How many Missed sessions till a game dies?

[Crothian]

It's looking like my game is going to end up missing it's 4th session in a row. It has all been due to out of game events: a death, 2 birthdays, and an illness. I don't anticipate the end of the game becasue of this, but there has been a huge lack of focu becasue of it.

So, how many missed sessions does it take to kill a game?

 

[KB9JMQ]

Woo Hoo I was first to vote

I find that for my group we could miss 4-5 in a row and still get together again and keep going.
But if we missed 6 or more (not necessarily 6 weeks just 6 planned gettogethers) we would just start a new one. This has been the way it works even with the same group of people.

 

[Davelozzi]

In my experience, we don't have a set schedule, so there's never a missed session. We just schedule something that everyone can do. Occassionally, something comes up and it has to be rescheduled, but that's about it.

A better question may be how many sessions can missed by a player before that player should be ousted? But even then circumstances vary. Games blown off and games missed for legit reasons are totally different.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

I voted "never."

Last year, we went three straight months without playing; and if you look at the two months before that time, we only played once. So that was once in June, once in August, and then not until November. Just picked up and get on until our TPK in early 2004.

I am afriad it might be happening again, but we will see.....

 

[Liquidsabre]

I like continuity in the games I run, if as a group a majority of us can't make it to games 3-4 times in a row something is not working out schedules/interest/focus-wise for the game to really materialize.

 

[StalkingBlue]

I'd say it really depends.

I ran a game in Hamburg once a month until I moved away last summer, then nothing happened for five months until I visited for Christmas and we all got together to play a (for us) double session with two four-hour rounds and a meal and chat in between. Everything still worked surprisingly smoothly and the players have now bought 3.5 ed. PHBs so we'll be able to change over for our next session (unscheduled as yet, it'll happen when I next visit and stay for a weekend)!

S'mon's Borderlands game that I play in took a break of seven or eight weeks last winter (about five or six sessions' worth), and then continued as strongly as before with never a thought of dying.

OTOH I've seen games collapse just because two key (regular and active) players moved away or had to take a temporary break for work or studies.

Plus of course games can be walking dead, running on for some few or more sessions after people have lost genuine interest.

 

[JoeBlank]

Similar to StalkingBlue, I play a primarily online game with a group of friends I have known since grade school, and we often have long gaps between games. We are still playing the same campaign we started when 3.0 came out, although we have had a couple of near TPKs. We just schedule so that most everyone can be present.

Our last session was January 17, and we are working towards playing late this month. That is one of the longest gaps, but we won't abandon our Mythica campaign. They can pry it from our cold dead fingers.

 

[Mr. Kaze]

After 3 consecutive sessions, a missing player should be booted. If they do come back, they'll be behind on the plot, (probably) behind on the XP, and acting foolishly on their way to certain doom due to any combination of those two factors. Remove their character from the game and when their life has settled down to the point where they can re-join, then have 'em bring in a new character that they know will be kicked out for 2 consecutive missed sessions.

Missing players can frequently be mitigated somewhat by having the character given over either to the DM or the other players. It's not the same, but it's better than missing a session.

If you don't have enough players to play for 4 sessions in a row, then you're pushing your luck on being able to continue the campaign -- you have to be prepared and plan ahead to have the down-time so that your journals and quest notes and the like are all prepped up and you don't end the previous session on an abject cliffhanger (like in round 4 of the second major combat of the day). Offhand, I'd say that three "oops" missed sessions in a row is probably going to doom the campaign.

That's my experience...
::Kaze (had a player that was making out with his fiancee upstairs during game time, so they played without him. And when his bard showed up for the final fight with only 2/3rds the levels of the people who'd been there getting XP the whole time, the bard died. Very quickly. Imagine that. So we've changed how we handle missing players since then...)

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

My game misses sessions sometimes up to two months. Another game went on hiatus for 6 months. But the games don't die. It takes a little catch up when we meet up again after a long break, but it's still fun.

But I think I'd be more concerned if people were just canceling last minute with no excuse. Like they just didn't want to show up. Sounds like your group had some legit reasons.

I hope it turns out ok.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

After 3 consecutive sessions, a missing player should be booted.

::Kaze (had a player that was making out with his fiancee upstairs during game time, so they played without him. And when his bard showed up for the final fight with only 2/3rds the levels of the people who'd been there getting XP the whole time, the bard died. Very quickly. Imagine that. So we've changed how we handle missing players since then...)

Okay - 3 sessions for any reason?

I think the guy and his fiancee is one thing , that would certainly be grounds for the boot if it were up to me. That's just inconsiderate.

But what if a player was missing the game because their mother died? Or had a serious illness? How would you feel if your group booted you over something traumatic in your life that you had no choice in? What if they were going on a vacation that required them to be away for two or three weeks that they had planned and paid for before they met the group?

I think it should really be the reasons they are missing sessions that you look at. Someone who has just had a traumatic event in their life might feel even worse if they are faced with losing what could be the one bright spot to look forward to in life, coming back to their game and their friends.