# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games >  This Is The Flakiest Players Have Been From Roll20

## Tevo77777

*What I Am Used To*
Before I start, I want to preface with the fact that I've been a GM since 12/14/15, and about every single week for about 4-5 of those years, I was running one to three games a week.

I am completely used to about 1/4th of the people who apply, somehow skipping the listing, and not seeing a big obvious picture of Detroit, or a cyberpunk hellscape, or a guy in tactical gear holding an assault rifle. I am used to these people applying with long character sheets, where every single element doesn't fit my setting or my campaign. 

I am used to a lot of people applying in the last two hours or hour before a game, and I have to sift through them like I'm panning for Gold. 

I am used to another quarter leaving after the first session or during character creation for "creative differences" or something like that.

I address both of these issues by having a Google Docs, "Expectations" thing right where people signup, and asking each new signup person to tell me in a few sentences what the setting is or what the concept of the campaign is.
-
*What I Also Have To Be Used To*

I am also, sadly, very used to another quarter telling me they have a change in shifts. I am skeptical of how common this is, but players who have stayed on say they've seen this as a very common problem.

I am even so used to one or more players always being sick, or visiting someone, or doing overtime, who even knows.... That I often have 6-7 players, but expect only 2-4 of them to show. I am like an Airline, I always sell more seats than I have, and unlike them, this has never been a problem really.

I am used to having to "Purge" toxic, sexist, racist recruits. I am used to "screening" each new player, and somehow one of them slips by and has to be removed. 

I've even grown used to people having insane headset issues (3 out of 11 players), and so it's a miracle if they can hear or speak more than an hour at a time before 5-15 minutes of fiddling around with settings.

*What I Am Not Used To*

I have two campaigns. One of them straight up has seven players, and consistently the last two games, only one person has shown up.

Every single new person or duo, plays the first week they are there. They talk a big game, they are very engaged, they laugh, they are in character (mostly), and they stick around for another hour after the three hour session. They tell me "I'm really enjoying this, I'm looking forward to next week, I'm not like the previous players".........

They haven't left the Discord server, but I don't even have any explanation where they are. Are they in a coma? 

Also, why are all my regulars having completely conflicting times they can play, if they all applied for the same two campaigns and looked at the times with me three times each? How is it "Way too early" or "way too late", if you applied and okayed it earlier? 

*TLDR:* 
Longtime GM has snapped, finally seen flakiness and scheduling issues so bad he's gone insane.

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## Pex

One possibility you won't like hearing is maybe you're not as good a DM as you think you are since players keep leaving, but I'm NOT serious about it. It is something to consider for other DMs who have trouble keeping players. Sometimes it is the players' fault, but a DM also needs to evaluate himself to be sure he's not doing something wrong such as railroading, Killer DM, tyrannical my way or the highway, unprepared with no sense of balance and/or rules, etc. The usual bad DM tropes.

I will agree with you the issue is with the players, so the question is why. I can only make a supposition. With the help of The Big Bang Theory, Stranger Things, and even perhaps He-Men actors like Henry Cavill and Joe Manganiello admitting to playing nerd games, D&D has achieved mainstream status. The Jocks may still not be playing D&D, but the Monopoly players and people who hang out at nightclubs have taken interest. However, to them D&D is just another Monopoly or thing to do because you don't feel like a nightclub tonight. They aren't serious about it. They didn't understand the commitment needed to play a campaign and don't want to have to dedicate a day and time to play preventing anything else from happening because they need to go to a game. Maybe they feel dumb playing pretend. They see no point to playing because there's no winner. They feel like going to the nightclub or where ever again. Their friends are available to play Monopoly again (euphemism to mean just hang out) and you're only a stranger on the internet.

You need to be wary of people who say they never played before but want to learn. That doesn't mean they don't really want to play. Every D&D player was new at some point, but that's where the 'flakiness' will be. Who really wants to play, and who is only in it because it's hip today. If you're having trouble getting a game together then maybe restrict to experienced players only for your next recruitment, experienced only playing one campaign before accepted. A campaign, not one-shots.

Or I could be flat out wrong about this.

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## Tevo77777

> One possibility you won't like hearing is maybe you're not as good a DM as you think you are since players keep leaving, but I'm NOT serious about it. It is something to consider for other DMs who have trouble keeping players. Sometimes it is the players' fault, but a DM also needs to evaluate himself to be sure he's not doing something wrong such as railroading, Killer DM, tyrannical my way or the highway, unprepared with no sense of balance and/or rules, etc. The usual bad DM tropes.
> 
> I will agree with you the issue is with the players, so the question is why. I can only make a supposition. With the help of The Big Bang Theory, Stranger Things, and even perhaps He-Men actors like Henry Cavill and Joe Manganiello admitting to playing nerd games, D&D has achieved mainstream status. The Jocks may still not be playing D&D, but the Monopoly players and people who hang out at nightclubs have taken interest. However, to them D&D is just another Monopoly or thing to do because you don't feel like a nightclub tonight. They aren't serious about it. They didn't understand the commitment needed to play a campaign and don't want to have to dedicate a day and time to play preventing anything else from happening because they need to go to a game. Maybe they feel dumb playing pretend. They see no point to playing because there's no winner. They feel like going to the nightclub or where ever again. Their friends are available to play Monopoly again (euphemism to mean just hang out) and you're only a stranger on the internet.
> 
> You need to be wary of people who say they never played before but want to learn. That doesn't mean they don't really want to play. Every D&D player was new at some point, but that's where the 'flakiness' will be. Who really wants to play, and who is only in it because it's hip today. If you're having trouble getting a game together then maybe restrict to experienced players only for your next recruitment, experienced only playing one campaign before accepted. A campaign, not one-shots.
> 
> Or I could be flat out wrong about this.


