The top 2 reasons why gaming groups break up (that you can control)

[milotha]

I agree that many GMs think that unique worlds equals fun for the players. This isn't true. I've found that you can play in a standard world with standard modules and have just as much fun. It really all depends on the player-GM interactions and the player-player interactions. I think that if you have a good GM and good players then you can have fun in any setting or almost any module (yes, there are some really bad modules that no one can have fun in).

I've also experienced that unique worlds devised by the GM can be less fun than standard worlds. With unique worlds, I often find that it is hard for the GM to produce all the flavor setting, background, gods, etc information for the campaign. Yes, you can sit and talk with the GM, but with so many players, the GM only has so much time to convey the world. With prewritten stuff, I can sit down and read about the world at my leisure without forcing the GM to spend their time on this. This frees them up to design modules/adentures or design a metaplot around multiple modules/adentures. I think that better designed, well thought out adventures/modules often result in a more fun campaign than the uniqueness of the world.

Sometimes it just seems that GMs use their worlds as a weapon. First, it limits player options because they have ultimate control over everything. I've also seen the GM use it to hide obvious information from the players either actively or passively. Lastly, I've seen GMs use unique worlds as a "display". Look how creative I am. Wow, I must be the best GM because no one else in the world can be this interesting and creative. Look at how wild, weird, and special I can be. The fallacy is that this equates to FUN.

 

[Crothian]

THe biggest reason I see and hear of groups breaking up is lack of trust.

 

[Wombat]

Top two reasons I have seen gaming groups break up:

#1 -- too many in the group move out of the area
#2 -- changes in jobs/job status alter when group can/can't get together

(#3 -- girl/boyfriend, financee, or husband/wife disapproves, creating tension in group)

I've never seen a gaming group break up due to slow combat, not enough published adventures, or too much time spent on world creation. I have seen a couple campaigns break up due to lack of campaign continuity and determination to use a pre-written adventure exactly as written, no matter what the characters in the game are like, but the groups stayed intact just fine, switching to other games and/or GMs.

But I freely admit to having a limited sampling base.

OTOH, I have had only very short times when I did not game, so all the above statements may be taken with the appropriate grain/pillar of salt.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Top two reasons I have seen gaming groups break up:

#1 -- too many in the group move out of the area
#2 -- changes in jobs/job status alter when group can/can't get together

(#3 -- girl/boyfriend, financee, or husband/wife disapproves, creating tension in group)

I lump wombat's #1 & #2 together to make my #1.

#2 reason? Personality conflicts.

I ran a game where we were using a veeerrrryyy slow combat system. The players still showed week after week, month after month because they enjoyed my entirely homebrew world. They all had fun together. A combination of scheduling differences due to the life changes (#1) and personality conflicts between three players (#2) combined to make me pull the plug on it and end it.

If you take apart a slow combat, what's going on? Is it mainly players arguing rules and getting into debates over what the best move for everyone else's character is? That's a personality conflict. Now if it's the DM being slow and not knowing the rules, yeah I've heard of that being an issue for some groups, but I think that's a play style issue, which IMO goes back to being a personality conflict.

 

[pogre]

I largely agree with you Emirikol.

I honestly do not understand the popularity of prepackaged campaign worlds right now. Nor do I understand why so many DMs are dismissive of (generic) adventure modules.

In my experience, it has always been a *very* enjoyable experience to design my own campaign world (history, cultures, religion, etc.). I find the process to be both intinsically rewarding, and one that pays off in terms of player enjoyment (my players really appreciate the fact that they are experiencing a unique world, and not the nth incarnation of the Forgotten Realms).

With a reasonably well-developed world in hand, I generally have no problems in adapting good adventure modules to my setting (even, in some cases, ones intended for another campaign setting). It might take some work, but far less work than building adventures from scratch. And since I am *the* authority with respect to my world, I know exactly what modifications are necessary in order to make the adventure fit in.

Moreover, this process saves labour and time. By establishing a clear "world framework" through campaign design, I can improvise encounters when necessary, and easily adapt published adventures as I see fit. Some adventures I design from the ground up, when I have time, but editing (even extensively editing) prepackaged adventures helps to avoid burn out. And I am far more comfortable spending two hours radically "fixing" a premade adenture, than I am spending six hours making sure I properly "understand" the Forgotten Realms before beginning to design my own adventure.

Exactly my experience. I use pre-packaged adventures as "breathers" while I work on some of my original stuff. I usually breakdown modules by encounters and throw various plot hooks at the adventurers - some encounters are tied to locations, some to predetermined motivations of the antagonists. It means my pcs do not encounter some of the encounters in the module - no big deal - it was not my hard work any way

The only reason I have seen groups break up was RealLife issues of work, children, relocation, etc.

 

[Belegbeth]

With that said, it wouldn't be out of the question for me to take a pre-canned adventure, remove all the NPC's, use the town maps (if applicable) and dungeon maps, and modifying some (or all) of the monsters, treasure, and traps, while keeping the room descriptions intact. But then I feel like I got ripped off because I'm only using like 20% of the module.

