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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DrJawaPhD" data-source="post: 9758982" data-attributes="member: 7044770"><p>Most of my 5e DnD experience has been this type of "open table" FLGS environment, with single DMs running long (multiple year) campaigns with rotating players.  I have seen great success with this model.  My advice on what I think works well / doesn't work well is below</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">We've always used Milestone leveling of the party itself, not individual characters.  I would highly HIGHLY recommend keeping all PCs at the same level.  It makes things so much easier to remember when helping new players, it reduces complication of tracking XP, it reduces jealousy between players, it makes new players more likely to come back, etc.  Once you let go of the old school mentality that leveling up has to be "earned" or that the only reason people show up is for their character to gain XP, there's just no reason for split-level parties.  People will still show up for the carrrots of a) having fun, b) keeping up with the story, c) gaining magic items, even if you eliminate the stick of penalizing XP when they don't show up.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Beginning/Ending all sessions in a safe spot sounds great (on paper I love it!) but I'm skeptical how that would work in practice.  Most FLGS sessions have fairly strict end times, and I can't really see this idea working if you have any combat encounters at all.  I've never seen anyone plan around this restriction though so it may work better than I think.  If you can pull it off it does help with the drop in / drop out aspect.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">For characters dropping in / dropping out, we've generally used the approach of considering all PCs to be nearby the action but safely in the background and not contributing any meaningful contribution.  For new players and replacements for PCs that died, I've seen a mix of "oh yeah that guy was here the whole time but never spoke up til now" to incorporating them into the story the next time the party travels to a new location.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I would very strongly encourage running an ongoing campaign versus breaking it up into one shots or small adventures.  Becoming invested in the story and wanting to find out (and influence) what comes next is what brings people back to the table.  Don't worry about new players being "lost", they don't need to know the entire backstory, just what's going on at the moment.  For a new player there's no difference between a self-contained one shot with no backstory versus an individual quest chain in a long running campaign whose backstory they don't know.  But for returning players, the difference is massive.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">People above talked about homebrew rules being an issue but I've always seen every DM bring their own set of homebrew rules with no issue.  Yeah, don't go overboard with needlessly complex homebrew rules, but that's true for all DnD groups.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">#1 advice though would be that if you have strong preferences on anything above, then just set the ground rules to whatever will make it fun for you to DM.  You're the one putting in most of the work, and if you aren't enjoying yourself then the whole thing falls apart.  </li> </ul></blockquote><p></p>

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