Thats not to say your bad, but you might want to kick it up a notch, that way they are thinking about your game all week and feel like they need to be there. For the casual gamer you may never be able to get them to commit to that level, because frankly they arnt that interested in gaming which is where the playstyle differences come in and picking up new blood.

 

[fba827]

yeah, it doesn't sound like a question of enjoyment. it's a matter of hardcore dedication.

but, yeah, if you're not getting (say 24 hours?) notice on a cancellation, just drop the person an email next time and just say something like "it's fine that you had something else to do, but could you give me a little more notice next time so that i can plan accordingly? it would help me a lot actually! thanks!"

 

[tyrlaan]

All comments are post college since such concerns as "finding time" to game where irrelevant back then

When I've DM'ed, it's been exclusively weekend games. They were every other week and even then only when everyone could attend. This didn't work too well. I think maybe one game ran for a year before petering out.

I would only cancel a game as a DM when life happened, barring any other scenarios my memory is currently glossing over.

As a player, I'm in only two games at the moment (need moar arrpeee!!!). One game is bi-weekly on a weeknight and the other is monthly on a weekend.

The bi-weekly game is relatively consistent, though lately it's been sort of all over the place. But I need to explain our attendance and scheduling rules for that to make sense. If a player can't make a session and provides adequate advance notice, we try to reschedule to a different night. We will only reschedule if we can get 100% attendance for the reschedule. Otherwise, we just play the regular date without the player. We never play with more than one player missing. Also, if someone is absent the players effectively run the missing player's character for the session.

The monthly game is still relatively fresh, but seems pretty consistent. The goal is to play once each month and we establish our game date as early as possible to lock it in. Weekend days are a premium within most of my social circle, so the sooner it's scheduled the better.

Regarding missing a session, I generally try to provide as much notice as possible, but obviously there are times you just can't do that. As a rule of thumb, I've got to be fairly sick and/or contagious to bail on a session or out of town for whatever reason.

Oddly, I think I'm more "hardcore" about attendance as a player than as a GM. Though as I think about it, my guess is that it's related to what you need to "bring to the table." As a player, all I need is my sheet and my character's personality in my mind. As a GM I need a lot more. And, for example, if I was sick for a week, the chances of being prepared for running a session vs being prepared to play in a session are much slimmer.

Also, I am jealous of many of you people who clearly game way more than I do!

On a final note, I would also agree with the general sentiment others have regarding your play group. I think expectations need to be discussed and managed. Honestly, the casual player who will skip if something else more interesting comes along wouldn't fit the expectations of any game I'd run or have played in so I'd imagine it's quite possible others in your gaming group might take issue with it.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Seems this thread is determined to stay derailed into a discussion of my players attendance habits and play expectations.

I am confident that they enjoy the game when they are able to make it. I am also sure that up until life started to derail heavily for two of my players, that all concerned had reasonable expectations for how often we would play. Certainly I would like to play more, but I have found that finding any group of adults who are willing to show up consistently for a D&D game is extraordinarily difficult. If I were to insist on near 100% attendance, I would probably be at home playing by myself. Hence the use of a pool of 5 players and only requiring 3 to show up to game. It gives me enough gaming to keep me happy while providing my players with enough flexibility to keep them in the game.

The only problem with my group is that due to factors beyond my control, I have lost 1 player and will soon be losing another.

Now, can we please get back to the intended topic of discussing everyone else's game logistics instead of my own? Or if we are going to insist on discussing my group in particular, at least fork the thread?

END COMMUNICATION

 

[MortonStromgal]

Now, can we please get back to the intended topic of discussing everyone else's game logistics instead of my own? Or if we are going to insist on discussing my group in particular, at least fork the thread?

END COMMUNICATION

I think the two are intertwined. I mean for me I have 2 groups. My expectations on my Thursday night group is very different than my Saturday morning group. Thursday group is heavy deep roleplaying with little to no homework, we just show up and get into character for 3 hours. My Saturday morning group is as much 5 hours of talking about the football game as it is rolling dice and we sometimes have some homework. The players in each group are looking for something different out of their gaming sessions.

[edit] all that to say the logistic that work well for one group dont always work well for the other

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Our group plays every fortnight on a Tuesday night from 6pm until about 10-11pm (finishing time varies, sometimes it is later than this but not often). One of other players also runs a fortnightly game on the alternate Tuesday that includes 3 of the players from my game, so there is a large overlap between the two.

Since the game has been running in this timeslot for several years now (apart from a switch about a year ago from Wednesday nights to Tuesday nights) all the players know not to organise other things on that night. If a player does have a clash, and they let me know early enough, I try to change the day of the game so that everyone can still attend. Sometimes this has meant changing the game to a different night that week, or even moving the session to the next week if needed (in which case we would effectively have a 2 week break between sessions and then play 2 weeks in a row).

Sometimes scheduling conflicts are unavoidable. If I can't change the date of the game, or if a player drops out at late notice we generally still run the game so long as at least 3 of the 5 players can still attend. Otherwise I just cancel the session (something which I think has only happened once or twice in 4 years). 2 of my players have missed about 10 sessions out of 40 (both uni students so clashes with assignments and exams were frequent), the other 3 players have missed less than 5 sessions each.

The missing players' PC's are run by one of the other players for that week. Missing players' PC's only receive 2/3 of the normal amount of XP for the session. Players running other players PC's get a 5% bonus to XP for the session.

I have found this system works very well for my group. It rewards the players that show up each week while, at the same time, not imposing too large a penalty on players that are unable to attend some sessions. And by having missing players' PC's run by other players it means I don't have to rejig any encounters for that session.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Lord Zardoz]

[edit] all that to say the logistic that work well for one group dont always work well for the other

True.

I am trying to get a feel for which days of the week for most people, and I am trying to get some idea of how often games manage to run vs their rate of cancelled games. And believe it or not, the purpose is primarily just curiosity on my part. That information may help me find additional players to replace the ones I am losing.

END COMMUNICATION