D&D General Scheduling Games (Herding Cats)

Whisper-Kitten · May 28, 2026

Reynard said:
Nothing eats weekends like children.

Thanks the Gods again for not procreating

jdrakeh · May 28, 2026

I wish I knew the secret of getting a group of people together regularly. Our Tuesday night D&D game fires off about once or twice a month on average. It should, ostensibly, fire off every week. But one of us has a high profile job, another is dealing with a death in the family, I and another have myriad medical issues, etc. Things often just don't align.

J-H · May 29, 2026

Consistent repeating date/time, with cancellations as needed.

Desdichado · May 29, 2026

Dragonhelm said:
So I have some questions...
1. Who should lead discussion on scheduling? The DM, a designated scheduler?
2. Do any of you use tools to help make this easier? Google calendar, surveys, something else?
3. Any advice or anything else I'm missing?

1. The DM. He's the single most important component. A game can usually happen with one or even two players missing (depending on the group size) but without the DM you've got nothing. So his schedule is the one that matters the most, so he's the one who tends to take the lead.
2. Group text usually. In theory, you'd have a standing time to meet, i.e., every other Saturday at 6 or something like that, and then scheduling becomes more a situation of managing exceptions rather than starting everything from scratch. In practice, that doesn't work as well as I'd like.
3. If possible, have a bigger group than you need. If scheduling is tough and you've only got three players, anyone being out probably means no game. If you've got six players, you can still play if someone misses, maybe even two people. Have well-understood procedures in place for when someone has to miss, i.e., does their character just quietly fade into the background, and we pretend like we don't notice, or do you do full blown West Marches style? Does someone else run the character sorta as if it were a cohort until the player is back, etc.? Post summaries after the game somewhere where everyone can see them. This not only gives people a reminder of what happened, especially if sessions are more spread out than you'd like them to be, but it also gives people who miss a quick snapshot of what they missed so they can start back up again with a minimum of difficulty.

The alternative to a larger group is an even smaller group, but one who's scheduling is more reliable. If you're running a game for your wife and your brother who lives just down the road, scheduling might be easier even if you're all busy and have other responsibilities, for example, because it's a lot less coordination and you probably hang out anyway in other contexts besides just gaming.

Lord_Blacksteel · May 29, 2026

I've tried a lot of different approaches over the years and was a proponent of ad Hoc scheduling for a long time (setting the next session up at the end of the current session) but there was a lot of inconsistency even there. For years now I have been running on the set schedule plan - Saturday nights, we start at 6, we run til 11- 11:30. Yes, sometimes a player or three has to miss. Yes, sometimes I have to cancel. But we do have a group text and if anyone has schedule complications we bring it up there. The game is at my house and I am usually the GM so I try to confirm that we're good on Wednesdays but the default assumption is we are playing at this place on this day at this time. It is by far the most consistent running we have had.

This is an in-person game but I would make the same arrangement if I was running online. A set schedule lets players work around it as mentioned above because they know it is a sure thing. Consistency matters a great deal.

Now this is a group of 5-8 adults some of whom have older kids (some of the players are also older kids) so it may not fit everyone's situation but if you can arrange it it does work.

abazaba · May 29, 2026

Lord_Blacksteel said:
I've tried a lot of different approaches over the years and was a proponent of ad Hoc scheduling for a long time (setting the next session up at the end of the current session) but there was a lot of inconsistency even there. For years now I have been running on the set schedule plan - Saturday nights, we start at 6, we run til 11- 11:30. Yes, sometimes a player or three has to miss. Yes, sometimes I have to cancel. But we do have a group text and if anyone has schedule complications we bring it up there. The game is at my house and I am usually the GM so I try to confirm that we're good on Wednesdays but the default assumption is we are playing at this place on this day at this time. It is by far the most consistent running we have had.

This is an in-person game but I would make the same arrangement if I was running online. A set schedule lets players work around it as mentioned above because they know it is a sure thing. Consistency matters a great deal.

Now this is a group of 5-8 adults some of whom have older kids (some of the players are also older kids) so it may not fit everyone's situation but if you can arrange it it does work.

At one point I proposed to create such a 'fixed schedule plan' (for example, every other weekend, on Sunday, at time x, and place y), but none of the other group members were for it. I guess their schedules were different enough from week to week to be able to commit to something like that. So instead, we normally schedule for a new session at the end of the current one. It mostly works, but it is not ideal. Oh, well.

Reynard · May 29, 2026

abazaba said:
At one point I proposed to create such a 'fixed schedule plan' (for example, every other weekend, on Sunday, at time x, and place y), but none of the other group members were for it. I guess their schedules were different enough from week to week to be able to commit to something like that. So instead, we normally schedule for a new session at the end of the current one. It mostly works, but it is not ideal. Oh, well.

Weekdays tend to have more consistent schedules, IME. Especially for folks that have school age kids.

SkidAce · May 29, 2026

plecostomus said:
I have very advanced Discord technical skills.
View attachment 438321
When I post the confirmation message, I include the day the DM selected.

Good ideas.

Also have you looed at Discord's polls?