Hi all (Update Note: sessions are all in person, not online. I'm using discord to facilitate scheduling, etc.),
I've made a discord to pull people together and facilitate in person D&D sessions around my area (Knoxville, TN). It's been growing well and am currently faced with the challenge of more people wanting to play than we have DM's / schedules fitting, etc. I'm looking for thoughts, advice and stories of what's worked and not worked for you all.
Currently I'm running 1 session on Sundays that would be around 11 people if I let everyone play (capping it at 6 right now). We've got another DM trying to do stuff on Friday's that a few others are attending. We have about a half and half split of players with experience and newbies. A few more have DM'd or said they would like to. When I openly asked for people to step up to DM so we can make 2 adventures out of the 1 I've had no responses so far. There's no charges, just a bunch of people in my area I'm wanting to get together so we can all enjoy the fun of D&D.
I've considered the below approaches but would like to hear what everyone else thinks, has done, or might suggest. Note also I'm not trying to "own" the discord and am asking others to step up and be more active with getting sessions going... but it's not really happening yet.
- Wait a few more weeks for people to recover from holidays and get more involved
- When the small weekly adventure I'm running (2 of 4 sessions are finished) is complete either A) let those I'm doing adventures with run their own sessions, B) let half of those I'm doing adventures with join the next adventure, hopefully making 2 groups of 3 players with room for new players to join in
- Do some polling and try to find a different day to run adventures on that works for several new players and prioritize new players on the adventures. This would also mean I attempt to phase out of the current session as I don't have the time to fully run multiple adventures each week.
- Poll the group about if they'd be up to paying DMs in some manner to encourage others to step up (donation based or whatever)
I do know at some point I will need to step down from DMing and need others to step in. Simply because my work and personal life have ebbs and flows... so trying to figure this out now partially so the group doesn't just die when that happens.
See if some of the new to DMing want to do some one shot adventures first to get some practice, before trying to ask them to handle a full campaign perhaps.
Your new DMs might be willing to step up with some support.
Some ideas:
Pick out a one shot for them that is well prepped so there is something that is ready to go that is simple.
Have an informal practice session coaching them through running the first encounter with that one shot
Consider hand picking their players so they have a small, supportive group for that first time.
Offer to sit with them during the game, to be a rules consultant as well as possibly do any table management.
Give them a good first experience and see if they bite.
Since you know you need more DMs, focus on what you need to do to raise them up. Do they need play time? Are they not sure of the rules? Are they intimidated about running the people? If you can't ask them directly, maybe try a survey via google forms to try to figure out what their fears are and what might motivate them.
Honestly you probably can't pay enough money for that to be the tipping point... but there are other lures, like cool swag, the chance to play in another game, etc, that might be even more powerful, things you can't buy with money but only with your DMing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hi all (Update Note: sessions are all in person, not online. I'm using discord to facilitate scheduling, etc.),
I've made a discord to pull people together and facilitate in person D&D sessions around my area (Knoxville, TN). It's been growing well and am currently faced with the challenge of more people wanting to play than we have DM's / schedules fitting, etc. I'm looking for thoughts, advice and stories of what's worked and not worked for you all.
Currently I'm running 1 session on Sundays that would be around 11 people if I let everyone play (capping it at 6 right now). We've got another DM trying to do stuff on Friday's that a few others are attending. We have about a half and half split of players with experience and newbies. A few more have DM'd or said they would like to. When I openly asked for people to step up to DM so we can make 2 adventures out of the 1 I've had no responses so far. There's no charges, just a bunch of people in my area I'm wanting to get together so we can all enjoy the fun of D&D.
I've considered the below approaches but would like to hear what everyone else thinks, has done, or might suggest. Note also I'm not trying to "own" the discord and am asking others to step up and be more active with getting sessions going... but it's not really happening yet.
- Wait a few more weeks for people to recover from holidays and get more involved
- When the small weekly adventure I'm running (2 of 4 sessions are finished) is complete either A) let those I'm doing adventures with run their own sessions, B) let half of those I'm doing adventures with join the next adventure, hopefully making 2 groups of 3 players with room for new players to join in
- Do some polling and try to find a different day to run adventures on that works for several new players and prioritize new players on the adventures. This would also mean I attempt to phase out of the current session as I don't have the time to fully run multiple adventures each week.
- Poll the group about if they'd be up to paying DMs in some manner to encourage others to step up (donation based or whatever)
I do know at some point I will need to step down from DMing and need others to step in. Simply because my work and personal life have ebbs and flows... so trying to figure this out now partially so the group doesn't just die when that happens.
u should not play online with people its to hard for new DMs.
unless your a hard time dm but I am doing it and discord is do hard to keep up with people. just wanted to say to help :)
and post your discord link here I'll help.
I am not playing online. Discord is being used to facilities in person meetups. Since massive text groups, etc are very unhelpful.
See if some of the new to DMing want to do some one shot adventures first to get some practice, before trying to ask them to handle a full campaign perhaps.
Your new DMs might be willing to step up with some support.
Some ideas:
Give them a good first experience and see if they bite.
Since you know you need more DMs, focus on what you need to do to raise them up. Do they need play time? Are they not sure of the rules? Are they intimidated about running the people? If you can't ask them directly, maybe try a survey via google forms to try to figure out what their fears are and what might motivate them.
Honestly you probably can't pay enough money for that to be the tipping point... but there are other lures, like cool swag, the chance to play in another game, etc, that might be even more powerful, things you can't buy with money but only with your DMing.