D&D/D20 Modern schedule

[Melbosa]

I get want you are saying and it may make sense for most of you.  What I need to know is that we are planning on playing Friday, April 25th, Saturday, May 10th, etc so I can well ahead of time arrange my other responsibilities around it.  I won't have a backup date "scheduled" because I have to assume when we pick a date that is the one we are going with.  Otherwise I'll never be able to make all the games, as I will have already scheduled something else for the weekends we are not getting together.

As it is, this month, you saw how fast things were eatten up on my schedule.  I'm looking at my calendar right now, and I can already tell you I have double bookings should certain first bookings fall through in this month, and we just started off the month today!  Now I rarely do this, as I hate giving that answer to people.  I'd rather just say "no, I'm not available that night/day, I have other plans".

[Melbosa]

II'm suggesting marking that one night as busy in our calendars because as pointed out in this old article, you need to give RPGing priority or you won't meet often enough to get anywhere.

I want also to make our RPGing a priority, and with a rigid schedule of dates, I have the greatest, most positive chance of making all of the sessions.  But I can't commit every Friday or Saturday in a month outside of Long weekends either.  2 nights/days is all I can do.

[Thorin]

this old article

Completely off-topic, but the article I linked to has this little gem in it:

If your girlfriend made you give up all your friends so you would be each other's only friend, that would be dysfunctional. A girlfriend making you abandon your hobbies is also dysfunctional.

[Melbosa]

nice!

[Thorin]

If your girlfriend made you give up all your friends so you would be each other's only friend, that would be dysfunctional. A girlfriend making you abandon your hobbies is also dysfunctional.

nice!

You know who I was talking about, right?  Not you, that's for sure.  But she made him give up all his NAIT/D&D friends...  I dunno if he had any other friends.

[Thorin]

II'm suggesting marking that one night as busy in our calendars because as pointed out in this old article, you need to give RPGing priority or you won't meet often enough to get anywhere.

I want also to make our RPGing a priority, and with a rigid schedule of dates, I have the greatest, most positive chance of making all of the sessions.  But I can't commit every Friday or Saturday in a month outside of Long weekends either.  2 nights/days is all I can do.

It's not even really 2 nights a month, though.  It's 2 nights a month if you haven't already made other plans for those nights, right?  Listen, I'm not trying to pick on you, I'm just trying to find a way where we can get our group together more than once a month...  Playing both D&D and D20 Modern already makes us go half as fast as if we were playing a single campaign.  If we then also can't get together more than once a month, well, some people might consider that not worth bothering with.  And that would make me sad, because I *want* to play

Mr. Analog's chomping at the bit to run another session (we didn't even finish all the material he compiled for the first session), but he doesn't want to run without everyone there.  He's getting frustrated at how long it takes us to get going and how far apart our sessions are, and he's talking about just folding up his tent   So I'm trying to push for more sessions to show that we really are interested in all the work he's done on this campaign.

[Mr. Analog]

I'll weigh in on this I think (as D&D DM).

If we only run two sessions a month that means we're playing D&D once a month. I would prefer we play pick up games more frequently than try to jam into a schedule. We tried a schedule and it really didn't work out so well as getting back into the schedule after a break (Christmas) was excessively long for various reasons and getting back into it took us a really long time (both for me to rebuild a campaign and then for us to pick dates).

We all have lives, but if we want to make getting together and playing a regular part of our lives we'll have to find something that works. Maybe we should play more often for shorter periods? Maybe we should announce a tentative pick up game every Friday and then see who can / can't make it on a weekly basis.

Point is that it's hard enough as players to remember what's going on two to three weeks in at a time but it's even harder as a DM (you can back me up on this Thorin), if it keeps up like it has I don't see a point to continuing even though it's really @%&#in' fun and I like getting together with you guys on a regular basis.

Nuff said!

[Tom]

I don't think everyone involved actually tried the fixed schedule seriously. IF it were set to be "Such and Such a date" and nothing else, with it scheduled further than a couple weeks in advance (like say, 4 months), it would end up better than just random scheduled session where we have no guarantee of Mel or Thorin making it.

We KNOW the non scheduled method doesn't work. That's a fact. Hard scheduled method, I'm not so sure about.

[Melbosa]

Well I hate to say it, but if you want more than 2 sessions a month (per campaign), I have to drop either D20 or D&D.  We had agreed before XMas to do it every 2 weeks, and for the most part that is 2 Sessions a month.  I can't commit to more than that, I am sorry.

As for the scheduling, seriously, if the dates are hard set, and we only have to move them around for special circumstances, then I think it is easier to arrange with everyone.  If you know that in 2 weeks, Friday, is RPG night, and it is that way 2 weeks after that, then you can:

#1 - Arrange everything else around it
#2 - Know that if something absolutely comes up that you can't make the session you can make arrangements for coverage or try to organize a date change
#3 - Everyone knows when to expect everyone to be together

All my sports work this way, so I always know who will be at my games, and the people have time to find their own subs if they know they can't make that night.  Now we can't change our game nights in sports, but the schedule I think has far better chances of making those games happen than a week or two before trying to organize people together.

[Mr. Analog]

Ok, then every other Friday starting this week I guess.

Lock it in guys.

[Melbosa]

Ok, then every other Friday starting this week I guess.

Lock it in guys.

That conflicts with our April 25th date.  How about every other friday, starting the April 25th date?

[Mr. Analog]

Ok, then every other Friday starting this week I guess.

Lock it in guys.

That conflicts with our April 25th date.  How about every other friday, starting the April 25th date?

Nah, this one is earlier and so it wins.

Rigid schedule means no flexibility.

[Tom]

Ok, then every other Friday starting this week I guess.

Lock it in guys.

That conflicts with our April 25th date.  How about every other friday, starting the April 25th date?

Nah, this one is earlier and so it wins.

Rigid schedule means no flexibility.

It also means less confusion and missing dates because it wasnt decided till a few days before.

[Mr. Analog]

Ok, then every other Friday starting this week I guess.

Lock it in guys.

That conflicts with our April 25th date.  How about every other friday, starting the April 25th date?

Nah, this one is earlier and so it wins.

Rigid schedule means no flexibility.

It also means less confusion and missing dates because it wasnt decided till a few days before.

Give me an example of when we decided to play (and actually DID) only two days before a game. I can show you lots and lots of examples of dates coming up and being missed.

[Tom]

Ok, then every other Friday starting this week I guess.

Lock it in guys.

That conflicts with our April 25th date.  How about every other friday, starting the April 25th date?

Nah, this one is earlier and so it wins.

Rigid schedule means no flexibility.

It also means less confusion and missing dates because it wasnt decided till a few days before.

Give me an example of when we decided to play (and actually DID) only two days before a game. I can show you lots and lots of examples of dates coming up and being missed.

Ok, fine, it was just an example. But I don't think we all gave a more rigid schedule a fighting chance. Some sure, but not all. (which is why I think it didn't work)