A hell campaign

[cloneof]

I have been doing a campaign with my friends, started before the beginning of last summer. It was my my very first real campaign and I`m the DM becouse i`m the only one who actually owns the books and has read them.
The campaign itself started with six heroes, with human warrior and elven ranger leaving becouse I could not get those two love birds stop kissing and sucking each other during the game.

Then one more hero entered the party, a human roque, "Greyfox", a famous thief with contacts to all kingdoms.

The story centered in stopping evil necromacer Montrass to open four gates to hell, re-doing the war between Hell planar levels and Heaven planar levels with the world of Gelthera (copyrighted) in the middle. For now the adventerous are moving on one of the players (dwarf, Durin, Barbarian) sidequest to reclaim his honor with the dwarfs, by cleaning the ancient Dragon Temple out of the evil that has been manifesting there for quite some time (little do they know, it is the agents of Montrass trying to reawaken ancient destruction weapon)

As to the third last session, Greyfox stopped coming to the sessions, I talked to him about it and hi said he was supposed to come into the very last session we just had yesterday, didn`t came.

In the second last session, as the adventerous were finally supposed to enter the Temple, the players kept every time interrupting when I started to start the campaign, finally unleasing my full anger and me quitting for the day. With the opening, my little sister (12 year old Finn) started to DM on another adventure for the day and everyone in the game had fun, even I as I used my pre-rolled Paladin that time.

But in the last session, yesterday, Durin came to talk to me during sport classes and said that he might not be able to come to the game. As I was sure that he had knew about this longer then just thursday evening and we had talked about the campaign the hole week, I was quite angry at him and he said that he might try to come, 22:00 O`clock to be presicy.

As the time growed into 19:00 oclock, no one had come. With only one other informed that she was late,I was quite angry and started setting text messages to the two "missing" party members, they finally came thirty minutes later and after few minutes so came the third player and so there was some time to spare. As I told them the situation of Durin and that we had agreed that I would take control of his character for the purpose of finally continuing this campaign after three weeks of silence.

Well the players didn`t like our idea and waited to wait untill Durin would come at 22:00 and we waited... Just talking. After 22:40 it become apparrent that he would not come and the players started complaining that we could have played, if he would have just stated that he was not coming.
And we kept talking for untill 23:40, when players decided to call for it a day.


Is it just my paranoia, or am I just unlucky DM or my campaign is hated?

[BobVosh]

Some of this wasn't really clear to me, maybe because I am tired. One guy isn't showing up, and you are wondering if it is because of you?

If so no, by the laws of gaming you will ALWAYS have one player late, incapable of playing, or otherwise not there. It is almost required.

As for him telling you he will be there...maybe he really wants to but is having wife aggro or something, did you ask why he can't come?

Players always talk and disrupt, if they don't stop when you being it is them.

You guys actually waited 3 hours for someone to come before gaming? That is just crazy.

[trehek]

Players not being able to come to a game is normal. Players coming late is also normal. Numerous players not appearing at games unannounced is not normal. Your players might have real life issues, or they might lack motivation to play. I suggest you confront all your players, individually or together, and ask them all what they think of the situation. How do they feel about the current problems with people not coming, and what do they feel about the campaign. If someone doesn't like the campaign, you should at least find out so you can make things better or get rid of the unhappy player(s). Fixing things is naturally preferred.

[cloneof]

Some of this wasn't really clear to me, maybe because I am tired. One guy isn't showing up, and you are wondering if it is because of you?

If so no, by the laws of gaming you will ALWAYS have one player late, incapable of playing, or otherwise not there. It is almost required.

As for him telling you he will be there...maybe he really wants to but is having wife aggro or something, did you ask why he can't come?

Players always talk and disrupt, if they don't stop when you being it is them.

You guys actually waited 3 hours for someone to come before gaming? That is just crazy.

Greyfox has allways had personal problems, so I just taked it as a sign of weakness not to come enymore, nothing so unsual about that. He always promises things but never tends on them. At first it was quite sad as he was already major part of the story.

Have you ever also opened your mouth for a time spawn of 20 minutes, only to be always out shouted by a player who asked his/her friends what they had for school next monday or "is that new hair colour you got?". And I`m not kidding about the 20 minutes, first we laughed at the thing then I started loosing my patience.

Yeah, we wait, I told them I could have taken Durin`s character, but they refused, citing on the fact that it wosn`t as fun without him.

