D&D General That one player who cancels at the last day

[Bird Of Play]

I don't mean to sound rude, but are you and your group quite young? With family commitments and urgent work responsibilties, having several weeks were one cannot find time to play is pretty normal.

I'm 37 years old.
My life is more regular and I have more free time in the evening now, than when I was a teenager.
I guess I'm a white fly!

 

[CubicsRube]

I'm 37 years old.
My life is more regular and I have more free time in the evening now, than when I was a teenager.
I guess I'm a white fly!

I have to say I'm jealous of your free time.

 

[Bird Of Play]

I have to say I'm jealous of your free time.

Find a job that doesn't require 10+ hours daily and be fixated with routine.

Not having kids also helps, I hear..... but frankly kids are the one thing I'd love to disrupt my routine!

 

[jasper]

I am the DM of a group of three excellent players. They're very good and that's almost a problem: I enjoy playing with them so much I dread the time when for some reason or another we won't be able to play anymore.

We play once a week, using Roll20. At the end of the session, we immediately schedule the next one. This has been going on regularly for all summer.

Except for one time, when a player, let's call him A, had to cancel at the last day for "work reasons". He's a computer programmer, but I dunno, maybe computer programmers gotta work at night too sometime. Or wake up too early. I didn't ask, because I didn't want to make him feel guilty for not being able to join.

Ok, so, today it happened again: he cannot make it all week for "work reasons". This time I'm already beginning to get paranoid about it.

So I've decided to skip the week and postpone to next week, so he doesn't feel excluded. He however suggested we may also find another player so if someone cannot make it the others can still play: well, this line made me suspicious. What was he implying?

This is a bummer because the other two players always make it on time. And, because mr. A is the only player who's more quiet than the others during the session, but I do always find ways to engage him, and most importantly he is very good when not keeping quiet, so I always assumed he was simply more shy than the others. Now for the first time I begin to wonder if he just isn't into DnD as much as the other two.

I do tend to overreact at times, so am I reading too much into the whole situation?

How should I approach this? Do I start searching for a 4th player as he himself suggested, or would that make him feel like I am replacing him?

MR. A is hinting he is leaving the group. He may have a valid reason or not. Find another player. I quit playing 2004. One of the reasons was the group could not start on time.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Last-minute cancels don't sit well with me, because honestly, unless you have an emergency, why would you cancel at the last minute? For work?

Yes for work. Jobs that actually end at the end of the day or week are increasingly rare these days. There's productivity to suck out of our caracasses and early graves to fill.

What kind of day job prevents you to play after dinner, for a whole week?

Computer programming. Like especially, as has been discussed.

It even is counterproductive because I'd really like to see what your productivity is like when you're kept after 8 hours to keep working.

Actual logic has nothing to do with the recommendations of a 10,000 dollar an hour consultant hired to tell the higher ups what they want to hear.

I mean, the whole thing gave me off a "I just don't feel like playing today so I'm making an excuse, and to heck if it ruins everyone else's plans".

The problem here lies more in your cynicism than your friend trying to not be killed by society due to insufficient 'productivity'.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Also, I know we love this hobby, but it's just a game. Sometimes people don't feel like it and even if it were that case here, that's okay too. We should care more about our friends than whether or not we get to home invasion some goblins one day in a week.

 

[Dausuul]

It was more about the vibe.
Last-minute cancels don't sit well with me, because honestly, unless you have an emergency, why would you cancel at the last minute? For work? What kind of day job prevents you to play after dinner, for a whole week?

...Computer programming. That kind of job. As half a dozen people have pointed out, this is common in the industry. And unless Player A is an aspiring novelist or musician or something, it's not a "day job," it's his job, period.

I'm with @Vaalingrade. With two cancellations, only one of which was last-minute, you do not have reason to have A Talk about commitment and attendance. You cannot assume that everyone's job is a nice steady eight-to-five with no weird hours and no overtime. And you certainly cannot expect people to put D&D above their employment.

 

[aco175]

I wonder if an online game is easer to blow off than an in-person game? I have never played online, but would think that like so many other computer related things- it is easier to not care as much and drop it for other things. I mean, we all see how easy it is on social media to say things that would get you punched in the face if you said it in person. I'm not saying that is what is going on here, but in general, is it easier to not be as invested online as to actually see the people and know them more than just online?

 

[Bird Of Play]

MR. A is hinting he is leaving the group. He may have a valid reason or not. Find another player. I quit playing 2004. One of the reasons was the group could not start on time.

This is what I'm worried about and what got me a bit bitter: no hint whatsoever that he'd suddenly want to leave the group, and we all seemed to be having a great time so far.
I hope his comment about finding a fourth player was either a reasonable suggestion or a spur of the moment reply, but not the hint that he wants to leave us like that.

Now, to reply about the general situation. My rule is that all I ask out of my players is 3 hours a week. Nothing more. I hardly talk to them about DnD related stuff outside of that weekly session, and I'm very open for rescheduling.
But when those 3 hours a week happen, I expect my players to commit to those 3 hours a week. If you can't commit 3 hours a week to the game, just don't ask to join the group or be very upfront about how you cannot do that on a semi-regular basis. We're living people, not a Netflix program you can choose to watch or not. It's rude to cancel at the last minute when the other guys have made sure to keep their evening free.

All in all, this is more about how the first time it happened, I didn't care at all and just thought that sometimes stuff happens, and we've all postponed the game and that's it.
But this time there's a suspicion on my side that he was making up excuses. I hope I'm wrong.

Oh well, mulling about it doesn't help. I tried to reach out but he didn't reach back. We'll see what happens; I can control his actions and I have to get over how bummed I am by them.


Again, thanks everyone for giving me advice and sharing your opinion. This was really nice!

 

[Stormonu]

It was more about the vibe.
Last-minute cancels don't sit well with me, because honestly, unless you have an emergency, why would you cancel at the last minute? For work? What kind of day job prevents you to play after dinner, for a whole week? It even is counterproductive because I'd really like to see what your productivity is like when you're kept after 8 hours to keep working.

I mean, the whole thing gave me off a "I just don't feel like playing today so I'm making an excuse, and to heck if it ruins everyone else's plans".

Yeah, I’m very touchy when it comes to people giving me grief about my work life. My youngest’ s son’s 18th birthday is this weekend, but we couldn’t plan a party for him because I’ll be working from 12AM to at least 5AM this weekend (if all goes well, which is unlikely), with having to get back up at 10AM to give a report on how the upgrade has gone, and address any issues that have come up. Then be in the office bright & cheery at 8 AM come Monday. And I have to do this at least 3 times a year (down from 4 from previous years). This doesn’t include other upgrades and issues throughout the year (such as being in the middle of a Thanksgiving dinner at relatives when a client calls that their system is down).

Don’t get me started about our management deciding Christmas two years ago was a good time to do our end-of-year upgrade, because “no one would be on the system”. Gee, I wonder why that could be…

I enjoy being able to set time aside to play a game of D&D - but sometimes life interferes, and I’ve had days coming home from work and my brain is so melted I don’t even take dinner and just go to bed and say to hell with it all. Lately, I’ve had a few instances where I’ve just had to reschedule our weekend game because I’m just too burned out and need a day just to destress - and end up running errands that have been piling up.

<EDIT>. As Arnold once said, “I need a vacation” - the past year and a half has been exceptionally hellish.