Gaming Group Struggles

[Ralif Redhammer]

After years of putting up with people that made scheduling games difficult for varying reasons, I closed that group down and started a new one with people that were enthusiastic about playing and would actually show up. The difference was night and day.

In this day and age, there are so many opportunities to game, online and in-person, that you don’t have to tolerate noncommittal players. If these people are your friends, it bears repeating that good friends do not always make for a good gaming fit.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Better yet: the standing rule becomes that character sheets stay with the DM between sessions. (I'm always surprised to see others don't do this - it's been SOP around here since forever)
We usually do the latter. For example, I'll be missing* our next session in full knowledge that someone will run my PC (and her hench) pretty much the same as I would have.

* - a rare occurrence; first in years.

It’s really group dependent, of course. And tech figures in greatly.

When one guy ran a 4Ed campaign, almost all of the characters were generated in his account, so printing a copy was easy. This meant the guy who frequently forgot his character at home was never disruptive.

OTOH, I started going electronic long before that. One of the first things I did when I got my Palm Tungsten PDA was start keeping my RPG characters- AND campaign design notes- on it.

Now that I’m using iPhones and iPads, they’re stored on the cloud. Not only can I print on demand, I can email my PCs to the GM or another player.

 

[ccs]

The main issue is that the 3ish players are not the same each time. There is little consistency for story and I don't have the ability to plan ahead for encounters, etc.

So why don't you run a game for the ones who want to play D&D & are leaving in order to do so?
As for those 3(ish) players who're unreliable? They get to play characters who's sheets stay with you.
When they can make it? Great, here's your/a character.
When they can't make it? Those characters are NPCs/run by the other players/maybe not used at all.

You write your adventures based on the regulars who will show up {they're the stars of the story, but you just don't advertise that to the others} & plan encounter difficulties for 1 more than that.
If more show up? Add an extra monster/increase HPs & AC etc. Or just shrug & accept that the evenings encounters will be a bit easier than expected.
This is exactly how my Thur 5e game runs (though the group has opted to not have anyones character played at all if they aren't there). I've got 3 regulars atm, 1 guy with a fluctuating work schedule, & 1 gal who now has a very busy school schedule.
Work guy adds a bit of firepower when he can make it.
School gal is mostly just there for RP & hanging out with her friend (one of the regulars). But even when she could make every session she has never been a factor mechanic wise..... Fun to play with, but no threat to the cosmic balance.

You set game night to a time that works well for you & the regulars.
You give a short recap of what went on last time at the start of each session.
If the regulars are still having trouble keeping track of what went on? Then you'll have to scale back the scope/detail of the campaign.

And don't be afraid to scrap/indefinitely pause the current campaign in favor of something that'll work better.

 

[S'mon]

Yeah. The awful thing is that at Session Zero, everyone said they wanted a political intrigue campaign with more roleplay than combat. Several of the players created lengthy backstories for their characters. One of the players who just dropped - his campaign arc was going to have a climax next session. I'm really frustrated because I put in a lot of time planning the whole campaign world.
The West Marches (or one shot) idea might work, but it goes against what they told me they wanted to play. [Which I guess reality kind of makes that story-driven style of game hard to pull off.]
I'm not sure about Gloomhaven. Maybe? It's tricky that whenever I've suggested a board game night instead, people just stay home and attend even worse than D&D nights.

I'd suggest single session 'mission' type scenarios with a political spin. Eg the way Dark Heresy is focused on investigating heresy within the Imperium. Go for episodic villain of the week type approach, the way they do (or did until recently) in TV dramas. And have a few long running threads anyone paying attention can pick up on. I'd say The X Files was a good model here. You can eg have shapeshifting monsters/aliens/demons infiltrating the human government/court, and the PCs charged with unearthing them - that way you get intrigue, drama, and a good excuse for a fight every session! Highlander TV show with its evil Immortal of the week is another good episodic approach - you can do lots of duelling, maybe 3 Musketeers style between rival factions.

 

[innerdude]

We tried Savage Worlds. I'm guessing it didn't work for a few of the players. I haven't taken a look at O.L.D. yet - embarrassed I know so little about it.

Don't give up on Savage Worlds after a single play. In my experience, it took 2-3 sessions for it to fully "click" for my group.

But once it did, they enjoyed it tremendously. We've tried other systems besides Savage Worlds over the past 5 or 6 years, but it's remained our "go to" the whole time.

 

[Retreater]

Don't give up on Savage Worlds after a single play. In my experience, it took 2-3 sessions for it to fully "click" for my group.

But once it did, they enjoyed it tremendously. We've tried other systems besides Savage Worlds over the past 5 or 6 years, but it's remained our "go to" the whole time.

I'm running the occasional Savage Rifts game with another group. The other group that is disbanding wants 5e or nothing, it would seem. (I had a couple "rough sessions" with the disbanding group of trying to learn the system that may have played into it.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

. We decided as a group we couldn't run a class-based system (aka D&D) since not all the roles would be filled.
I can't run a regular D&D game for the 3 players willing to stay behind. And I can't keep the players who are leaving unless we play D&D. But we can't play D&D because half the people miss regularly.

What's a guy to do?

First of all, if it gets you running something better than D&D, it could be a blessing in disguise.

But, you can run D&D - some versions more readily or with more kludge than others - for even very small groups.

Classic D&D assumed the inveterate use (& abuse) of henchmen & hirelings, who could take up the meatshield, band-aid, and Trapfinding duties otherwise beneath their wizard masters.

3e and 5e, as long as the few PCs are tier-1 casters, have no strong need to cover every role via class, when spell selection (and, in 3e, item and even construct, creation) can serve the same purposes.

Even the ed that most formally defined roles worked surprisingly well with few PCs: The controller role was readily dispensable in a party of 3. A duo could get by on a fair combination of secondary roles - a Paladin (Defender/leader) and Rogue (Striker/controller), for instance could be surprisingly effective. Perhaps ironically, a lone controller worked pretty well vs the kinds of encounters (minions, underleveled foes, lone standards) that fit into such a limited encounter budget. And, to come full circle, Companion characters could fill in missing roles, like the henchmen of yore.

 

[Randy_Robertson]

If your group isn't consistent, then you may have to rely on short one-off adventures.

^ This.
Try building the games in an episodic way so that each session is like a TV episode. They all link together and build toward a season finale, but each can also stand alone and doesn't require the same players or characters to be in every one of them.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

And players who leave just because "It's not D&D" are likely too lazy or afraid to try something new. Those aren't players, they're casuals.

No. Just... no. This thinking strikes me as fairly full of elitism.

My free time is more valuable to me than money. If someone is going to run a game that is not one I enjoy or isn't using a system that I do enjoy, I've got to do a quick ROI. I've been playing since '81. I love to play RPGs. I frucking hate playing RPGs I don't enjoy, genres I don't enjoy or with people whose company I don't enjoy. I'd rather just not play. There are other hobbies around that are just as fun.

Plus D&D games (since that's the system we're talking about) are just too easy to find to suffer through other games.

This idea that I won't play some other game because I'm lazy or afraid is just naughty word. That makes me someone who knows what I enjoy.

 

[Randy_Robertson]

Know what? Never mind. Since you find it offensive, I will remove that part of the post. Sorry for disturbing you.