If I was a terrible GM, you think I would have someone tell me I was a terrible GM in the last six years (Outside the two PCs who went megalomaniacs on me and tried to burn down the entire campaign leaving me and the other PCs scratching our heads...... Oh and the guy who straight up was supposed to be a police officer, but he kept executing people despite me heavily hinting that would be a very very bad idea. He rage-quitted (Between sessions, without talking to me, after telling me he was having a blast) when he was a suspect for a "bad shoot" or "excessive use of force".)




> DM also needs to evaluate himself to be sure he's not doing something wrong such as railroading, Killer DM, tyrannical my way or the highway, unprepared with no sense of balance and/or rules, etc. The usual bad DM tropes.


Sandbox, everyone has plot armor (Provided you behave like you don't have plot armor, AKA, you can't die by accident if you hug cover), Sandbox, I wrote my own rules / I memorized the parent systems.




> With the help of The Big Bang Theory, Stranger Things, and even perhaps He-Men actors like Henry Cavill and Joe Manganiello admitting to playing nerd games, D&D has achieved mainstream status. The Jocks may still not be playing D&D, but the Monopoly players and people who hang out at nightclubs have taken interest. However, to them D&D is just another Monopoly or thing to do because you don't feel like a nightclub tonight.


I am 27, and I am in dozens of communities. LGBT, Autistic, multiple universities, writing guilds, public speaking groups, poet societies, places I worked, my massive family, ect ect.

The only person I know, who even is sure what a night club is, or where they are, is my mom. Seriously. I've had hundreds of players, and they've all listed what they do on the weekends, and none of them have mentioned night clubs once.

Not even my alcoholic friends speak of night clubs. I have had many many libertarian's, I've had six different transgender players, I've had a Russian, a Serbian, five people from South America, two Indians, Germans, Brits, ect ect. No mention of night clubs.




> They aren't serious about it. They didn't understand the commitment needed to play a campaign and don't want to have to dedicate a day and time to play preventing anything else from happening because they need to go to a game. Maybe they feel dumb playing pretend. They see no point to playing because there's no winner.


The vast majority of applications are begging to play, and/or they have really long descriptions, or they list every single system they've ever played and how long.

I will admit the new accounts are the flakiest and least likely to read the listing, most likely to apply to like 15 campaigns.

I've literally never known a single person who was both new to RPGs, and who mentioned playing sports or anything like that. I know at least three people who do martial arts right now, and both of them are hyper committed, consistent players, who have long histories playing RPGs.




> They feel like going to the nightclub or where ever again. Their friends are available to play Monopoly again (euphemism to mean just hang out) and you're only a stranger on the internet.
> 
> You need to be wary of people who say they never played before but want to learn. That doesn't mean they don't really want to play. Every D&D player was new at some point, but that's where the 'flakiness' will be. Who really wants to play, and who is only in it because it's hip today. If you're having trouble getting a game together then maybe restrict to experienced players only for your next recruitment, experienced only playing one campaign before accepted. A campaign, not one-shots.
> 
> Or I could be flat out wrong about this.


I don't run standard D&D. I mentioned that in my second paragraph. I don't have to deal with how popular D&D is, because I run D-20 Modern shoved into 5e, and then beaten with a hammer till it's a smooth, consistent mechanical experience where people die fast, but can eventually become powerful enough to decide the fate of millions.

This really shrinks my recruitment base, so does the fact that the setting is about different dimension and timelines competing or being altered. 

I can't exactly restrict who I'm recruiting from further. I hope that is obvious to you right now. 

At the same time, some of my best regulars (Who are now married, in uni, ect ect after 18 months playing... so it goes) literally learned my system before all others.

-

I don't want to start some insano flaming, burning, blood feud conflict or anything like that.... But your post reads really weird to me, and with so much stuff being hinted to, it makes it really easy to start "diagnosing" or whatever....

You gotta be older than me, right? Like 30 something? I would guess you are like 18, but your post history makes it obvious you're older.

I suspect this, because your writing has this kind of tone or world view to it. 

When I was in high school, a ton of stuff to me seemed to be suffocating or surrounding me all the time. I saw the same people and cultural forces over and over and over.

Then I got older and I looked back, and.... I can't really find any proof that a lot of those things were anything besides a small, but vocal minority.

https://qr.ae/pv3kcq

As I suspected now, "clubbing" is very much a thing that very few people do. Jocks? Clubbing?

Life is not movies. I know multiple teachers/ teachers in training with weird hair, or tattoos, or piercings. I have not met another fellow student who regularly visits nightclubs or even brings them up when asked what they are doing this weekend.  

TLDR: I think you're in an "information silo" and a very small amount of movies, TV shows, or experiences has led you to vastly overestimate certain aspects of society. 

There are recorded years, where you were more likely to be killed by a vending machine, in the US, then to be killed by a shark, in the US.




> One possibility you won't like hearing is maybe you're not as good a DM as you think you are since players keep leaving, but I'm NOT serious about it.


