That's going to depend very highly on the situation. There's no special "D&D method" that works better than other things you can do to schedule meetings, parties, or other group activities besides D&D. Set up a doodle poll of available times or something and pick the one that has the most overlap.
One thing that may help is to cut down frequency. Lots of people just can't make "every Friday night" but if you go every other Friday (or whatever time you choose) they can do it. So try every other week instead of weekly, or once a month if every other week is too much. Yeah every month doesn't sound very frequent (cause it isn't) but once a month is better than zero.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
One game I run I've gone bi-weekly and it has worked out much better than I thought both for convenience of schedule as well as game prep. These sessions run for about two hours which is also helpful for people to schedule since it's not an excessive amount of time to commit for one game. One thing I should mention is that I've pulled away from prime weekend game day, (Friday, Saturday), and that has as well worked wonders for regular gaming sessions in a bi-weekly schedule.
yeah, weekends didn't work for me either. oddly, a middle of the week night works best for my main group.
like an AL game, you could just let characters just pop in and out. and don't allow absentees to level (imo, although you could) - nothing worse than leveling without doing anything.
the roman's and BK's bi-weekly comment is good to. you could always run 2 separate games if you really wanted something weekly. i have one group on a weekly schedule and one every-other week.
Scheduling can be one of the most difficult things in D&D (aside from Chairs, Doors and Gazebos). Sometimes, you have to decide to play and do the best with who can make it. If it is a revolving schedule problem where sometimes some people can make it and sometimes they can't, then see if other people can adjust to that (every other or once a month or whatever). If 5 of the 6 people can always make it on one specific night... set the game for that night. And, one thing we've done recently with COVID, is add another game night. If you have the 5 that can play one campaign on a consistent schedule, then you look for the weird schedule that works with the 1 person that can't make it to the other game and build a separate campaign for everyone that can play on that scheduled night (or week or whatever). This also gives a chance for someone to try out their DM Wings. Don't necessarily try to exclude anyone... but find what works for the most people and make an intention to play starting on a specific date. And go from there...
This is how I ended up playing on Wednesdays and Fridays and DM-ing on Sunday afternoons. The Wednesdays are the main campaign that most of us play in. The Friday alternates between a Domains of Dread 5E adaptation and an Eberron Adventure League series (with the occasional Call of Cthulhu semi-campaign thrown in). Then Sunday is the smaller group that I run at High-Fantasy, High-Magic, High-Reward (and soon to be High-Deadly).
Actually, that brings up another way you could do it. If everyone is having trouble meeting consistently, then pick the game night most people can make it and run things as Adventure League. If you have a consistent few, they may need several characters across Tiers of play as they level up, so they can always have a Tier 1 character to help out people that aren't able to join as much. Treat it like a Guild or a Mercenary Company and send them out on missions for the Organization. No one gets left out, people that show up can be rewarded with Adventure League bonuses and you all get to play as often as you can. May take some work on the DMs part to keep it organized and know who is showing up from week to week, but that can be fun too...
Sometimes, you have to decide to play and do the best with who can make it.
This is also absolutely true. One person in our campaign made the first 2 planning sessions (the initial one and Session 0) and the first real session, and has not been able to make it since. We have played 10 sessions total, thus 9 without him. Yes, it is unfortunate, but the rest of us are still able to play, and when he comes back, his character has been run as an NPC (I don't have him say much for obvious reasons) and has at least been with them the whole time (and is the same level, etc.). So he will be able to step right back in when his schedule clears up.
If we had been holding out for 100% attendance, we'd have played one actual session so far since March. Instead, we have characters to level 4, 3 adventures under our belts, and an evolving story of the campaign world starting to take hold.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Sometimes, you have to decide to play and do the best with who can make it.
This is also absolutely true. One person in our campaign made the first 2 planning sessions (the initial one and Session 0) and the first real session, and has not been able to make it since. We have played 10 sessions total, thus 9 without him. Yes, it is unfortunate, but the rest of us are still able to play, and when he comes back, his character has been run as an NPC (I don't have him say much for obvious reasons) and has at least been with them the whole time (and is the same level, etc.). So he will be able to step right back in when his schedule clears up.
If we had been holding out for 100% attendance, we'd have played one actual session so far since March. Instead, we have characters to level 4, 3 adventures under our belts, and an evolving story of the campaign world starting to take hold.
