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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beginning of the End" data-source="post: 5251013" data-attributes="member: 55271">Sure. But once you have that in hand you can bring in new players on-the-fly and run dozens of sessions with little or no additional prep.My point is that you need to get away from the concept of putting together a group of 5-6 players who are expected to all get together on a regular basis for a dozen or two dozen or an indefinite number of sessions.There's nothing wrong with those types of campaigns existing. But that level of commitment is obviously off-putting to new players.I'm speaking from immediate experience here. I've been playing in a campaign run by a guy using the Caverns of Thracia as a megadungeon. There's been a persistent continuity across a couple dozen sessions, but because each session is a separate excursion into the dungeon there's no need for the same group of people to re-assemble at every session.Juggling schedules? Not a problem at all. The DM posts a date on Facebook, invites a dozen-plus people, and whoever can show up for that session shows up and we play.Inviting new players? Incredibly easy. They're not making a commitment beyond a single night of playing games with friends; and we're not left hanging if they decide it's not for them. We've introduced lots of new players to RPGs since we've started playing, and quite a few of them have stuck around for second helpings.DM's prep time? Apparently he read the module in about 3 hours and started running it. Minimal or no prep between sessions. Certainly designing a complex like the Caverns of Thracia would take some time, but that's why a good introductory game would include a ready-to-play scenario.Imagine if Monopoly expected or required you to get together a group of 6 players who would need to meet regularly on a weekly or bi-weekly schedule for 20+ sessions. I can virtually guarantee you that Monopoly would be a much less popular game.I'm looking around to find similar easy-to-organize, easy-to-invite formats for other games. Shadowrun looks tempting: Although it would require a lot more prep (since it lacks OD&D's procedural methods of content renewal), if the player body were all understood to belong to a single organization of 'runners that got contracts which just happened to be fulfilled by whoever showed up that evening to play, you'd get some of the same social network effects.</blockquote>

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