It’s important to agree on quorum for an RPG campaign. If the GM and a minimum threshold of players show up, it’s game on.
I do enjoy the start of game retconning caused by missing players. “Oh no, our wizard has contracted horrible diarrhea and is currently locked in the bathroom, but thankfully our druid appears to be arriving via parachute as we speak.”
I've always thought it would be interesting to design a setting around people randomly vanishing and appearing on occasion. My idea is often that while dreaming, you totally exist mind and body in an alternate world, when when you dream there, you return. On rare occasions daydreaming also transports you, and when you move, you often appear where fate deems you to be, not where you were, i.e. if the party took a long rest on an eberon lightning rail, they'd awake at an inn at their destination, not just appear over the rails where the train was.
You then end up with weird worldbuilding questions too. What if your righteous paladin is a serial killer in the other world and one day he'll be recognised here, or what if your player who never misses a session plays a character who has never dreamt in their sleep yet. Would monarchies and dictatorships exist in this world when the ruler could vanish for any amount of time at any point or would ruling councils be favoured, and would there be people who train themselves not to dream to hold down essential tasks. Would you have people who train themselves to dream on command to escape danger, and could the party potentially swap to the other world and find eachother if they were cornered by enemies?
Obviously that's all for dreams,but I think it's a fun idea to approach playe absence through the setting.
Ambitious, but I do really like the idea of doing something interesting with the characters when the players aren’t present, and have that affect the game at times where there’s crossover. Neat!
I set a quorum and if someone repeatedly misses then they get a direct "do you really have time for this game?" line of questioning.
That's the way to do it. You gotta be willing to be tough with them
At least 3 players are enough for a session, and if you're playing IRL, 2 can have a side adventure.
Online things are more flexible, but if folks have to get out of their homes, organize their actual physical books, snacks, and everything else, the game should happen unless it's absolutely unmanageable.
I always make sure that my campaign contains 5 or 6 players, and I tell everyone we're running if we get four regardless.
Sometimes when I'm tired or bummed out, I don't really wanna travel to my friends' for tabletop, but I always found if I did go, I'd have a good time and be happy I forced myself to go - knowing the session will happen anyway is a great way to encourage people not to flake out.
Our DM sends us a link that allows him to list all the days he's available, and that lets us list which of those days we're able to attend.
Pro: it allows us to automate scheduling conflicts into the history books.
Con: our sessions are kinda far apart in time.
I used Datumprikker for that before.
I do not recommend using that.