I'm okay. I have a lot of experience and practice and I am always working on stuff, but there are always hurdles I can't quite get over.

I had this one player who kept interrupting people and trying to Main Character Syndrome, argue with me, correct me.

He did all of this like four times each after being advised to stop.

As a GM, I talked to my regulars after the game about what to do, and all of us were too uncomfortable around the guy to talk to him. On top of that, we all universality agreed that if he didn't listen the first four times, why would he listen the fifth?

I've been trying to get myself better at personally handling stuff like this, but I am not quite there. I had to send him a message saying he wasn't a good fit and wishing him luck on his endeavors, before I banned him.

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## animorte

> Or I could be flat out wrong about this.


Well, you hit two very important notes, both are valuable to address:
1. Evaluating yourself.
2. Modern expectations.

Ive never coordinated a game through online sources (yet), but Ive still witnessed newer players showing up, having a good time, then finding reasons not to invest. It does seem to be the new fad that folks are just trying out. Why commit to one thing when you can just live a little bit of everything?




> I've been trying to get myself better at personally handling stuff like this, but I am not quite there.


How consistently do you conduct a session zero? Honestly it seems like you try and take care of most that information before meeting.

And how often are you talking to players about the types of things they enjoyed and what might be addressed better?

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## Tanarii

This is why I like open table campaigns at game stores with a large player base and a stable of characters.  It's also why I like henchmen rules.  At least that one player can go do something.

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## Tevo77777

> Well, you hit two very important notes, both are valuable to address:
> 1. Evaluating yourself.
> 2. Modern expectations.
> 
> Ive never coordinated a game through online sources (yet), but Ive still witnessed newer players showing up, having a good time, then finding reasons not to invest. It does seem to be the new fad that folks are just trying out. Why commit to one thing when you can just live a little bit of everything?
> 
> How consistently do you conduct a session zero? Honestly it seems like you try and take care of most that information before meeting.
> 
> And how often are you talking to players about the types of things they enjoyed and what might be addressed better?


I like to handhold most people through most of the character creation process, so they don't do the character creation equiv of putting their pants on backward... over their torso..

But I will admit that the guy who caused problems was one of those "cats" who had to be "herded" because he applied like 1 hour before the game started and I had given him a temporary character sheet.

I've had mixed experiences with that. I think I have at least one regular who played with a temp the first time they played.

I will admit I'm heavily thinking about telling such people that I need to properly vet them and they need to apply like 2 hours before the game for me to do that.




> And how often are you talking to players about the types of things they enjoyed and what might be addressed better?


I'm not a white/black thinking kind of person, but most players legit seem to be the people who are only available during game session time or a few hours after.... OR... They're an insane person who micromanages everything to a T and then tries to take over the world about 12 months later.

I've had some discussion recently about how combat was at 400 yards and that sucked, because this one guy had no points in Stealth and had a 6 Str so they couldn't use any long range weapons.

There was also I think a two hour discussion about Martial Arts, because one of the players wanted their character to learn a style, and both the players had personal experience they wanted to share.

I haven't seen a lot of interest about talking about the session's pacing or whatnot, except the one player who is too shy to speak and who mostly PMs me their actions. She seems to be chilling pretty well, but I'm trying to find an angle for her character to have some kind of character growth.




> This is why I like open table campaigns at game stores with a large player base and a stable of characters.  It's also why I like henchmen rules.  At least that one player can go do something.


I'm heavily considering reopening recruitment, trying to get rid of this one player who I find annoying and kinda problematic (I think the other players don't like him either), and then doing a "West Marshes" arrangement.

That way, the two campaigns could trade information and clues more often, I could fix the problem with people being present and then gone, and uh... Some other stuff. 

However, currently, one of the campaigns is running a ported module which I want to finish first.

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## animorte

> I will admit I'm heavily thinking about telling such people that I need to properly vet them and they need to apply like 2 hours before the game for me to do that.


I think this is a very good idea. It helps to keep you *and* them from feeling rushed and unprepared.

I personally dont have a problem improvising (one of the most fun sessions we ever had was a one-shot I had no idea I would be running and I threw together in <10 minutes), but that doesnt mean other people are equally comfortable.

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## Spore

I read all your post, and you are burned out. Like a candle lit on both ends. You are done for the year. Take a break. I could not fathom DMing a single game EACH week, and you are doing three, like a disgruntled middle aged accountant. Stop it. Pause for a bit. If you want to write things down for future campaigns, collect that creativity. But you are not forced to DM at every waking minute.

Just get a break.

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## Mastikator

> I will agree with you the issue is with the players, so the question is why. I can only make a supposition. With the help of The Big Bang Theory, Stranger Things, and even perhaps He-Men actors like Henry Cavill and Joe Manganiello admitting to playing nerd games, D&D has achieved mainstream status. The Jocks may still not be playing D&D, but the Monopoly players and people who hang out at nightclubs have taken interest. However, to them D&D is just another Monopoly or thing to do because you don't feel like a nightclub tonight. They aren't serious about it. They didn't understand the commitment needed to play a campaign and don't want to have to dedicate a day and time to play preventing anything else from happening because they need to go to a game. Maybe they feel dumb playing pretend. They see no point to playing because there's no winner. They feel like going to the nightclub or where ever again. Their friends are available to play Monopoly again (euphemism to mean just hang out) and you're only a stranger on the internet.
> 
> You need to be wary of people who say they never played before but want to learn. That doesn't mean they don't really want to play. Every D&D player was new at some point, but that's where the 'flakiness' will be. Who really wants to play, and who is only in it because it's hip today. If you're having trouble getting a game together then maybe restrict to experienced players only for your next recruitment, experienced only playing one campaign before accepted. A campaign, not one-shots.


