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Rattslinger
2012-07-13, 08:44 PM
I ask the question because our group is of two minds on the subject.

My wife and I like to have scheduled times, like 1st and 3rd Fridays or 2nd and 4th Saturdays.

Other members like to do every other Friday or Saturday rain or shine (excepting holidays, family visits, emergencies, etc.)

When I first started playing with the group a few years ago we had a "3 strikes" rule. Where if you missed 3 games you were out of the game until a later date or life sorted itself out.

I used to agree with the rule until I got married. Two of the other guys are married, but both don't have a problem playing every Friday and Saturday at different games with or without their wives.

Chadlington
2012-07-13, 08:55 PM
I use a doodle doc (doodle.com) to find out what weekly game day/time works best for everyone, and then I confirm that schedule for a few months in advance, so that all the players know they have a commitment.

Rorrik
2012-07-14, 01:21 AM
In many ways this is the primary challenge I've had keeping a good campaign going in college. Things always come up. In my case what's worked best is trying to plan on every Saturday, but confirming around Wednesday to make sure everyone can make it. It ends up being about every other.

None of my players are married, but my wife doesn't seem to mind the uncertainty.

Zerter
2012-07-14, 02:41 AM
My old group used to check with everyone, schedule a time then. It would be different every time, there would be confusion about when we would play and sometimes people just did not show up.

So when I started our current group I made sure we had a regular time and everyone sticked with it: saturday every week, or sunday if there was an emergency on saturday. I also insisted we play every week as long as at least three people show, miss a few weeks and you break the flow of the campaign completely. It's alright if you can't make it every week and let us know so we can make adjustments, but it is a problem if you cancel right before a bunch of times up to the point were you are no longer welcome.

TheOOB
2012-07-14, 02:51 AM
If possible, the trick is to have a preset time and stick with it. Our group for example, meets around 6-10 every thursday. If someone can't make it, and we find out early enough, we'll try to reschedule for that week, though depending on the situation we may just play without them for a week, or skip that week(though make sure not to skip too many weeks, that can kill a group fast).

I like having a pre-set time because it makes things easier to organize, and everyone is able to base their schedules around it. While we all understand that sometimes life gets in the way, anyone who wants to play will make an effort to keep that spot clear in their schedule.

Occasionally we change date/time, usually when someone gets a new work schedule that is simply incompatible with our current game day.

Crossblade
2012-07-14, 04:30 AM
Used to be every sunday, unless one of the hosts or GM worked, then switched to every saturday unless I (current DM) worked (which I usually didn't). Now we're on an extended break while one of the guys is out of province and one of the hosts is working saturdays, which should change by August. Then we'll check if Saturday or Sunday is better, and I'll change my shift availability accordingly.

But we don't usually play unless all 5 of us are available; as our group is made up of 2 that live in the same apartment and host, and there's myself and my girlfriend, then one other who was the original GM. There was an exception at one time though, as my previous job just didn't allow me to have weekends off at all, so they played without me.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-14, 05:17 AM
Scheduling... has never been our strong point. Normally our game sessions start up as "Hey, we've all got nothing to do tonight, wanna play something?" It's inconsistent and definitely wouldn't work if we had a larger group, but it works for us.

Kol Korran
2012-07-14, 06:08 AM
3 of our group are married, another plays in like 2-3 other games (when does he have time?) and i smartly chose to study in a very demanding program. plus work for everyone.

we don't have a special system, we just like to play and try to arrange a time that is good for everyone. people try and take some effort to arrange things. that said, we play about once every 3-4 weeks usually (we just had a periond of two months absence though :smallsigh:) but it seems to work.

our only two rules is that you try to make the effort, and understand when others can't. worked for the past 3-4 years. :smallwink:

Yora
2012-07-14, 07:28 AM
With a group of 4 people we managed to do quite well with finding the next date at the end of every session. With one player not available at Saturday and Sunday and one not available at Wednesday, there was still enough wiggling room.
Larger groups never played for more than 1 or 2 sessions.

But I think for my next campaign, I really want to have two fixed dates per month. When people can schedule "every Wednesday is my badminton evening", then thex can also scedule "every second Friday is RPG night". And then they won't make plans for that time when planning things with other people.

RedWarlock
2012-07-14, 11:37 AM
I have too many players with irregular schedules to cancel the game if one person is unable to show.

One guy's in the Army reserves, so the whole 1-weekend-a-month/2-weeks-a-year deal, plus he's got family events and stuff. Another guy works nights on weekdays, and every 6th week, has to work a weekend as well. Another guy has a family, (and is about to have another new kid, due date in the next two weeks, so we're gonna have to say goodbye to him!)

I try to say, "I'm running every sunday, show if you're able", and just deal with it from there. If I tried to penalize someone for not showing, I'd never have a game at all. I haven't actually had a game in about 3 weeks, just because of various BS and a lack of players.

valadil
2012-07-14, 12:44 PM
One shots aside I need a regular schedule. Negotiating the timing of each and every session isn't worth the effort.

As GM I invite players to a certain schedule. No group consensus. They can collaborate on the story but I am dictator of the calendars.

yougi
2012-07-15, 12:53 PM
I personally have 3 different games going: two of them are on fixed days (every Thursday for one, every Tuesday for the other), at fixed time (6:30 to between 10:30 and 11). For the second one, we sometimes try to add a weekend game to that, every month or two, when those who work on weekends have a day off.

The last one is way looser. At the end of the game, we just ask ourselves when we'd meet again. That, however, only works with people who have very flexible schedules, and very open or no significant others.

Seerow
2012-07-15, 12:56 PM
My group is typically every other Saturday, barring holidays/emergencies. We used to try to wait for everyone to be able to make it to have a session, but we wound up going literally months between sessions doing that because a few people were completely incapable of getting their stuff together.

Unfortunately our group is now down to 3-4 people most of the time, because we play even when the others can't make it. But better that than not playing at all. We just pick up leadership to fill any gaps in what the party can do.

Emmerask
2012-07-15, 01:09 PM
We use skype and to some extend doodle, the problem we have with doodle however is that its really long term and not really up to date when you actually want to make the appointments in most cases.

Skype on the other hand is pretty easy, the date + every member is in the topic and then each member just has to make a (y) thumbsup or (n) down in the topic to say if he can or canīt join.

/edit currently we are 8 to 9 people so the hey lets game tonight approach would not really work ^^

/edit2 obviously the skype approach only really works if all the players have skype and use it fairly frequently ^^