I'm a relatively young DM, so the group I run is at school. It's also not a recognized club, it's just me and my friends playing together. Although all the players seem to really enjoy the game, it's really hard to get the group to conform to a basic schedule that happens one day a week after school. It's Friday, too, so it ought to be pretty easy, right? I get that all of them have stuff to do, but they rarely remember to let me know if they can make it or not and I need a way to make them more invested. The campaign comes to a close this week, and I'm not sure what I can do for getting them to stick to the schedule next year- especially since it took me two weeks to get everyone to agree on a day for the final fight. I was thinking about letting one of them DM, but the chances are high that the group would quickly dissolve. Basically, here's my questions:
1. How can I instill more stability into my group's schedule?
1: A group chat is handy for keeping people motivated, because you can discuss things between sessions rather than letting things sit for a week without thinking about it. As DM, you're probably ALWAYS thinking about it, but to a large extent, players can just rock up and do their thing. So they don't spend as much time thinking about it.
2: Ask them why they're having so much trouble agreeing on a day/time. What's not working for them?
3: Talk to them about the campaign. Are they having fun. is it exciting. Do they look forward to playing, or is it just something to do? Then adjust and adapt.
4: I create an event for each weekly session on Facebook so people can mark themselves as coming or not. I give it interesting names relating to the next part of the adventure.
5: Invested in the group? For me, it's mainly about investing in their character, and that surrounds plot. Are they the heroes of your story, or they're just doing heroic things? There's a difference. For example, Legolas does heroic things in Lord of the Rings, but Frodo (and possibly Sam) are the heroes. It's a story about them. So is your campaign about your heroes, or are they just solving the problem? Backstory backstory backstory.
Great advice given above and I agree on all accounts. It is tough when you're so committed and you feel like the players aren't. If the comments above don't work it might be worth seeking out a more committed group. It might takes some time to find a group as committed as you are, but man, is it worth it. Usually other DMs share the same passion you do, and when that happens it takes the game to a whole new level. Best of luck.
No, you need a way to entice them to be more invested and be prepared to accept that some simply won't. Force breeds rebellion. Talk to them, ask them, compromise. And Friday is a horrible day to ask for commitments.
You should be asking your players these questions because we cannot answer for them.
But when players begin to bail on games, I feel that says more about the DM than the players. I would be asking "me" and "I" based questions rather than "them" or "they" based questions. If the game is fun, they return. If it isn't, they don't.
But when players begin to bail on games, I feel that says more about the DM than the players. I would be asking "me" and "I" based questions rather than "them" or "they" based questions. If the game is fun, they return. If it isn't, they don't.
Well... maybe.
I have a good friend who I met at the age of 10, and 40 years later we are still friends. He loves RPGs and is often the one who pushes me to play online ones or co-op computer ones with him like Divinity Original Sin or Champions Online. And he will play the game way more than I do (multiple characters to level cap when I'm still working on the first one, in an MMORPG - or soloing Divinity while we are also co-opping it). Yet sometimes he will just flake out on our play times. It's his way. It is not a comment, and has never been for 40 years, on "how much fun" he is having in the game. He's just a flake when it comes to time.
Additionally, it sounds like these are perhaps high school kids? Yeah, at that age lots of my friends flaked out.
How we solved it: We asked for backup copies of all characters, and if you weren't there, someone played your character. Most of the players in my group did not want someone else playing our characters (at that age, we could not entirely trust that the person wouldn't do something we'd later regret, like having our character "fall in love" with an NPC!), so we usually showed up to prevent others from player our character. The one guy who never showed (or hardly showed) anyway... well after we retired that group, we had to just say "sorry you can't have a regular PC with us anymore -- we play your character more than you do." And you'd think that would be a hard conversation but, the guy showed up like 10 times in a 2 year period if that, so he actually wasn't invested, and literally did not bat an eye when we told him that. He just said, "I see your point," and actually agreed with us. He guest-starred once or twice a year when he was in the mood, and that was it.
Another way to potentially solve it is with food. I.e., "Friday night pizza night at Bob's" will often get people to show up, since most everyone likes pizza (and free food). Expensive for you as DM but maybe you can swing it if you have a part-time job. Or maybe you can get the players to chip in, though then it is just "food" and not "free food." Either way food tends to be a good motivator.
Perhaps switching your game day to Saturday or Sunday mornings/afternoon might help. a 4.5 to 5 hour game can be assembled easily to run at someone's house from like 10 to 3 pm or so. My kids run their game this way. They also run Discord when they can't all make the meetup that week.
If they want to play then they will all agree on something and show up. If it is a constant issue then I would just find a new group. D&D is a game that takes some commitment from everyone. Even if it is only a casual game there still needs to be expectations. Not to mean any offence, but part of the issue it the level of maturity. A bunch of kids/teenagers have a lot of other things on their minds. Sadly many just want to go home and play video games or something. Now if they have a girlfriend/boyfriend... Ill let you fill in the gaps.
That works... if the OP has 15-20 players to hand who all want to play the same edition of the same game in the same setting. Good luck with that... I can't even find 5.
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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.
Wow! Thank you all for all of this, this is really helpful. In addition, most of you were pretty dead on; we are in high school (and kind of a flaky group), and it turns out Friday is much worse of a day for commitments than I thought it would be. Unfortunately, two of them can only make Fridays. MajorPuddles, I took your suggestions and am now trying to incorporate them wherever I can, especially the last. I also checked out the West Marshes thing, and it sounds AWESOME! I will definitely try it out whenever I can get a group together. Fortunately, my group is very mature, so I only have to worry about conflicting schedules for now. Again thank you all for the advice, I'm finding it very useful.