I agree 100% with you that these seem to be the kinds of players that show up. I do not believe they can be fixed, or turned into normal TTRPG/VTTRPG players. Maybe some could change themselves, but the DM has no power to cause this. In a long term campaign with a long term story, character development and plot development such people are not candidates as players.

What they are appropriate candidates for is guest players, and one-shot players. Many people I've played with are exactly like that, it's a fad for them and the game will never take priority over anything. My solution is to do oneshots. Players that show up multiple times can use the same character if they so choose, but each session is self contained and there is no option to revisit previous sessions (elements from previous sessions may carry over, but once the session is over the campaign is either won or lost). This makes it very easy to bring in guest players.

Also I agree with Spore. Your next game should be in January.

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## KorvinStarmast

> *What I Am Used To*
> Before I start, I want to preface with the fact that I've been a GM since 12/14/15, and about every single week for about 4-5 of those years, I was running one to three games a week.


 Yikes. 



> I address both of these issues by having a Google Docs, "Expectations" thing right where people signup, and asking each new signup person to tell me in a few sentences what the setting is or what the concept of the campaign is.


 The short attention span generation has problem reading anything  longer than a tweet.  :Small Tongue:  So does my generation, apparently. I put out emails to our group once per week (my old fart game) and I  post stuff on the r20 forum for the game I run.  I barely get any of them to freaking read any of it besides my nephew and my stoner buddy in Maryland. 

The Tunnels and Trolls game we began a few years ago died due to flakes.  The only two people who showed up every session, or even during consecutive sessions, were the GM and me.  After six sessions the GM gave it up as a lost cause.  I was bummed. (5th edition Deluxe, not original T&T).  




> I've even grown used to people having insane headset issues (3 out of 11 players), and so it's a miracle if they can hear or speak more than an hour at a time before 5-15 minutes of fiddling around with settings.


 Yeah, that still crops up on our discord channel. We switched to discord due to r20's voice/video thing being inconsistent.  



> I have two campaigns. One of them straight up has seven players, and consistently the last two games, only one person has shown up.


Cancel the campaign.  




> They haven't left the Discord server, but I don't even have any explanation where they are. Are they in a coma?


Did you send them an @everyone message  in discord asking them why they won't show up, or can't? 

We use an RSVP system in our games, asking for "yes I can no I can't" a few days before a session. Last night's session (me not DM) got cancelled due to a couple of people having the courtesy to alert the rest of us to not being able to make it due to health reasons. We'll pick up next time.  



> *TLDR:* Longtime GM has snapped, finally seen flakiness and scheduling issues so bad he's gone insane.


 Take a break.  



> This is why I like open table campaigns at game stores with a large player base and a stable of characters.  It's also why I like henchmen rules.  At least that one player can go do something.


 +1 




> My solution is to do oneshots. Players that show up multiple times can use the same character if they so choose, but each session is self contained and there is no option to revisit previous sessions (elements from previous sessions may carry over, but once the session is over the campaign is either won or lost). This makes it very easy to bring in guest players.


  Smart idea.  :Small Smile:

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## Kraynic

I recruited on Roll20 for a game once, to fill in around a couple players I already had.  It wasn't 5E or Pathfinder, so I only got 3 people from recruiting. 

The first applied to join, but never responded to any messages from there.
The second joined the game, but immediately quite responding to any messages so didn't make it to character creation.
The third played my game until finding a listing for a 7th Sea game, since that was what they actually wanted to play.
Solution?
I simply don't recruit on Roll20 anymore.

My solution is to recruit in online communities to which I already belong.  MMO guilds can be a decent place for recruiting players in my experience.  You already know them a bit from group activities, so can judge whether they might be a fit for tabletop games (assuming they have interest). To a certain extent, I view Roll20 lfg much like the lfg services offered by some MMOs for group content.  Unless you are already starting with a core group, you truly are getting a random sample.  Not only is it random, but many may see your game as disposable.  After all, there are lots of games available through the lfg tool or posted on the lfg forum.

General gaming forums like this one, or ones specifically focused on the system you use would probably be good as well.  I haven't tried that, but I expect that is where I will try next when the pool of players I met through ESO 6 years ago starts to run dry.

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## KorvinStarmast

> I recruited on Roll20 for a game once, to fill in around a couple players I already had.  ...I simply don't recruit on Roll20 anymore.


 I was recruited into a game in roll20, but that was due to our regular game going dormant and nobody stepping up to DM.  That group needed one player, I did the interview thing, they decided to take a chance and I am still gaming with them. 
D&D 5e  Giants game, a  Home brew, Tunnels and Trolls, and Blades in the Dark. 
I recruited a couple of people I know from forums and another on line group to DM for a few of that group in Salt Marsh. 

Finding people you already know and proposing a game on r20 is a good plan also: I ended up in my first RL 20 group that way when my brother recruited me.  

It's a mixed bag, but one does not know who might be a good fit until one tries. One must accept that sometimes, it was not a good fit.

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## Tevo77777

> I have two campaigns. One of them straight up has seven players, and consistently the last two games, only one person has shown up.


