My fluid gaming group... how is yours?

[lior_shapira]

I've returned to D&D (making the move from 2nd to 3rd edition) about 2 years ago, I've assembled with a friend about 7 people eager to play. Since then only 3 of the original group remain, and we've had about 8 people come and go (nowadays we're 5).

I find it a bit hard maintaining long campaigns with this fluidity, different people have different interests, some don't like entering a campaign in the middle, DM's change...

How is it in your group? are you stable or fluid? do you find it hard or easy to insert new players to the group?... (I have a ton more questions but I dont wanna make the thread too vague)

lior

 

[Psion]

My gaming group is in sad shape.

I had mostly military members, some very well networked ones.

But then 5 of them moved in the last year.

I now have two players that are pretty regular, and two that might show up.

Anyone live in the Southern MD area? ...

 

[Chimera]

Had a "new" (this year anyways) game group dissolve about two months ago.

Initially GM and 4 players.

After about 5 sessions, friend of player D joins the group. We'll call him E.

After 1 session, Players D&E leave the game. Seems E only "joined" so he could poach D for his own game, which needed players.

Then F joins the game.

After 2 sessions, problem with player C. Player C ejected. Unfortunately, F shows his colors by vowing never to game with C before even talking to the rest of us. (A bit presumptuous for someone who has played only 2 sessions with the group.)

Potential player G introduced. F vows never to game with G before even meeting him. ("I think he has too many issues") This upsets the rest of us, so he changes his mind. G never actually joined the group and I don't blame him.

After the next session, I have a little run-in with F about how we're to play the game. Player F immediately declares that one of us must leave the group and calls the GM to get me kicked out.

At this point, the GM, having lost 3 active players, 1 potential player and facing the loss of another one, says "screw this, I quit".

End of Game.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Was pretty solid until a few months ago when signifcant others and new jobs started taking the group apart.

 

[kenobi65]

I'm a member of 3 different groups:

Group 1, the group I first started playing D&D with, 22 years ago. Over the course of those 22 years, that group has probably had at least 2 dozen, maybe more, "regular" players, and at least that many short-term players. But, through all that, there's been a core of four of us. As two of the four "core" players don't live in the group's city anymore, we don't meet as regularly, but we still do play 3-4 times a year, playing a variety of games. However, our original D&D campaign has survived through all this time (not to mention multiple rules revisions).

Group 2, one of my two regular groups in my current city. Has been together for maybe 15 years, of which I've been in it for 10. There's been a slow addition-and-subtraction of players in this group, too, but we've always had between 6 and 9 players.

Group 3, my other current regular group. Over the three years I've been in this one, we've lost three players due to people moving out of town, and picked up one player (my wife).

I should point out that all of these groups consist (and have always consisted) primarily of adults, out of school. That may be helping with the stability.

Generally speaking, none of the groups has ever faced a problem with not having enough players -- in fact, Group 2 has had a hard cap for several years at 8 players. New players have usually come through networking -- i.e., "I've got a friend who might like to join us." When we do introduce a new player / character in mid-campaign, it's never seemed to be that big a deal -- the DM finds a way to incorporate a new character.

 

[Mercule]

My group has added and lost members slowly over the last couple of years. We usually hover around 6 people, including DM.

Currently, the group is made up of three couples who are either married or engaged. It'll probably remain fairly stable, though. The two issues I could see would be 1) one of the wives is a more social/casual gamer and her interest may wane; 2) my wife will deliver child #3 in January, and with me as DM she's pretty much stuck with all the kid duties during the game, so she may drop for a bit.

 

[scourger]

There is a lot of history with our group.

Too much to relate, really. The bottom line for me is to pick or design games that can more easily accommodate fluctuating number of players.

A long-time gaming buddy of mine combined his 2 groups about the time 3e came out. Since then, we've had a few small changes in membership amid some significant turmoil; but there has emerged a core of players. Right now, we have 5 "regulars". Others have moved away, quit or taken a hiatus. Fortunately, we all remain friends.

Attendance is farily strong but occasionally sporadic. When I DM, I expect to have 1d3+1 players. I find it a true challenge to run D&D in this situation. I would prefer to run a more fluid game, like Judge Dredd d20; but it was voted out in favor of D&D. Adding new palyers was not realy an option as we are all friends, and it just felt like it would just repeat past problems. My solution was to offer a D&D game with a twist.

At the suggestion of one of the core players (one that I can count on week in and week out to show up), I allow each player to run two characters. To keep me intrerested, each primary character is from a different d20 game: a Star Wars Human Jedi Consular or Guardian (no dark jedi); or a Judge Dredd (Human) Street or Psi Jusge; or an Omega World Pure Strain or Mutant Human Explorer. No multiclassing for primary characters. Each secondary character may be any primary type, or an aasimar paladin (no multiclassing), or any standard D&D race & class (with multiclassing).

At the time, I had 3 players; so I figured I would really only have 2 on any given evening which meant 4 characters. Then, a former member asked to rejoin and I agreed (mostly out of deference to the other aforementioned core player). I'm running the Shackled City adventure path from Dungeon Magazine since it seemed like it would be easier for characters to come & go in a city-based adventure. Also, that series starts with many difficult challenges. So, it seemed like a large group of characters with some powerful abilities and items would be a better match for the adventure.

It has been great so far. We've played 5 sessions. 3 had 4 players. 1 had 3 players. And 1 had 2 players. When a player is absent, so are his characters--with plausible in-game reasons to explain the absences as a bonus. I hope it lasts because I am having a great time DMing; better than in a while.

 

[Wombat]

We had one couple leave the group and another couple join in; other than that we've been stable for the last 3+ years.

Hopefully it will stay that way!

 

[Narfellus]

eh, lordy, i'm having a time with my group too. I DID hook 3 new CoC players so that's going well, but they have busy schedules and another DnD campaign they're in, so they can't play in mine now. My old group sort of disintegrated a while back leaving 2 players, but that's on and off. At the peak we had six of us, and it was pretty regular, sometimes even playing 3 times in one week if we were on a roll, and then slipping off and not playing for three months.

Ideally, i would like to have a core group of 4 very regular players who like to play on a regular basis and who are VERY interested in out-of-game discussion. I think that's what i miss more than anything, my gamers don't talk about their characters or the campaign. That zeal sort of trailed off when the core group disbanded/moved. I do what i can, but it hasn't been working too well. Now, the CoC group is cool, but it's still not DnD, my tried and true fantasy genre.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I'm pretty fortunate in that the two groups I run (one D&D and the other Mutants & Masterminds) both are really stable. Of course the group before that was a disaster as the campaign started with 7 people, ended with 6 and only two were the original 7. What a mess that was . . .