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I'm a relatively young DM, so the group I run is at school. It's also not a recognized club, it's just me and my friends playing together. Although all the players seem to really enjoy the game, it's really hard to get the group to conform to a basic schedule that happens one day a week after school. It's Friday, too, so it ought to be pretty easy, right? I get that all of them have stuff to do, but they rarely remember to let me know if they can make it or not and I need a way to make them more invested. The campaign comes to a close this week, and I'm not sure what I can do for getting them to stick to the schedule next year- especially since it took me two weeks to get everyone to agree on a day for the final fight. I was thinking about letting one of them DM, but the chances are high that the group would quickly dissolve. Basically, here's my questions:
1. How can I instill more stability into my group's schedule?
2. How can I get them more invested in the group?
1: A group chat is handy for keeping people motivated, because you can discuss things between sessions rather than letting things sit for a week without thinking about it. As DM, you're probably ALWAYS thinking about it, but to a large extent, players can just rock up and do their thing. So they don't spend as much time thinking about it.
2: Ask them why they're having so much trouble agreeing on a day/time. What's not working for them?
3: Talk to them about the campaign. Are they having fun. is it exciting. Do they look forward to playing, or is it just something to do? Then adjust and adapt.
4: I create an event for each weekly session on Facebook so people can mark themselves as coming or not. I give it interesting names relating to the next part of the adventure.
5: Invested in the group? For me, it's mainly about investing in their character, and that surrounds plot. Are they the heroes of your story, or they're just doing heroic things? There's a difference. For example, Legolas does heroic things in Lord of the Rings, but Frodo (and possibly Sam) are the heroes. It's a story about them. So is your campaign about your heroes, or are they just solving the problem? Backstory backstory backstory.
Great advice given above and I agree on all accounts. It is tough when you're so committed and you feel like the players aren't. If the comments above don't work it might be worth seeking out a more committed group. It might takes some time to find a group as committed as you are, but man, is it worth it. Usually other DMs share the same passion you do, and when that happens it takes the game to a whole new level. Best of luck.
"...I need a way to make them more invested..."
No, you need a way to entice them to be more invested and be prepared to accept that some simply won't. Force breeds rebellion. Talk to them, ask them, compromise. And Friday is a horrible day to ask for commitments.
You should be asking your players these questions because we cannot answer for them.
But when players begin to bail on games, I feel that says more about the DM than the players. I would be asking "me" and "I" based questions rather than "them" or "they" based questions. If the game is fun, they return. If it isn't, they don't.
Well... maybe.
I have a good friend who I met at the age of 10, and 40 years later we are still friends. He loves RPGs and is often the one who pushes me to play online ones or co-op computer ones with him like Divinity Original Sin or Champions Online. And he will play the game way more than I do (multiple characters to level cap when I'm still working on the first one, in an MMORPG - or soloing Divinity while we are also co-opping it). Yet sometimes he will just flake out on our play times. It's his way. It is not a comment, and has never been for 40 years, on "how much fun" he is having in the game. He's just a flake when it comes to time.
Additionally, it sounds like these are perhaps high school kids? Yeah, at that age lots of my friends flaked out.
How we solved it: We asked for backup copies of all characters, and if you weren't there, someone played your character. Most of the players in my group did not want someone else playing our characters (at that age, we could not entirely trust that the person wouldn't do something we'd later regret, like having our character "fall in love" with an NPC!), so we usually showed up to prevent others from player our character. The one guy who never showed (or hardly showed) anyway... well after we retired that group, we had to just say "sorry you can't have a regular PC with us anymore -- we play your character more than you do." And you'd think that would be a hard conversation but, the guy showed up like 10 times in a 2 year period if that, so he actually wasn't invested, and literally did not bat an eye when we told him that. He just said, "I see your point," and actually agreed with us. He guest-starred once or twice a year when he was in the mood, and that was it.
Another way to potentially solve it is with food. I.e., "Friday night pizza night at Bob's" will often get people to show up, since most everyone likes pizza (and free food). Expensive for you as DM but maybe you can swing it if you have a part-time job. Or maybe you can get the players to chip in, though then it is just "food" and not "free food." Either way food tends to be a good motivator.
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.
Perhaps switching your game day to Saturday or Sunday mornings/afternoon might help. a 4.5 to 5 hour game can be assembled easily to run at someone's house from like 10 to 3 pm or so. My kids run their game this way. They also run Discord when they can't all make the meetup that week.
If they want to play then they will all agree on something and show up. If it is a constant issue then I would just find a new group. D&D is a game that takes some commitment from everyone. Even if it is only a casual game there still needs to be expectations. Not to mean any offence, but part of the issue it the level of maturity. A bunch of kids/teenagers have a lot of other things on their minds. Sadly many just want to go home and play video games or something. Now if they have a girlfriend/boyfriend... Ill let you fill in the gaps.
That works... if the OP has 15-20 players to hand who all want to play the same edition of the same game in the same setting. Good luck with that... I can't even find 5.
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.
Wow! Thank you all for all of this, this is really helpful. In addition, most of you were pretty dead on; we are in high school (and kind of a flaky group), and it turns out Friday is much worse of a day for commitments than I thought it would be. Unfortunately, two of them can only make Fridays. MajorPuddles, I took your suggestions and am now trying to incorporate them wherever I can, especially the last. I also checked out the West Marshes thing, and it sounds AWESOME! I will definitely try it out whenever I can get a group together. Fortunately, my group is very mature, so I only have to worry about conflicting schedules for now. Again thank you all for the advice, I'm finding it very useful.