New FH GM looking for advice

[TheTemplar]

Hey all you GM's out there in Herodom,

 

I'm a long time DnD player who's been converted to the d6 Light and have been heavily involved in playing in a Champions campaign for about 4 years now - I've even filled in as a guest writer/ GM on a couple of occasions. I can manage combat effectively and run scenarios pretty well, I think. But, despite my best efforts, the FH campaign that I'm trying to put together has faltered twice.

 

I'm now on the cusp of being ready to launch my Turakian Age campaign, have the first several adventures laid out and have grown very familiar w/ the setting, etc. But, I keep coming back to this recurring problem of participation. I had a group of 4 players originally, 1 bailed on us, and then RL got the best of that campaign. I then tried to restart w/ just the 3 remaining players - had characters drawn up, and then that died before it ever started. I don't know if my players just really aren't all that interested in doing FH, or if it really is just a matter of scheduling woes.

 

Those of you who have had long running, successful FH campaigns - how do you do it? Is it just a matter taking the players you have and running ahead full steam, whether everyone makes it to sessions or not? Do you start with more players than you intended just to make sure that in case a couple of people miss, you still have a core group? I really want this to succeed, so any advice you can give would be super appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[Doc Democracy]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

Hmm. Real life is a bitch that seems dedicated to taking away gaming opportunities.

 

I think that the first question is whether your group is interested in gaming - if they can't make a commitment to gaming then you'll never get ANY game running. I find that people that want to play will play just about any game a GM is willing to run.

 

More directly to your question, I think you have to have a fixed game day and run on that day regardless of whether everyone can make it. This means you have to be careful to get sessions to finish at points where characters can jump on and off depending on player participation.

 

Our group has six people. I think you need around seven to ensure you usually have four or five available on any given game night (and if all seven turn up it isn't completely unmanageable).

 

 

Doc

[John Desmarais]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

A fixed gaming schedule is good - this makes it a predictable event that players can work into their schedule.

 

When I was gaming heavily I typically gamed with more players than most people would consider optimum, with the idea that so long as most of the players showed up we would have enough for a good game. (All of the people who rotated GM duties were experienced enough to handle a large group every once and while when every did show up).

 

Personally, I have found that as I get older (and the folks I game with get older) real life gets in the way more and more often. (We all have real jobs, are married, have families, etc, etc). What we have done recently to compensate for this is started hosting gamine weekends every few months. Me and a bunch of the folks I used to game with when I was younger will schedule a weekend to get together and game - playing multiple sessions over the weekend (getting in about as much "game time" as we used to be able to get in in a month of weekly games). It's not an ideal situaton, but it's easier for us older folks to manange.

[greymankle]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

The number of players needed will always vary from GM to GM. Some can run with one or two, others need 6. So it's tough to say how may your group "should" have. All I can do is speak from my experience.

 

We have a normal gameday. Who ever shows up plays. but if the game is at a point where we really need the whole group or more than what we have. We either play some Magic, or run an alternate beer and pretzels game. If you start canceling days due to no-shows people lose interest. Try and run something, anything on the days that you plan so people get into the rhythm of showing up.

 

Alternately if real life is too hectic. You can try to run something by E-mail to get the wheels turning so you keep interest until you can get together. Or if you are already meeting but one session gets cancelled do a little E-mail back and forth to keep the story fresh in the players minds and keep interest up.

 

Just a few thoughts.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

We have a normal gameday. Who ever shows up plays. but if the game is at a point where we really need the whole group or more than what we have. We either play some Magic, or run an alternate beer and pretzels game. If you start canceling days due to no-shows people lose interest. Try and run something, anything on the days that you plan so people get into the rhythm of showing up.

 

That's good advice - when we only have three people available we'll boardgame - it allows the group to bond and socialise and like greymankle says gets people in the habit of turning up.

[Greatwyrm]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

My D&D group has kind of spread out over the years. We can really only make one game a month now. So, I just allowed anyone who wanted to play to come when they can. Out of 11 on the guest list, I typically average 6. It can get tough to make long-term character interaction plots, but if you can't get players any other way, you gotta make some sacrifices.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

If at least half the group is there, run the game anyway. There's almost always some reasonable way that the characters whose players didn't make it can be separated for a short time. Especially if there's a ship. Someone always has to guard the ship while everyone else gets beat down onshore.

[swobeas]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

Hi!

 

In my group we played another little campaign in the Star Wars Universe if we weren't all there.

I think you have to ask players about how seriously interested they are in the game. It is better to have a group of 4 players showing up regularily than having 10 switchers.

A fix gaming day proved very usefull to us. If the alternative GM had no Idea for Star Wars at the moment, we just hanged out the evening, eventually playing a little munchkin...

 

 

hope that helps

 

 

swobeas

[TheTemplar]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

Thanks guys. Very helpful suggestions have been made here.

[Lethosos]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

While I'm not a GM'er (bad hearing on my part, and recently fading for some wierd reason,) I was part of a local D&D Forgotten Realms group. The gaming was a little odd and usually 12 hours long, but I have noticed that if not enough show up, it's defintly better to have an alternative plan. We had this problem once, and chose to run a 15th level Drow campaign with just us 3 players and an NPC from the setting book. (We played the quinntsental trio group--Cleric, Wizard, and Fighter, with the NPC being a Rogue/Sorcerer. Man, we had fun.)

 

Of course, our GM is a flake of a college student, so I'm looking for a far more steady group these days...

[Ndreare]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

For the beer and pretzels games I would recemend all the alternaive games from Steve Jackson Games, Minchkin, Illuminati, Cheez Geek, and others. They are fun little one night games, that help keep the night tuned into the gamming atmosphere.

[Nolgroth]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

One of the things I always tried to do when the whole group didn't show up would be to create alternate characters in the same setting. That way I could explore some of the other aspects of the campaign world with them. It didn't always work out well, but it did often enough for the campaign world to feel more solid.

 

Too bad we've all gotten older and most have gone their separate ways.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: New FH GM looking for advice

 

As a general resource, I humbly direct you here:

 

http://www.FantasyHERO.com