If there were dungeon modules marketed that way ("bare bones" with some tips for integrating into current campaigns) I would be much more inclined to care about them.

I follow the "stripping down and refitting" strategy for most of the premade modules I use, and don't feel ripped off b/c I still save myself hours of work.

Also, if a DM has a good grasp of his overall campaign world and main plot-lines, she should have little difficulty in fitting most 'generic' modules into her storline.

I completely agree with your last point. In fact I very rarely buy new modules these days (there a few pleasant exceptions), and often draw on the more "minimalist" modules from earlier eras and other games to lighten my adventure design burden.

 

[Belegbeth]

I agree that many GMs think that unique worlds equals fun for the players. This isn't true. I've found that you can play in a standard world with standard modules and have just as much fun. It really all depends on the player-GM interactions and the player-player interactions. I think that if you have a good GM and good players then you can have fun in any setting or almost any module (yes, there are some really bad modules that no one can have fun in).

I've also experienced that unique worlds devised by the GM can be less fun than standard worlds. With unique worlds, I often find that it is hard for the GM to produce all the flavor setting, background, gods, etc information for the campaign. Yes, you can sit and talk with the GM, but with so many players, the GM only has so much time to convey the world. With prewritten stuff, I can sit down and read about the world at my leisure without forcing the GM to spend their time on this. This frees them up to design modules/adentures or design a metaplot around multiple modules/adentures. I think that better designed, well thought out adventures/modules often result in a more fun campaign than the uniqueness of the world.

Sometimes it just seems that GMs use their worlds as a weapon. First, it limits player options because they have ultimate control over everything. I've also seen the GM use it to hide obvious information from the players either actively or passively. Lastly, I've seen GMs use unique worlds as a "display". Look how creative I am. Wow, I must be the best GM because no one else in the world can be this interesting and creative. Look at how wild, weird, and special I can be. The fallacy is that this equates to FUN.

Wow -- I really disagree with this. While what you say might be true for DMs who design crappy or incoherent worlds, or who are immature enough to use "their worlds as a weapon," I doubt it is true of the vast majority of experienced DMs.

If the DM has a good understanding of her world and the main plot-lines of her campaign (which obviously cannot be matched is she creates her own world), it is easy to come up with interesting story-lines, etc. You don't need to spend hours reading some FR manual to do that.

And the prospect that players who have "read up" on the FR (or whatever campaign setting is in use) might challenge the DM on some point concerning the world in the midst of an adventure sounds extremely disruptive and unappealing. The possibility of players and DMs being rivals with respect to their knowledge of the world in question is one that cannot be healthy for any campaign. This is not a matter of the DM using "their world as a weapon" -- it is a matter of maintainng the kind of DM-player relationship that promotes the most fun overall.

 

[Emirikol]

Well, besides players moving or having work schedule changes, here are the two main things that I've seen over and over and over that doom a group everytime:

Really great feedback everybody, but what are the ways that you prevent those things from happening. What can you truly do about players who move away or those who have work schedule changes? Personality conflicts are another example that were cited, but no specifics were given. What do you do about them?

Oh, on the bibliography/references for my stats, I apologize for not being more scientific and exacting on such a dangerous topic. They are part of a double-blind, randomized controlled trial of 1500 gaming groups with exclusion of groups who weren't applicable (either didn't have players/DM, didn't ever game, or didn't have whatever). They confirm earlier results of case studies, pilot studies, gathered samples, and hypotheses presented earlier dating back nearly 2000 years to the time of Gygax. The results are statistically and clinically significant and should be part of a consensus after thourough peer review and government agency feedback. For anyone wishing to know where some stuff is, he only needs to follow the spiders..in otherwords the stats come from industry sources that I've seen here and other places too

Yea, I'm being a smartie

jh

 

[Sir Whiskers]

With regards to scenarios - "it all depends". I find that creating scenarios from scratch is tiresome, OTOH not nearly as bad as trying to run a big hunking monster of a scenario like Necropolis. The best pre-written scenarios I've run have either been short & simple affairs, like the free downloads from WotC, or else bare-bones structures that the GM can bring to life...snip...IMO a good scenario gives a good base for the GM to build on rather than cover all eventualities and leave no room for GM (or player) creativity.

My experience exactly (RttToEE). Pre-written adventures save me a ton of time, but they have to be small and straightforward enough that I can grasp all the elements without constant page-flipping. The more complex the module, the larger it is, the more likely I am to forget something important during play, which usually ends up detracting from the players' fun. I do still use some of the mega-modules and mini-campaigns that some companies produce - but only by pulling out manageable pieces to run separately.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I'm with some of the above posters

Groups in the past have broken up because of

1) relocation
2) work schedeuls

... with college semeters ending counting in both categories.

Of course, there is the infamous #3 "The DM starts dating the sorceress and suddently she can dual weild vorpal greatswords", but that's another issue entirely.