Be advise, I have two campaigns. I never said I have three currently. I said I have two and I hinted afterwards and before that I have two.

>Person rages late at night about how one of their two campaigns is almost a one player campaign
>People automatically start assuming the GM is burnt out...and not just hyper angy that the second campaign can't have two people per session out of seven.... ?
>Or maybe the GM is mad they helped 7 people setup their characters, and then only one of them is playing
>Or maybe the GM is mad people lied to him and said they were hyper committed when they were not.
>Or that they were hyper experienced, when they were not.
>And they wrote complex characters that fit the setting really well, and then didn't show up
>Or how they would play the 3 hours, and two extra hours afterward, and then never show again

Fams, it's about feeling betrayed, and feeling like my time was wasted. If these people never finished their character or they never showed, or they only played the three hours then left, I would feel very differently about this.

*EDIT:*




> I recruited on Roll20 for a game once, to fill in around a couple players I already had.  It wasn't 5E or Pathfinder, so I only got 3 people from recruiting. 
> 
> The first applied to join, but never responded to any messages from there.
> The second joined the game, but immediately quite responding to any messages so didn't make it to character creation.
> The third played my game until finding a listing for a 7th Sea game, since that was what they actually wanted to play.
> Solution?
> I simply don't recruit on Roll20 anymore.
> 
> My solution is to recruit in online communities to which I already belong.  MMO guilds can be a decent place for recruiting players in my experience.  You already know them a bit from group activities, so can judge whether they might be a fit for tabletop games (assuming they have interest). To a certain extent, I view Roll20 lfg much like the lfg services offered by some MMOs for group content.  Unless you are already starting with a core group, you truly are getting a random sample.  Not only is it random, but many may see your game as disposable.  After all, there are lots of games available through the lfg tool or posted on the lfg forum.
> ...


What is really weird, is I've recruited from Google Plus RPG communities, but I've had absolutely no dice with recruiting from here, Reddit, Sub-Reddits, and while I have recruited once from other forums, those players never stayed more than two sessions... Despite having known me for months.

All my players who stayed around for like 18 months before they married to went to Uni, they were all recruited from Roll20 and interviewed on Discord.

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## KorvinStarmast

> I've had absolutely no dice with recruiting from here, Reddit, Sub-Reddits, and while I have recruited once from other forums, those players never stayed more than two sessions... Despite having known me for months.


 My experience has been different. Got into PbP with Max Wilson, Dork_Forge, Thunderous Mojo (a couple others also); we have done a few more sessions with a VTT.  
Joined PhoenixPhyre's campaign'game a couple of years ago, enjoyed it enough to do a second campaign.  Recruited KurtKurageous to play in our Saltmarsh campaign, he's still with us.




> Fams, it's about feeling betrayed, and feeling like my time was wasted.


 Oh, yes, that came through loud and clear. And that's frustrating, yes, I know from experience.

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## FireJustice

dude, i'm going to level with you.

15 years ago.
RPG used to be something that people had way more time to put into.
yeah, funny enough, there were almost no online tools, voice chat was a legend, etc.

today, people have way to much stuff to get distracted or more work to do.

That being said, as someone who played since i was 14's (36 now... gosh i'm old). I still play in person, but nevermore online.
used to be the opposite.

now there's not much reason to plan entire campaigns, people are fiddler
most systems (d&d for example) have way to much information for online play, people don't care, yeah waste of time setuping many characters to no player showing up.

Anyway, the change in the status quo.
new public and tools dissonance.
and lots and lots and lots of false expectations.
Come on
I never played like stranger things or the big bang theory or vox machina
all those cenários have parts that are completely unfun for players, or unrealistic to pull off

so where I end my rant?
play with live people that you know.
It's a freaking blessing

I wont touch online campaigns for years now, not even with a 10' pole

also, not your fault really

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## KorvinStarmast

> so where I end my rant?
> play with live people that you know.
> It's a freaking blessing
> 
> I wont touch online campaigns for years now, not even with a 10' pole
> 
> also, not your fault really


 An interesting perspective that is hopefully a more likely option now that the COVID thing puts less of a damper on public gatherings/meetings.

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## Tanarii

Yeah ... trying to game live with people I know is a non-starter for me.  Since maybe shortly after college.  They're all flakes when it comes to say meeting once or twice a month for a year.

Run an open table west marches game in your local game store(s) is my advice.  :Small Amused: 

during 4e, I volunteered to run a few official play games at a local store, to get back into the scene after a late 3e hiatus.  The other guys running the scene had a local email distro for a once a week AL game, first come until table full game.  That was awesome.  Game stores are still a great resource for meeting dedicated gamers even if you don't actually run games there long term.  ("People I know" generally aren't dedicated gamers.)

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## Tevo77777

> dude, i'm going to level with you.
> 
> 15 years ago.
> RPG used to be something that people had way more time to put into.
> yeah, funny enough, there were almost no online tools, voice chat was a legend, etc.
> 
> today, people have way to much stuff to get distracted or more work to do.
> 
> That being said, as someone who played since i was 14's (36 now... gosh i'm old). I still play in person, but nevermore online.
> ...


To me, this looks rushed out, and from an information silo. Basically no one has "people they know" to play with. Many many people play online or meet people online, and lots and lots of older players met most people at the LGS or recruited from an afterschool hobby thing at HS, CC or Uni.