Yeah, if he can get five out of the six or even four out of the six it might be worth throwing one of them as an NPC. I say one, and I've seen DM's do this, have one NPC to manage on top of every other responsibility of the DM the character can get lost in all the shuffling. The other character could be, in a round-robin play a having a player run two characters for a single session. Not always ideal but if people can play and there are enough of them for a proper session it should not impact too much the flow of the game.
A lot of people do not like to do this because they would prefer to sleep in, but Saturday morning groups. You will find that anybody who agrees to do a session at 9 AM on a Saturday will always show up. People rarely have anything to do at this hour, and since I assume everyone is playing online this should hardly be a problem for most people.
have one NPC to manage on top of every other responsibility of the DM the character can get lost in all the shuffling
My feeling on this is that the player who is not coming should be grateful the DM is running the character as an NPC at all, and should not be upset if his or her character ends up being 'less important' or even having nothing at all to say for a whole entire session. If a player wants the character RPed to the hilt, that player needs to be there to do it. Otherwise the DM is entirely justified to simply leave the PC out of that session. The DM or another player playing that PC for the person missing the session is doing that person a favor.
The way I do it is: I run the missing player's PC in RP but only speak if something seems very appropriate for him to talk about. I won't use the PC to give the players hints. I won't suggest making skill checks for the PC, but if they ask if the PC can check for traps or something, I will have him do it. I have the players make all rolls for the PC. They also choose what actions and the like the PC will take in combat. I do sometimes remind them of the PC's special class features because they probably wouldn't know some of those.
Even so, yes, this PC being run as an NPC for the missing player does get lost in the shuffle and is often just standing there not saying much. Again... if the player wants him to say more, the player would need to be there to do it. I will not do the sort of RP with another player's character that I would do with my own. That holds even if I am just a player who is doing another player a favor.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Oh, I was not caring how the PC thought how the DM played the character but just the DM having that one extra thing to manage during the game. I’m pro DM here. I’ve had both successfully NPC a character with RP and Combat to the flip side of my players asking “what about X?” Oh, yeah. X.
I like the suggestions though some seem like they won't really work if I'm being honest
I could try bi weekly but I'm not sure if that would work either as the players still might not come and I feel like for my players it wouldn't increase party number enough to warrant it
One Issue with scheduling is my players frequently forgetting about the session and also spontaneous summer trips coming up at the last minute also two of the players are horrible at responding to my messages so It'll be 1 hour to the session when they respond to the message about when the session was saying they can't make WHEN THE MESSAGE WAS SENT LIKE AN HOUR AFTER THE END OF THE LAST SESSION I only have one player who can consistently come (Used to be two but second one has been less frequent as of late) 4-5 players is the ideal when the reality is 1-3 players so yeah you can see why It's hard to schedule this thing
Also I do the run them as NPC trick whenever they're not there so the party doesn't suffer in combat and even occasionaly try to RP as best I can as their character
People who do not stick to planned sessions without cancelling in advance, would get kicked out by me. Especially, if they are not close friends of mine.
Do I get it right, that this is an online round with randomly assembled players?
It is online but not randomly assembled it's played by some of my close friends though not all of them know each other all that well and if I kicked players for not sticking to sessions I'd be kicking at least half the party
If it is regularly the same persons not showing up, what is the benefit of going on that way? I mean, if half the group can play according to schedule, with players not making it from time to time, that is better, as always having players not making it.
Also, why do they not even bother to send a message, that they do not make it? This is highly egoistical and not very nice behavior for the rest of the players.
I meant for the first sentence, that if it is the same players constantly missing appointments, why bother playing with them. It does not matter, if they do not play, because they are not there to play in the first place.
So, if everyone else somewhat reliably shows up, with maybe one miss in 6+ sessions, you are better off, playing with these people alone.
I, as a DM would be annoyed to plan ahead for an uncertain number of players each time.
^^^^ I agree with Voras. 1 person who is a flake is OK. The whole group being flakey is not going to work. You will do all this work as a DM and have it go to waste.
EDIT:
Oh hey, just a thought. You could try running a West Marches style of campaign. The basic premise of West Marches is that you as DM make up the world and you have stuff going on in it, and adventure areas set up, and then you run for whoever shows up in the game. The continuity is not based around the PCs, who will vary from week to week, but around the world and whatever the DM sets up. You're running Tomb of Horrors starting Friday, whoever wants to come joins up.
