Help - my group is in flux

[Ry]

I have a very, very serious dilemma for my gaming group: I have no problem getting four to six people together for a game every week - and I'm certainly in a creative space where a game a week appeals to me.

The problem is, between spouses, girlfriends, school, jobs, adult ADD, dyslexia, and other commitments, it's practically impossible to get the same group every week. I tried changing to a monthly schedule, but all it meant was that the games happened once every two months, due to cancellations.

This has just killed a game right before the final session: The same 4 players had been there for all 5 sessions, the 6th was supposed to be the finale. We had collectively worked out the schedule, but ADD+girlfriend on the part of one of our players means it's dead, since half the players are heading to Japan the week after. Sigh... The tragedy is that I've got another half-dozen friends that wanted to play in this game, but couldn't commit to a schedule.

But enough bitching. I want to design my next campaign around having a player base that's in flux. I've seen articles on handling player absences, but I can't recall discussions of designing campaigns where who is at the table can change from session to session. What have you tried? Has anyone had good experiences with this? Can somebody point me in the right direction?

 

[Legildur]

Not that our groups experience much flux (occasionally a single player can't make it) but one of the players writes a journal (including maps of the areas explored) from the previous session and sends it out so that we can refresh ourselves the next time around. You could use that to bring new players up to speed for when PCs swap in and out.

 

[the Jester]

I want to design my next campaign around having a player base that's in flux. I've seen articles on handling player absences, but I can't recall discussions of designing campaigns where who is at the table can change from session to session. What have you tried? Has anyone had good experiences with this? Can somebody point me in the right direction?

Forget 4 people, get a group of 8 players.

The best thing about a large group is that you almost always get enough people to play that you can run the session. Work a system out for missing pcs- they 'fade out', someone else plays them, whatever- and stick to it.

I've had massive party size for years, and very rarely is everyone there. Works out fine. Also, having a large party allows you to be cruelly lethal without devastating continuity, if your group likes a high-fatality type of game.

 

[scourger]

I have the same dilemma. I now have 1d3+1 players on any given week--down from 1d6+1 about 3 years ago. I haven't been able to design a D&D campaign around a fluctuating number of players nor have I seen it done. The best successes I've had were: 1) Judge Dredd d20 where the PCs were all judges in Mega City One, had their own motorcycles, and could ride off on other duties if the player was not present for a session; and 2) Tour of Darkness for Savage Worlds in which the heroes currently are in a military type unit and complete a mission every time we play--that way the assignments are for whoever actually shows up to play. The game has to be designed to work with fluctuating numbers of players. As D&D is not so designed, the campaign has to structured for it. I think the best way is this kind of "episodic" play. The characters whose players are present start each session at their base (a town, ship, caravan, etc.) and go out on the mission that presents itself. The survivors return to base by the end of the session, divide the spoils and collect experience. Repeat next session.

 

[TGryph]

I had a similar problem over a couple of summers with an old D&D group. We were all family men, and between soccer games and vacations, attendance was erratic at best.

So I designed a short, Mission Impossible Meets The Dirty Dozen campaign. The set-up was the PC's were inmates in an island prison camp. Their death sentences were repealed...IF they served the crown for a period of time doing very dangerous missions for a secret government agency.

I made each mission short..one or two sessions, and tried to put togehter several in advance...when they were that short it was pretty easy. When the players met for PC generation, I made sure they had a good variety of archetypes to choose from (muscle, face-men, snipers, etc). I had the more dependable players make up two or three PC's, each similar to a character from a less dependable player.

It went over like gangbusters, so well that the players wanted to continue it when the summer was over. A lot of lesser story lines had developed from the missions, and we had a blast with it.

If you are interested, drop me an e-mail and I can give you some more details.
tgriffith@earthlink.net

Hope that helps,

TGryph

 

[Gilladian]

I'm about to begin a game for a bunch of HS-age players one night a week for just a couple of hours. They'll all be members of a caravan traveling across a war-torn kingdom seeking a safe place to settle.

Each character can come and go during the course of the campaign (only 8 weeks in this case) and appear or leave as needed. I have no clue if I'll have 1-2 or 8-10 players each week, and if they'll even stay at the table for two hours at a stretch. I've noticed that some of my likely players are very ADHD!

Hopefully the traveling band structure will allow plenty of fade-in fade-out stuff. I'm planning to mostly run random encounters "on the road" with a few spot scenarios for added interest. Role-play will probably be minimal...

Hope this helps; I really think the episodic mission based structure is the best way to go.

Gilladian

 

[schporto]

Our group is about 7 players. We've played by a "if 2 people will miss we cancel otherwise someone plays your character, you are unlikely to die during that period". And that has worked well.
But, in a semi lucky stroke we have about 3 other people who would like to join. Thinking about ideas I thought about how comic books often vary how strongly portrayed some characters are in one issue vs the next. Its often not until a big climaxy type thing that all members of a group come out. (I'm thinking of Xmen, avengers, titans, jla etc) So you may want to do that. Think of several bad guys and depending on who is available, depends on the twists in the plot. Make them all part of the same adventuring guild and keep track of a calendar, and you should be able to pull this off.
-cpd

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Our group has 9 total -- 7 players and 2 dm/players, playing Age of Worms. So, any given week we have a potential of 8 players, and we only ever seat 6 at the table. We maintain a schedule of who gets to sit if everyone is available, and very rarely do two sit
for any given session. I had my doubts at first (it wasn't my idea) but it works pretty well for our group. There are some hiccups, but over all it's a workable system.

-rg

 

[Seeten]

I designed my game to be set in a high school(Mutants and Masterminds) and so the lineup involves 8 characters, but any of the players who happen to miss a session, their characters are studying for a test, writing a paper, home visiting parents, etc.

If you had a mercenary company/group of sellswords who had a rotating lineup, you too could shrug when people fail to show.

 

[Glyfair]

I agree with the repeating comments here:

1) Get a slightly larger than normal player group
2) Run a campaign where players can fade in & out.

I'll add:

3) play less often. To me, once per month was a disaster. Twice per month, however, tends to work much better.

Psion's thread on episodic play is a good starting point. If you take a certain amount of control of player actions between sessions, you can more easily write players in & out of the storyline. Player A is missing because he Aunt Polly is ailing and he decided to take her to a legendary healer's to be healed. Player B is missing because he got left behind in a race to the coach.

The only thing you have to make sure you do is end the session at a spot where you can write people in & out of the session.