You might as well be saying you don't trust 90% of people and that I might as well not play since I almost never play with people I live near.

>"You can't plan long term"
I know for a fact this is nonsense. You're going to meet unhelpful people in person too. Finding players is like dating.

I'm married, I've been in this relationship for six years. I have an insane number of dead relationships and blind dates, and all of that stuff behind me. 

I've had so far six very very good veteran players, who all played 12-24 months each. I didn't meet these people in person, I didn't meet my wife at first, in person.




> Yeah ... trying to game live with people I know is a non-starter for me.  Since maybe shortly after college.  They're all flakes when it comes to say meeting once or twice a month for a year.
> 
> Run an open table west marches game in your local game store(s) is my advice. 
> 
> during 4e, I volunteered to run a few official play games at a local store, to get back into the scene after a late 3e hiatus.  The other guys running the scene had a local email distro for a once a week AL game, first come until table full game.  That was awesome.  Game stores are still a great resource for meeting dedicated gamers even if you don't actually run games there long term.  ("People I know" generally aren't dedicated gamers.)


This is certainly better advice, but it's completely unhelpful to me. 

I am an educator in training, and I travel enough as is.

I've met Loco people at the LGS and online. Only one of these places can you crush them into dust and banish them from your life with two clicks.

Doesn't help that I run my own system. I thought I said that a few times? Are you talking to someone else?

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## Easy e

I do hear what you are saying about Roll20 groups, keeping to schedule, and that other people online suck.  I am sorry it is happening to you.  I hear you and your are being seen for the frustrations you are having. 

That said, it seems like you are not looking for advise on this thread, so can you clue me into what you do want from this thread?  



Apropo of nothing:
I also find that online games lack... a lot of something that makes TTRPGs great.  Perhaps because I spend all day on Zoom calls, so when I tried to game via online..... it felt too much like work?  

@Tanarii- I love that you are having such success with open table gaming at the store.  I have never found that, and it often led me to think "The worst thing about being a nerd, is having to deal with other nerds!"  

Perhaps I need to recalibrate my expectations.

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## KorvinStarmast

> "The worst thing about being a nerd, is having to deal with other nerds!"


 Yep, that's a part of it. See also the infamous 5 geek social fallacies

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## Tevo77777

> I do hear what you are saying about Roll20 groups, keeping to schedule, and that other people online suck.  I am sorry it is happening to you.  I hear you and your are being seen for the frustrations you are having. 
> 
> That said, it seems like you are not looking for advise on this thread, so can you clue me into what you do want from this thread?  
> 
> 
> 
> Apropo of nothing:
> I also find that online games lack... a lot of something that makes TTRPGs great.  Perhaps because I spend all day on Zoom calls, so when I tried to game via online..... it felt too much like work?  
> 
> ...


I just said that I was frustrated, not that I wanted advice that I obviously can't follow. I had even made the end of my post sorta self-mocking because I knew I was metaphorically urinating into the wind.




> @Tanarii- I love that you are having such success with open table gaming at the store.  I have never found that, and it often led me to think "The worst thing about being a nerd, is having to deal with other nerds!"  
> 
> Perhaps I need to recalibrate my expectations.


The hobby is totally full of people less socially skilled than I was at 20, and I was as introvert as I could be. Straight up be people who are amazed girls/women exist. These people are real, I have met them.

Granted, I've had such a small number of girls or women play in my campaigns or at other campaigns I was in. I've literally had twice as many people (each) who were autistic, transgender, from South America, Libertarian, Anarchist, from Eastern Europe, personally had been or was a soldier.... and I think some other rare demographic I can't recall right now.

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## Tanarii

> @Tanarii- I love that you are having such success with open table gaming at the store.  I have never found that, and it often led me to think "The worst thing about being a nerd, is having to deal with other nerds!"


It probably helps that then and now the game stores that I frequent are adjacent to college campuses.  So a nearby large number of young and eager folks happy to bring their other young and eager friends to fill an open table.  And unlike my experiences at say a convention, very few horror-story-level (usually grognard nerds near my own age) players.

But the mailing list thing was a delight, despite them all being grognard nerds near my own age.

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## TaiLiu

> I just said that I was frustrated, not that I wanted advice that I obviously can't follow. I had even made the end of my post sorta self-mocking because I knew I was metaphorically urinating into the wind.


That's a mood, not a desire. I think it's still unclear what you're looking for (validation? advice? similar stories?) which might be why you're finding this thread unhelpful.

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## Tevo77777

> That's a mood, not a desire. I think it's still unclear what you're looking for (validation? advice? similar stories?) which might be why you're finding this thread unhelpful.


I wasn't expecting anyone to read this thread, I just saw something one level of Wack higher than before.

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## Lord Torath

Sometimes you just need to vent.

I'd personally love to join a regular Roll20 game, but frequently my schedule doesn't allow it.  And I won't even apply to a regular game if I don't think I can make at least 75% of the sessions.

Best of luck to you, Tevo77777!

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## TaiLiu

> I wasn't expecting anyone to read this thread, I just saw something one level of Wack higher than before.


Okay. Hope things turn out better in the future.  :Small Smile:

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## Tevo77777

I'm from the future and I recruited a new player. The player has a very specific character and we had a session zero where they acclimated their character to the setting.

They're well armed, they picked out their feats well, and they got plenty of "Soft Skills" for crafting or research.

I'm overall pretty excited about how things will go. The player is even doing a peculiar voice for their character.

