How Do You Coordinate Your Gaming Sessions?

How do you schedule and coordinate your gaming sessions?

  • Email chain

    Votes: 15 28.3%
  • Text message thread

    Votes: 21 39.6%
  • Shared online calendar

    Votes: 4 7.5%
  • Discord channel

    Votes: 24 45.3%
  • Facebook group

    Votes: 5 9.4%
  • Telephone calls

    Votes: 2 3.8%
  • Twitter thread

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • EN World forum

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • MS Teams

    Votes: 1 1.9%
  • Other (describe below)

    Votes: 11 20.8%


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Eyes of Nine

Everything's Fine
In addition to Discord (for one group), email (for my high school buddies - one of them doesn't have a cell pone 🤯 ), and text for the rest - when setting up a new game wtih folks I'll use doodle
 

hawkeyefan

Legend
I have three active games currently. One is a weekly online game with my longstanding play group. We use text to coordinate. My second game is a weekly online game with folks I met through EN World. We use discord to coordinate. Finally, every other week, I have an in person game at my house with members of my longtime group; again, we coordinate by text.

In each case though, we play on a set day and time. So coordination really just means confirming who can make it, or the occasional need to cancel or move to another night. But it’s rare that we need to do that… everyone is typically able to make it.
 




Monday group: always Monday, almost always 19:30, coordinated through the same Discord as we use for voice while playing.

Wednesday group: always Wednesday 19:30, two campaigns running alternate weeks, coordinated through a e-mail list. If people don't read their e-mail, they don't know what's going on.

WWII group: monthly, always a weekend, usually Saturday, two strands run by different GMs, coordinated through a e-mail list (ditto).

Cthulhu group: monthly, always a weekend, usually Saturday, coordinated through a e-mail list (ditto).

Everyone involved in all these games is in their late thirties or older, and organised enough to read their e-mail. We've had one chap join Wednesday two or three times but always fail to communicate and drop out.
 

My group meets every Monday night at 7:30pm CST/8:30pm EST. The DM notifies everyone via a group text message as to whether or not there will be a game that Monday night. We meet and communicate with one another through Discord on game night. For those in the group who have technical difficulties getting onto the VTT, my DM streams the session through Discord.

I am the oldest in my group (I am in my early 50's). 😋 The youngest two in my group are in their late 20's.
 

Eyes of Nine

Everything's Fine
I just got my first smartphone like 1.5 years ago. A hand me down Iphone 7. I finally caved...
I mean, technically this guy apparently has a cell/smart phone, but finances are such that some months he chooses to pay for his home internet, and others to pay for his cell service. With email, I know he can get it via either platform he's paying for that month. Which is way more detail than folks really needed I guess...
 

Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
I used to do "schedule sessions when we can" and have moved away from it. Now with a single exception every game I play is "we meet X" - every Wednesday, every other Monday, etc.

One extended group of players and DMs is all about Facebook. We use Facebook chats (one per game), not facebook groups, but I clicked it as the closest. Again, the default is we are playing and you will be there, and it's on everyone at the table to pipe up if you won't be there. And that doesn't cancel the game (except the 4-player subgroup that doesn't like playing with 3 players), it's when a second can't make it. We had someone no show/no call recently and that caused a good amount of drama - we're serious it's your responsibility. And when I say drama, I mean talk about dropping them and replacement players. This system works for several games.

The last game is also the same regular meeting, on the players to say if they won't be there, but uses Discord instead of FB chat.

The one exception is a game I run for my kids, niece and nephew. Between HS schedules and extra-curriculars, college schedules and extra-curriculars, and the fact that it's an in-person game where not everyone can drive/has a car and starts in different places, that's scheduled "whenever". I'm GM for it, and I've told the players that as part of their adult training they are in charge of planning it, not me. It meets a bit less than I would like, but they manage.

EDIT: One additional thing - we have one DM/player who has sworn off FB as a while, but runs FB messenger on their phone because it's a good contact point for so many friends. So the FB Chat vs. FB Groups is actually a rather important distinction.
 

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