The Incredible Disappearing Players...

[LoneWolf23]

How many times have you had a campaign... nay, a simple adventure messed up by players leaving the group or simply turning up absent for a game session?

It's happened to me up to three, four times in the space of two years. I've tried starting a steady D&D campaign with furry characters set in the world of Supermegatopia's Char-Mon, but thus far, all my attempts at getting a steady campaign going have been thwarted by vanishing players. It's especially annoying when it happens in the middle of an adventure.

I have about 4 players who seem dedicated enough to be there on-time at the game session, so I'm going to try and focus more on them, and possibly try and shorten my adventures enough that I can get them done during a 3-4 hour session (my maximum available gaming time).

Does anyone have any advice on the matter?

 

[Mark Chance]

How many times have you had a campaign... nay, a simple adventure messed up by players leaving the group or simply turning up absent for a game session?

That hasn't been my problem. My problem is much more extreme. Since starting my new campaign, there have been four character deaths. 50% of the time, when a player's character has died, that player has moved to a different state (first one to MI, the second to KY).

I mean, I know some people get attached to the characters, but sheesh!

 

[MarauderX]

Sounds like some of your players are just becoming disinterested in the way the campaign is going. Perhaps give them a feedback questionaire after a few adventures that asks them what they think of the campaign thus far. Ask specific questions like "do you think you are getting enough treasure?" or "what do you think the best fight(or other challenge) was so far?" I have a DM who does this to make sure we are all having fun, and with 5+ people it's hard to please everyone all the time, so you shouldn't switch your focus too much to satisfy one player, but do listen to what they have to say.

 

[LoneWolf23]

Re: Re: The Incredible Disappearing Players...

That hasn't been my problem. My problem is much more extreme. Since starting my new campaign, there have been four character deaths. 50% of the time, when a player's character has died, that player has moved to a different state (first one to MI, the second to KY).

I mean, I know some people get attached to the characters, but sheesh!

Ironically, in a Crushed campaign, that's hardly a problem: the setting is set up so that characters who die merely get returned to life at the Temple of Infinite Lives (in short, they respawn).

Originally posted by MarauderX
Sounds like some of your players are just becoming disinterested in the way the campaign is going. Perhaps give them a feedback questionaire after a few adventures that asks them what they think of the campaign thus far. Ask specific questions like "do you think you are getting enough treasure?" or "what do you think the best fight(or other challenge) was so far?" I have a DM who does this to make sure we are all having fun, and with 5+ people it's hard to please everyone all the time, so you shouldn't switch your focus too much to satisfy one player, but do listen to what they have to say.

I guess I should've pointed out, I run my campaign online, in a commonly visited chatroom. My players do seem to have fun when we play (even when they're highjacking the plotline I had in mind ), but occasionally some of my players just seem to drop off the face of the earth, due to connection problems, getting kicked off their computer or sometimes without explanation...

 

[Ghostmoon]

This is a common problem with online campaigns and can be independent of the quality of the game. The only way I have seen this countered is by quickly replacing lost players and over time collecting a core group of players you know you can count on. This process can take quite a bit of time and be frustrating, but once you have your core group, you are good to go.

 

[Zhure]

I've tried starting a steady D&D campaign with furry characters set in the world of Supermegatopia's Char-Mon, but thus far, all my attempts at getting a steady campaign going have been thwarted by vanishing players.

In my experience, the further the campaign is from "standard" D&D-esque worlds, the greater the player dropout rate.

Greg

 

[LoneWolf23]

This is a common problem with online campaigns and can be independent of the quality of the game. The only way I have seen this countered is by quickly replacing lost players and over time collecting a core group of players you know you can count on. This process can take quite a bit of time and be frustrating, but once you have your core group, you are good to go.

I think that's what I'm going to have to do. I already seem to have some more reliable players, I think I'll focus on them more...

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

I don't know if this will help or not, or even if it will work in a online based game, but it seems too in our game....

One of my DMs has a large player base. Not every player can make it on the every other Saturday we play. So, he has an malfunctioning artifact in the game. It randomly sucks PCs into it (a.k.a., whenever the PC's player misses a session). The PCs tote it around because we can't be rid of it - none of us who have been in the artifact can be more than 5 miles from it. The artifact then spits the PCs back out when their players return.

 

[Fenes 2]

I'd concentrate on the regulars and forget about the rest. If they come, fine, if not, no biggie - just don't use their PCs for anything crucial, and never depend on them attending.

In my face to face campaign, players that are unreliable face the same consequences. Their PCs won't matter much in my plot-heavy campaign.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

I sympathize with you, I really do.

Last summer I started a new campaign. There were five players. We had, I think, four sessions before it began to fall apart.
Two of the players are my age (mid-twenties), one was college age, the other two are in high school.

First one of the older players (Dave) was tied up for a few weeks in July. He came back and then his younger brother went back to college. I had planned for that and his PC's abscence wasn't a big deal.
Then his youngest brother had band camp in August. School started for the younger kids and no one had time to play.
Now really there was plenty of time for games during the summer, but here's the thing; we play at Dave's house. Dave's house is located evenly between all the players, whose houses are pretty far apart from each other. It's right beside the school so everyone knows where it is, and there's plenty of room. No one else has room for all of us to play in relative privacy, with the exception of Eric (the other older player) but his house is out in the boonies.
Dave refused to call players and let them know when a session was going to be on. He thought that I, as the DM, should do that. Normally I'd agree, but we're not playing at my house, we're playing at his parents'. You don't invite a bunch of people over to another person's house. That is what we call, "socially unacceptable". There is always something going on at his house. Religious stuff, relative stuff, wedding stuff, weird holidays no one has ever heard of. You name it. As such, it was a lot easier all around for him to just find out when there was nothing else going on at home and tell everyone there was a session that day. He knows I always have material ready...
He refused to see the logic in this. He would always ask why we hadn't had a session in a while and always acted surprised when I gave him my standard answer; that I had told him to just schedule one whenever they were free. Half of the people playing live at his house! He hardly even had to call anyone! So we missed a lot of perfectly good opportunities because of that. He could have even just called me and I would call the other two people.

Anyway, after the beginning of the year we could have started back up again.
Instead of resuming my campaign (which he knew I fully intended to finish) he started up a D20 Modern campaign, thus successfully hijacking my campaign. After a few sessions of the D20M game over a span of a few months or so we haven't played for about three months.
He's working on getting a teaching degree, has a job with no set schedule so he often has to work at night and he's in a cover band that plays the night before we usually play and thus, his throat is sore. That's cool, I'm all for bettering yourself and having hobbies. But why then, did he start a campaign?
Well, that's what he does when he gets a new toy (I can't believe I got him the damn book). The sad thing is that the quality of his campaign really suffers because he has NO time to spend on it. It would be easier to play mine because the only time he would need to devote to that would be during the session.
He has enough time to play, but let's face it, he doesn't have the time to run a decent campaign. Which makes me even more POed that I can't run mine right now. If I do start back up I'll still have to deal with the issue of having to schedule rendevous at someone else's house.

The other players assumed I wasn't going to resume the campaign when he started his D20M campaign because he quit running his last campaign halfway through and figured I was doing the same thing. Ugh.

Heh. I wonder if he'll see this.