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## Azuresun

This isn't just a VTT thing. It's pretty much my entire experience running play-by-post games, and also the reason I no longer rn play-by-post games. The flaking and the sorrybuts just got overpowering after a while.

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## Psyren

Seconding the "you sound burned out, take a break" advice.

Also, I'm compelled to ask - if there are tons of people applying to your games and not even reading the requirements, this appears to be a case of demand vastly exceeding supply. Are you charging for your games? Even if you're in it purely for the love of DMing as a hobby, putting a price tag on your time will weed out a lot of folks, many of whom appear to be applying for any free gaming they can get their hands on. And the ones who stick around will be much more inclined to make sure the game you're running matches the entertainment they're spending that money on. Granted that also comes with the expectation that you will deliver on what you're charging them for, but given how prolific your DMing is (3 games a week!) I think you have the work ethic to meet a customer's expectations, at least from a volume perspective.

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## zlefin

One way to make sure people are reading the rules for your game is to includce a couple codewords buried in there ;  like you must have 'starfish' on your character sheet.  Anyone who doesn't have the codewords/some other detail is just automatically refused.

Sorry for oyur burnout; I know the reason I personally don't play is that I haven't found a place with enough reliable people, and I don't know enough people in person to play.

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## Tevo77777

That new guy I rotated in stuck around, the people I setup the week before stuck around too. They are in one campaign, the three (One is really shy and doesn't talk) players pushing 5 games or something are in the other. We don't have dead time, though when I'm a third or half the people playing I do wear myself out.

I have thoughts about advice I've seen from MCDM, and I'm considering having a few prophecies, a few more riddles, and transitioning to locations where the factions vying for power are more obvious and fewer. 

The last week while trying to port something over or have something work, I lost a few hours, and was able to calculate that basically all my recoil mechanics are consistent and tied to real life math data. I had just decided like 6 years ago that the 9mm pistol and 5.56 from an M16, would functionally both not impose recoil penalties. At the same time, I just decided that the .45 ACP from 1911 and the 7.62x39mm from the AK would impose 1 point of recoil penalties.

Mathematically, according to how real world felt recoil is calculated, my numbers are completely consistent with each other. 

What I had just made up on the spot, turned out to be extremely simple, functional, and mechanically grounded in real life. My decisions about more recoil for M4s and even more recoil for even shorter assault rifles, also lines up with real world math.

What was just me trying to balance things, or have things be different, or get a certain kind of tone... Ended up making the system more realistic and very very consistent. It gives me a lot of confidence to see my system is more logically consistent and realistic than I expected. It feels like a functional, logical, playtested system.

My biggest joys of writing my own system, is that I'm able to make it feel very realistic, but also be very consistent, easy enough to learn, and not too complicated. 

You have one point of Recoil, you can cancel it with a Strength modifier of +1, done and done.




> This isn't just a VTT thing. It's pretty much my entire experience running play-by-post games, and also the reason I no longer rn play-by-post games. The flaking and the sorrybuts just got overpowering after a while.


Can confirm this was a problem when I ran quests on /qst/s which are like PbP, but randos vote for what the MC does, and they get a random identifier attached to their IP.

However, I could get a few people to play consistently for a few months, with updates every single day (This was during the Summer or periods I didn't GM RPGs.)




> Seconding the "you sound burned out, take a break" advice.
> 
> Also, I'm compelled to ask - if there are tons of people applying to your games and not even reading the requirements, this appears to be a case of demand vastly exceeding supply. Are you charging for your games? Even if you're in it purely for the love of DMing as a hobby, putting a price tag on your time will weed out a lot of folks, many of whom appear to be applying for any free gaming they can get their hands on. And the ones who stick around will be much more inclined to make sure the game you're running matches the entertainment they're spending that money on. Granted that also comes with the expectation that you will deliver on what you're charging them for, but given how prolific your DMing is (3 games a week!) I think you have the work ethic to meet a customer's expectations, at least from a volume perspective.


Pretty certain I said or heavily implied that I'm running a nitche system, set in a nitche setting. I never said tons of people are applying, I implied or said I don't have a lot of people applying. Charging for my games is such an unbelievably bad idea, considering that basically none of my players would've ever signed up (Certainly not the young folks or the college students, or the people who were new to RPGs... which is literally all the veteran, long term players)

Also, for the love of God, I never said I am currently running three games a week. I even outright said "I have two campaigns" in the very first post. I also stated outright in reply posts I am not running three.

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## Alcore

> If I was a terrible GM, you think I would have someone tell me I was a terrible GM in the last six years (Outside the two PCs who went megalomaniacs on me and tried to burn down the entire campaign leaving me and the other PCs scratching our heads......


If there is one thing I have learned during my time in Play By Post on Mythweavers is... _that you can't expect the players to be honest and open._ Another GM will be but not the players.


It is a lonely dread existence being the GM. Forver put upon a pedestal, kept separate from the group, with every post and dvery word weighed and measured for a 'ruling'. The OOC threads are usually empty as they don't talk to each other either; the game is the only thing to them.


This isn't the rule of course; some GMs after long years have curated players that engage at a social level. Parties of GMs are so talkative. I look on YouTube groups with envy at how much fun the GM is having.


I am also used to confused players never asking questions. They stew as if I can see them and will ask "what's wrong?" but the question never comes as I can't tell. It reaches a boiling point where I get long ranting posts of all the things that went 'wrong' over the last few _weeks/month_.



