I just chewed out my players

[S'mon]

Right now, I've got five players...
Our games typically run about 12 hours or so. We'll play all day (once a month). Noon to Midnight (or 1...or 2....or 3....) is our typical time.

Oh, ok. A 13 hour game once a month isn't at all like the weekly/fortnightly 3-4 hour games I'm used to. It certainly sounds like something that needs a serious commitment!

 

[S'mon]

Being a parent certainly adds a level of complexity to a busy life, but it doesn't really change social responsibilities. I certainly wouldn't look at it as a free pass to blow off friends or anything.

In my case becoming a father took me out of gaming for a year, and I can no longer run games at home (due to my wife; my son would love it!) but I got back into D&D a year after he was born and I play more now than I did before.

 

[S'mon]

Should there be a double standard on the DM?

IMO: Yes, definitely. The GM is in charge of the game, he has a responsibility to show up and run the game if at all possible. I've been in groups that have booted GMs for taking a casual attitude to cancelling games. With players I am always much more lenient; I can GM with a variable player group, but I can't play if the GM doesn't show.

Last time the GM started cancelling, I began running an emergency game instead. The players liked my game better, eventually we dropped the irregular GM and just played my campaign. Most of the players are very reliable but I don't worry about the guy who just shows up occasionally.

 

[S'mon]

This is certainly true of my current Campaign focusing on Cimmerian Barbarians during Conan's time of the Hyborian Age.

The PCs in my game right now have destinies. As the characters grow, they learn about what that destiny will be.

I've described in other posts to where, if allowed by the story, then players can skip.

It's all about the story in my campaigns. Whether we're playing in a sandbox, discovering the story as we go, or if we're playing a linear game, either way, story is king in my game.

Most of us player to live our a life in a fantasy world. We're simulationists.

You're simulating a dramatic narrative - telling a story, hopefully with player input rather than purely GM-directed. Your emphasis on story puts this game very much in the Dramatist style, rather than the traditional Simulation 'living in the world' style, though I suppose the boundaries blur where there is heavy in-world emphasis on Fate/Destiny.

In the traditional Simulation style the PCs are free to explore the fantasy world in pretty well whatever direction they choose, but have no plot/script protection; the emphasis is on Immersion rather than Story, so just as real people in that world may suffer random senseless death, PCs in-game may, too, and the GM will not intervene to protect them.

 

[Water Bob]

You only have 2 players, though, right? If I had 2 or 3 players I would reschedule if one couldn't make it. For a more typical 4-6 player group it seems like a really bad idea;

I think you saw later that I have 5 players now, 6 people, including me.

I've used the rule for decades, no matter the size of game I was running. I ran a game once with 12 players (I'll never do that again--it could be an hour before a player could play, waiting on others to move, especially in fights), and I've run games with a little as one player and me as DM.

I'd say the average, for me in the past, is 3-5 players plus me as DM.

In the traditional Simulation style the PCs are free to explore the fantasy world in pretty well whatever direction they choose, but have no plot/script protection;

Not quite what I'm doing at present, though I've run games like that before.

I've set up a sandbox where the players can go in any direction that they choose, but there is an over-riding plot. There are strong pushes for the main story, but the players, with their freedom of movement around the game environment, also have established several sub-plots and experienced non-story-connected encounters.