Original group falling apart

[jasin]

Currently, my gaming prospects seem somewhat glum.

For some time now, I've been involved in two groups (with some overlap) consisting of people who I'm close friends with outside the game too.

Now one of those groups is falling apart: one player seems to be completely drawn away from D&D by World of Warcraft, and job obligations and long bouts of not-playing are resulting in another player losing interest more and more. Yet another person seems indifferent; ready to play if we schedule a date, but not the one to take initiative and call for a game.

The other group is more or less in working (i.e. playing) order, but I've started to notice that the styles of the two DMs currently running games aren't as much to my liking as the styles of the people from the first group. When I was playing with both, I welcomed a game with Group 2 as a change of pace, but now I find myself really wanting to play with Group 1!

Of course, that might not be a true stylistic preference, but just the frustration of seeing people lose interest and nostalgia... I first started gaming with Group 1, after all.

Any advice? Experience with similar situations? Should I try and keep Group 1 together? If so, how to get people who are drifting away interested again? Should I focus more on Group 2 and try to improve my experience there? Or just not take things so seriously and let them run their course, as it's just a game after all?

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

I have been in that position. Sometimes all it takes to keep a group together is one strong willed individual to keep things organized and everyone on their toes. A lot of groups fall apart because nobody does this. Talk to each player one-on-one-see if they have any gripes or perhaps a desire to see the game go in a new direction. Sometimes just a few easy fixes gets everyone's juices flowing again for quite a while. If the night you meet is constantly bad for one player try alternating nights-we currently do this-one game is on Friday then the next is on Saturday.

 

[scourger]

I've been there, too. A couple of years ago I had 2 great groups, 1 to play in weekly and 1 to DM for monthly. There was some overlap, but it finally turned to my advantage. The weekly group boycotted a couple of games I DMed, and some of the other players didn't like 1 guy in the monthly group (i.e., they didn't want to play with him--voted not to invite him to the weekly game despite several years of friendship with me & some others). It caused me much consternation. I considered each of them a friend. Some I had known for 10 years or more. So, I formed the monthly group with a couple of the weekly players and the 1 otherwise odd man out. It was awesome. I got my playing fix weekly and my DMing fix monthly.

Sadly, it didn't last. After a few months, the odd man out got a job promotion and moved away--effectively killing the monthly games. Then, 2 weekly players quit one after another (ironically, they were 2 of the 3 blackballers). It was disconcerting. I just held onto what was left. We played through. A few months ago an old gaming friend moved back to town and rejoined our weekly group. Things are pretty fun again, but I sometimes wish we still had those 2 other players. It's just impossible to accommodate everyone.

My point is that time will present a solution to your dilemma. If you really feel motivated, you can try to take steps to make sure the groups stay together. I think you'll be better served by making sure you have a good time. If you're just playing and not DMing, then the best you probably can do is communicate how much you enjoy each game and can't wait for the next session. Send that message early and often to everyone. Then, make sure you really are having fun. If not, re-evaluate your time investment. You can be assured that everyone else is.

Things don't last forever. Enjoy it while it lasts.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

1) Take the initiative. Host the games at your house and make the calls to get everyone there.

2) Recruit some new players.

 

[Oryan77]

In my experience, players lose interest in games really fast. Only a few people feel passionate enough about a campaign that they will bend over backwards to make it to a session. Most people's attention span lasts only a short while, so they don't really try to make a game. Even if players like playing my games, they don't care enough to hound me about DM'ing again. I'm the one that has to ask them each week if they want to play.

It's not that they don't want to play, it's just that 2 weeks is a long time to allow that excitement about the campaign to wear off. Each time it's the same thing, we call it a night and everyone talks about how fun that session was & I get the impression they can't wait for the next session. But then 2 weeks later when we're "scheduled" to play (every other week) and I check in with everyone, I get the, "well if I'm not doing anything else, I can play" routine. I've come to accept it. I think that's pretty normal among groups.

If you want to play really bad, you'll just have to ask people to get together each time. There's really nothing you can do about keeping Group 1 together enough to play as much as you want. When I've tried dealing with that problem, I worked really hard to make the game more personal to each player, but even that is only good enough while we are gaming. They just lose interest again later that week while we're not playing. How people can play WoW for 5 hrs 7 days a week for a year straight but they can't seem to attend D&D games for 8 hrs 2 days a month is mind numbing.

 

[Angel of Adventure]

I've been thru one full group (3 players) in my Epic game and when they left I was struggling to pick up the pieces. I found 4 great new players, but a few more people left before this one got together.