You might not be a 'terrible' GM but you might not be 'good' either. Your first two posts contain a number of red flags. A player leaving for 'creative differences' (sounds like during session zero) might be just that or it could be how I, as a player, uses it; to jump a bad ship before leaving port. Now it might not be _you_ as one time we just barely got more apps than required, looked at the other players, and bolted.

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## Tevo77777

> If there is one thing I have learned during my time in Play By Post on Mythweavers is... _that you can't expect the players to be honest and open._ Another GM will be but not the players.
> 
> It is a lonely dread existence being the GM. Forver put upon a pedestal, kept separate from the group, with every post and dvery word weighed and measured for a 'ruling'. The OOC threads are usually empty as they don't talk to each other either; the game is the only thing to them.
> 
> This isn't the rule of course; some GMs after long years have curated players that engage at a social level. Parties of GMs are so talkative. I look on YouTube groups with envy at how much fun the GM is having.
> 
> I am also used to confused players never asking questions. They stew as if I can see them and will ask "what's wrong?" but the question never comes as I can't tell. It reaches a boiling point where I get long ranting posts of all the things that went 'wrong' over the last few _weeks/month_.
> 
> 
> You might not be a 'terrible' GM but you might not be 'good' either. Your first two posts contain a number of red flags. A player leaving for 'creative differences' (sounds like during session zero) might be just that or it could be how I, as a player, uses it; to jump a bad ship before leaving port. Now it might not be _you_ as one time we just barely got more apps than required, looked at the other players, and bolted.


I had one player who angrily left during session zero or session one, literally screaming about how it wasn't enough like Duex Ex and how everyone should be a cyborg.

This is despite a handout and repeated verbal mentions that the cyberpunk setting was a transitional period to where cybernetics became more and more plentiful, AND, that people don't like having their arms chopped off in this setting, most cyborgs were like war veterans. 

That was totally "creative differences". I had to double all the warnings and expectation things telling people the specific tone and time period of the setting. That mostly solved the problem.

-

Also, and I've said this before. I am not a GM who plays by post, I am a GM who had multiple campaigns that went 18 months where I had a few core, veteran, highly qualified players (Even if they had to learn it all from their campaign alone).

We literally had emergency meetings over new players, and what the party wanted to do (Keep them, player was too toxic, have an intervention, ect ect) and I had one player who literally broke half the high level mechanics, and at least five who turned evil and tried to kill the party. I've had to go to other GMs for advice over things and come back to have private talks with players, quite a few times.

That part of being a GM is the hardest, and I'm the least comfortable with it. It really sucked when I had a player all the other players liked, but he was somehow breaking a ton of my mechanics (And yet I couldn't find the spot where he broke any of my rules or was exploiting a technical issue or loophole... I think the issue is we were using D-20 Future stuff that wasn't playtested enough).

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## Alcore

> Also, and I've said this before. I am not a GM who plays by post,


 did I say you did?  :Small Annoyed:  :Small Confused: 

Do I need reminders of your experiences? Is my attempts of advice _from my experience_ leading you to believe I am not reading what you write? Cuz it really feels like you didn't read mine.

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## Tevo77777

> did I say you did? 
> 
> Do I need reminders of your experiences? Is my attempts of advice _from my experience_ leading you to believe I am not reading what you write? Cuz it really feels like you didn't read mine.


{Scrubbed}

I know that I said I'm used to knowing my players, and that after all these years, with plenty of players I've personally known for years, I can be aware of I have a problem or not.

-
EDIT:
I just brought in a player with no session zero and half a prepared character sheet, and it was great. He was the second two guy, the other guy had a fully setup character sheet.

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## Togo

Is there probably a mismatch with expectations here?

You've mentioned you run a heavily homebrewed mash-up of D20 modern, and gave several examples of making up rules on the spot.  And the problem players you are experiencing are leaving not during character creation, but rather after the first session or first few sessions.  Could it be that the experience the players are getting is not matching what they were looking for?

Let me give you an example.  I played fantasy D&D with a GM was really pretty good.  He took elements from people's background and incorporated them into the plot, to make their characters more personally involved.  He was good at incorporating different character concepts into a single setting and a single game, and making them work.  He managed a good balance between individual character actions and keeping the party together as a group.  His setting was rich and detailed.  He was very active.  

But... he dictated what happened, and some of the plots were effectively on rails.  He didn't like players trying to change the scenery, the plot, or the direction of play.  They were there to hit things, do damage, and roleplay.  And his idea of a great climactic fight, a showdown with the Thieves Guild, involved the Head of the Guild climbing into a small mecha, and jumping up and down on the party while dropping bombs.  Since he stunned people in an area effect when he landed, the trick to defeating him was to stay off the ground, timing a jump so that we went up as he went down, and hitting his little mech each time we passed in mid-air.  

Now there is nothing wrong with such a fight, technically, but it's awfully computer-gamey.  There was no real reason why landing on the ground would stun people, he had to bend the rules on jumping to make the fight work, and there was simply no explanation of where the heck he got a mecha from, which didn't otherwise exist in the game world. 

At that point I decided the game wasn't for me.  It's not that he was a bad GM.  But the game he wanted to run was not one I was enjoying playing.  It was a style clash.  

Is is possible you're losing players for the same reason you keep other players?  Because you have a distinct style that won't suit everyone?

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