I just can't seem to find a good time to schedule for my games and haven't had a single session with all 6 players. What can I do
That's going to depend very highly on the situation. There's no special "D&D method" that works better than other things you can do to schedule meetings, parties, or other group activities besides D&D. Set up a doodle poll of available times or something and pick the one that has the most overlap.
One thing that may help is to cut down frequency. Lots of people just can't make "every Friday night" but if you go every other Friday (or whatever time you choose) they can do it. So try every other week instead of weekly, or once a month if every other week is too much. Yeah every month doesn't sound very frequent (cause it isn't) but once a month is better than zero.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
One game I run I've gone bi-weekly and it has worked out much better than I thought both for convenience of schedule as well as game prep. These sessions run for about two hours which is also helpful for people to schedule since it's not an excessive amount of time to commit for one game. One thing I should mention is that I've pulled away from prime weekend game day, (Friday, Saturday), and that has as well worked wonders for regular gaming sessions in a bi-weekly schedule.
yeah, weekends didn't work for me either. oddly, a middle of the week night works best for my main group.
like an AL game, you could just let characters just pop in and out. and don't allow absentees to level (imo, although you could) - nothing worse than leveling without doing anything.
the roman's and BK's bi-weekly comment is good to. you could always run 2 separate games if you really wanted something weekly. i have one group on a weekly schedule and one every-other week.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
Scheduling can be one of the most difficult things in D&D (aside from Chairs, Doors and Gazebos). Sometimes, you have to decide to play and do the best with who can make it. If it is a revolving schedule problem where sometimes some people can make it and sometimes they can't, then see if other people can adjust to that (every other or once a month or whatever). If 5 of the 6 people can always make it on one specific night... set the game for that night. And, one thing we've done recently with COVID, is add another game night. If you have the 5 that can play one campaign on a consistent schedule, then you look for the weird schedule that works with the 1 person that can't make it to the other game and build a separate campaign for everyone that can play on that scheduled night (or week or whatever). This also gives a chance for someone to try out their DM Wings. Don't necessarily try to exclude anyone... but find what works for the most people and make an intention to play starting on a specific date. And go from there...
This is how I ended up playing on Wednesdays and Fridays and DM-ing on Sunday afternoons. The Wednesdays are the main campaign that most of us play in. The Friday alternates between a Domains of Dread 5E adaptation and an Eberron Adventure League series (with the occasional Call of Cthulhu semi-campaign thrown in). Then Sunday is the smaller group that I run at High-Fantasy, High-Magic, High-Reward (and soon to be High-Deadly).
Actually, that brings up another way you could do it. If everyone is having trouble meeting consistently, then pick the game night most people can make it and run things as Adventure League. If you have a consistent few, they may need several characters across Tiers of play as they level up, so they can always have a Tier 1 character to help out people that aren't able to join as much. Treat it like a Guild or a Mercenary Company and send them out on missions for the Organization. No one gets left out, people that show up can be rewarded with Adventure League bonuses and you all get to play as often as you can. May take some work on the DMs part to keep it organized and know who is showing up from week to week, but that can be fun too...
This is also absolutely true. One person in our campaign made the first 2 planning sessions (the initial one and Session 0) and the first real session, and has not been able to make it since. We have played 10 sessions total, thus 9 without him. Yes, it is unfortunate, but the rest of us are still able to play, and when he comes back, his character has been run as an NPC (I don't have him say much for obvious reasons) and has at least been with them the whole time (and is the same level, etc.). So he will be able to step right back in when his schedule clears up.
If we had been holding out for 100% attendance, we'd have played one actual session so far since March. Instead, we have characters to level 4, 3 adventures under our belts, and an evolving story of the campaign world starting to take hold.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yeah, if he can get five out of the six or even four out of the six it might be worth throwing one of them as an NPC. I say one, and I've seen DM's do this, have one NPC to manage on top of every other responsibility of the DM the character can get lost in all the shuffling. The other character could be, in a round-robin play a having a player run two characters for a single session. Not always ideal but if people can play and there are enough of them for a proper session it should not impact too much the flow of the game.