[cloneof]

Players not being able to come to a game is normal. Players coming late is also normal. Numerous players not appearing at games unannounced is not normal. Your players might have real life issues, or they might lack motivation to play. I suggest you confront all your players, individually or together, and ask them all what they think of the situation. How do they feel about the current problems with people not coming, and what do they feel about the campaign. If someone doesn't like the campaign, you should at least find out so you can make things better or get rid of the unhappy player(s). Fixing things is naturally preferred.

Yeah that`s one of the problems, I have already earlier tryid to confort them about the issue, but non luck so far.

I would imagine that one of the problems is my sister (who happens to be in the party), one of the biggest loud mouths as she as bigger sister has the delucion of control. Still pretty hard to get rid of after been accepted into the capmaign.

[BobVosh]

Have you ever also opened your mouth for a time spawn of 20 minutes, only to be always out shouted by a player who asked his/her friends what they had for school next monday or "is that new hair colour you got?". And I`m not kidding about the 20 minutes, first we laughed at the thing then I started loosing my patience.

Hair color? And these are gamers? O.o

No, but we do have the usual "what do we do for food shuffle" prior to game which is 10-30 minutes and we always end up with the same thing. Not really sure why it is a question.

[cloneof]

The current party composes of three women and one man.

[Gorbash]

I would imagine that one of the problems is my sister

You seriously expected that a 12 year old girl would be a serious gamer?

To me, it sounds like your players are very casual gamers. I mean, come on, a dwarf named Durin. Gee, where did they get that idea? It's almost as bad sa naming him Tordek. So, lack of original approach to character concept, lack of motivation to play (talking about hair during sessions), being late, missing sessions. All of that is telling me they don't really care about playing at all, and you should definitely find another group.

[BobVosh]

You seriously expected that a 12 year old girl would be a serious gamer?

To me, it sounds like your players are very casual gamers. I mean, come on, a dwarf named Durin. Gee, where did they get that idea? It's almost as bad sa naming him Tordek. So, lack of original approach to character concept, lack of motivation to play (talking about hair during sessions), being late, missing sessions. All of that is telling me they don't really care about playing at all, and you should definitely find another group.

I named one of my guys Tordek, because I couldn't think of one and just looked in the book. I had never looked at the default dwarf names before, much less the stupid npcs they had made. That was short lived.

It was for World's Largest Dungeon, so not like it was roleplay central...

[cloneof]

Well as it was their first characters back three... four months ago, I let them go with that.

But the sister that is in my group is my bigger sister, not that smaller sister who DM`d one of the sessions.

[Gorbash]

Point still stands. You should get a group that actually wants to play.

[Leon]

You seriously expected that a 12 year old girl would be a serious gamer?

Don't see why age has anything to do with being serious about the game, two of the game's i play in have a seven year old or two and they can be as serious as the rest of us

[Gorbash]

Kids aren't serious about anything. That's why they're kids.

[Leon]

Kids aren't serious about anything. That's why they're kids.

Maybe not the kids you've seen but they are capable of it, varying from kid to kid

[Gorbash]

Ok. So, most kids aren't serious about it. From the sound of it, OP's group isn't intrested, let alone serious about DnD, and therefore they shouldn't play. Easy as that.

[AslanCross]

I've had lots of times when I became frustrated and bitter when players wouldn't show up, or would show up just to tell me they couldn't make it (despite them being already there). We're all busy people---I'm a teacher, and they're students who are in a school that doesn't respect the humanity of its own students, so sometimes they're even more overloaded with work than I am.

Whenever it seems that someone's interest is dying down, I talk to that person and ask if they're still committed. Usually that's enough to keep them active.

It's best to communicate and keep in mind that they have lives to live. On the other hand, if they don't seem to care, then it might be better to look for other players.

As for distracted play, sometimes I need to resort to a firm word to snap them back into the game (I have one player in particular who seems to have a particularly short attention span.) The thing is, it's easy for me to do this because I'm in a position of authority over them to begin with.

Nevertheless, the point of the game is to have fun. If the players are clearly not having fun (and have to resort to distracting antics to continue), then there's something wrong. Either they really don't care much for it to begin with or they're not enjoying the game. If they have more fun (and you have more fun) if everyone jokes around (happens in my games most of the time), then it's fine.

DMing is a balancing act, really. After a year and a half of DMing, I have to say that it's still a challenge.

[Gorbash]

With my group, not showing up for the session is unheard of. That's rather rude, if we had a deal that we're going to play, then you should show up. Sure, it happened a few times that one of the players had to cancel on the day of the session becuase of some sudden obligations, then we'd play without him, but cmon, at least have decency to call up front to say you're not going to come.