I've found that you just need to be active in recruiting, even when you aren't in need of new players. If you network yourself and know enough gamers, you can often get new blood w/o too much hassle.

-AoA

 

[jasin]

1) Take the initiative. Host the games at your house and make the calls to get everyone there.

Hosting games usually isn't a problem. The usual host is the one person beside me who is in both Group 1 and Group 2, an avid player, so getting space is easier than getting the people together (at least so it has become).

2) Recruit some new players.

For some time now, I've responded to people's horror stories from the gaming table with a quote from Monte Cook that I really liked: "Don't spend the evening roleplaying with people with whom you wouldn't spend an evening doing something else." This is how it has worked for me, and it's worked really well. All my fellow players are good friends, which seemed to work around many problems that people have during games.

However, this also means I have a rather small pool of gamers to consider if I'm starting a game. I know other people who play, but they're just casual acquaintances, and I wouldn't invite any of them for a game, not because I don't like them, but because I just don't know them. (This reasoning might be a mistake, and I might try and change it, I'm just saying how things are now.) The other people in my group(s) are like that too.

 

[jasin]

In my experience, players lose interest in games really fast. Only a few people feel passionate enough about a campaign that they will bend over backwards to make it to a session. Most people's attention span lasts only a short while, so they don't really try to make a game. Even if players like playing my games, they don't care enough to hound me about DM'ing again. I'm the one that has to ask them each week if they want to play.

For us, it used to be that a week couldn't pass by without someone calling for a game, and usually it wasn't whoever was the DM, but one of the players. But this time around, we've played twice since August.

It's not that they don't want to play, it's just that 2 weeks is a long time to allow that excitement about the campaign to wear off.

That's why I'd really like to play with Group 1 again! Last time we played, the guy who's slowly losing interest seemed to be having great fun. But it's been something like three weeks since, and last time we got together (outside the game over a beer) when someone mentioned D&D, and the WoW guy said he's not really into it anymore, the losing-interest guy kind of agreed. I think he'd still play if invited, but he's now past the point where he'd ask for a game. I also think that if we got back to playing regularly, he'd get engaged enough that he would ask for the next game again...

How people can play WoW for 5 hrs 7 days a week for a year straight but they can't seem to attend D&D games for 8 hrs 2 days a month is mind numbing.

Yeah, well, I'm kind of not-bitter about WoW too. In fact, the last time we almost played, we missed the game because of WoW: one player was already missing (the usual host, but we had accomodations take care of), so the fact that the WoW guy had previous engagements in WoW meant that we were down to 2 players out of 4, so we called it off. Left the losing-interest guy really pissed. But he's lost too much interest since then to remain so.

 

[wedgeski]

I have been in that position. Sometimes all it takes to keep a group together is one strong willed individual to keep things organized and everyone on their toes.

Yes I agree entirely with this. One person to make the timetable, verify everyone's attendance, and reschedule if things go wrong. I also game with two groups, one of which is now fractured around the country even though in our youth we lived locally to eachother and played several times a week. As I mostly DM, one of the other guys has taken it upon himself to take on the role of organizer, and while we still only play once every couple of months, we *are* still playing.

 

[Thia Halmades]

I've been on both sides of this fence, so I can impart three immediate situations which come to mind.

First, back in the day-day while I was in college, groups came and went fairly regularly. Eventually I had a group I played with, but that broke down after people started graduating and moving off campus. That was a downer, but I assumed I'd find a new group. I was correct.

The new group were a bunch of prats, ultimately. The worst part was that gaming in general was important enough to me that I was willing to be frustrated by their poor play and absurd demands (two games in, and the same prat wants to change his character for the Nth time... I finally lost my temper, and it got messy). It was very difficult to tell a cohesive story about the characters because they couldn't decide what they wanted to do. Ultimately they opted to vote me out (!!) and I was the DM. You can imagine that didn't go over terribly well. I got through it, but that was a bitter lump of bile in my throat for a long time.

After I moved, I hooked back up with one of the guys who had graduated. Started a group, but it was too big and I wasn't ready for the stress yet, nor had I prepared properly, so that failed. Started a second group, built an idea from the ground up, got everyone to agree on the ground rules, and away we went. Three years later, I still have three core players, had to kick one player out, another left because of the guy I booted, and one more is leaving. I still have four people who love the game and are looking to actively recruit for the fifth slot.

These things come with time; I've been booted, I've given people the boot, and it's rough. It's truly rough, especially when friendships and loyalties are involved. You have my sympathy. The advice I would give is very simple: Find the group you like, don't waste your time to play if you aren't enjoying yourself. That does defeat the purpose of the game.