A lot of people do not like to do this because they would prefer to sleep in, but Saturday morning groups. You will find that anybody who agrees to do a session at 9 AM on a Saturday will always show up. People rarely have anything to do at this hour, and since I assume everyone is playing online this should hardly be a problem for most people.
1 shot dungeon master
My feeling on this is that the player who is not coming should be grateful the DM is running the character as an NPC at all, and should not be upset if his or her character ends up being 'less important' or even having nothing at all to say for a whole entire session. If a player wants the character RPed to the hilt, that player needs to be there to do it. Otherwise the DM is entirely justified to simply leave the PC out of that session. The DM or another player playing that PC for the person missing the session is doing that person a favor.
The way I do it is: I run the missing player's PC in RP but only speak if something seems very appropriate for him to talk about. I won't use the PC to give the players hints. I won't suggest making skill checks for the PC, but if they ask if the PC can check for traps or something, I will have him do it. I have the players make all rolls for the PC. They also choose what actions and the like the PC will take in combat. I do sometimes remind them of the PC's special class features because they probably wouldn't know some of those.
Even so, yes, this PC being run as an NPC for the missing player does get lost in the shuffle and is often just standing there not saying much. Again... if the player wants him to say more, the player would need to be there to do it. I will not do the sort of RP with another player's character that I would do with my own. That holds even if I am just a player who is doing another player a favor.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Oh, I was not caring how the PC thought how the DM played the character but just the DM having that one extra thing to manage during the game. I’m pro DM here. I’ve had both successfully NPC a character with RP and Combat to the flip side of my players asking “what about X?” Oh, yeah. X.
I see. Fair enough.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I like the suggestions though some seem like they won't really work if I'm being honest
I could try bi weekly but I'm not sure if that would work either as the players still might not come and I feel like for my players it wouldn't increase party number enough to warrant it
One Issue with scheduling is my players frequently forgetting about the session and also spontaneous summer trips coming up at the last minute also two of the players are horrible at responding to my messages so It'll be 1 hour to the session when they respond to the message about when the session was saying they can't make WHEN THE MESSAGE WAS SENT LIKE AN HOUR AFTER THE END OF THE LAST SESSION I only have one player who can consistently come (Used to be two but second one has been less frequent as of late) 4-5 players is the ideal when the reality is 1-3 players so yeah you can see why It's hard to schedule this thing
Also I do the run them as NPC trick whenever they're not there so the party doesn't suffer in combat and even occasionaly try to RP as best I can as their character
People who do not stick to planned sessions without cancelling in advance, would get kicked out by me. Especially, if they are not close friends of mine.
Do I get it right, that this is an online round with randomly assembled players?
It is online but not randomly assembled it's played by some of my close friends though not all of them know each other all that well and if I kicked players for not sticking to sessions I'd be kicking at least half the party
If it is regularly the same persons not showing up, what is the benefit of going on that way? I mean, if half the group can play according to schedule, with players not making it from time to time, that is better, as always having players not making it.
Also, why do they not even bother to send a message, that they do not make it? This is highly egoistical and not very nice behavior for the rest of the players.
I'm pretty sure the reason they don't send messages is just they're infrequently on their phones.
and also your first sentence I don't get what you mean
I meant for the first sentence, that if it is the same players constantly missing appointments, why bother playing with them. It does not matter, if they do not play, because they are not there to play in the first place.
So, if everyone else somewhat reliably shows up, with maybe one miss in 6+ sessions, you are better off, playing with these people alone.
I, as a DM would be annoyed to plan ahead for an uncertain number of players each time.
oh no there's not 3-4 reliables
There's 1 reliable
Then you need another group, I guess... because that is totally wasted time for you as a DM and the one reliable.
^^^^ I agree with Voras. 1 person who is a flake is OK. The whole group being flakey is not going to work. You will do all this work as a DM and have it go to waste.
EDIT:
Oh hey, just a thought. You could try running a West Marches style of campaign. The basic premise of West Marches is that you as DM make up the world and you have stuff going on in it, and adventure areas set up, and then you run for whoever shows up in the game. The continuity is not based around the PCs, who will vary from week to week, but around the world and whatever the DM sets up. You're running Tomb of Horrors starting Friday, whoever wants to come joins up.
Colville explains this in one of this Running the Game videos: https://youtu.be/oGAC-gBoX9k
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.