Quote from: Kyle Aaron;749911Some people just don't have their shit together. People go, "oh, it's the busy modern lifestyle," and all that, but it's bullshit. The people with a 40-60hr/week job, a spouse and kids show up to their PT or game session every time. The young single ones going to uni or with a part-time job are hopeless.

Yes - people who actually do have busy lives and commitments learn to shedule their lives and organise so a game session slots in with everything else. It's those with the least commitments IME who tend to be the most disorganised and flaky.

Water off a duck's back, to me.

There are 5 people in our gaming group.

Two always turn up and send apologies in advance if they cannot make it.
One, the GM, normally turns up, but sometimes has to cancel at the last minute due to work/family pressures.
One often works away and can spend up to 6 months away from the game.
One is the previous player's girlfriend and turns up when that player turns up. She sometimes visits family abroad, so cannot make the sessions.

Sometimes, the couple cannot make it because one or the other is ill, so they usually attend together.

So, we have a core of 2 players and a GM, who play weekly. The other two come in and out of the game as they can.

Does it bother us? Not at all.

We all have lives and often real life interferes with the game. We all accept that.

There is absolutely no point in throwing our toys out of the pram if someone cannot make the same commitments.

We are a free society, if someone wants to play in the game then fair enough; if they can't make it, then fair enough; if they want to take a break and then rejoin, then fair enough; if they only play occasional games, then fair enough.

Basic courtesy expected of a mature adult is that you can give other people notice if you're not going to attend a group activity you've committed to. It's really not difficult.

I have a full-time job, wife, two children, and live the furthest away from our game. I have never given less than 6 hours notice on the rare occasions I can't make our weekly sessions. Usually it's a day or two in advance that I warn everyone.

The group I play in is pretty large; eight players, including me. There's only one day per week when we can all actually meet up due to scheduling conflicts, but we manage to get everyone there at least half the time.

When we first started playing as a group, I got frustrated pretty quickly with people giving me late confirmation, so I set up a Facebook group. Once a week, I make a post on there asking who's coming that week. I have two campaigns going - a sandboxy Shadowrun campaign we play when everyone can make it, and a more episodic Star Wars SAGA campaign we play when someone can't come.

I think the real problem with this is normally communication. People have busy lives, and remembering to let you know whether or not they can make it to a game can be difficult. Setting up a formal system helps a lot (though I am pretty anal about scheduling and organisation, so this might just work for me).

Quote from: fustilarian;749928People have busy lives, and remembering to let you know whether or not they can make it to a game can be difficult.

This is a cop-out; it really isn't hard in this modern information age to notify other people what you're doing. Especially when a lot of those people have a smart phone and/or are close to a computer most of the day.

I have three means of getting hold of everyone in my group: phone/text, email and Facebook. It's not onerous at all to use at least one of them (email is our preferred for advanced notice, phone for very short) to let everyone know what you're doing if you deviate from the usual schedule.

Of course it requires some consideration of other people, which is the real failing here. Not being "busy". As people have mentioned, it tends to be the idle people who aren't really doing much of anything who are the worst for communicating, not those who actually have a lot on. When you're a busy person, you tend to get good at prioritising, scheduling and communicating by necessity.

Quote from: soltakss;749924One, the GM, normally turns up, but sometimes has to cancel at the last minute due to work/family pressures.

So then no game?

If there's one person who absolutely shouldn't cancel, it's the GM. Guess you're ok with it; I absolutely will not play with a GM who cancels for less than a serious family emergency ('child in hospital', not 'must pick up the shopping') - but fortunately most people have the courtesy not to run a campaign if they know they can't be reliable. My own campaigns last because I prioritise them, which means eg babysitting fees if necessary; unreliable GM is one of the most common sources of campaign failure. But obviously your mileage varies etc and that's fair enough.

Quote from: Kiero;749932This is a cop-out; it really isn't hard in this modern information age to notify other people what you're doing. Especially when a lot of those people have a smart phone and/or are close to a computer most of the day.

Exactly.

I whip open my phone.  I scroll to the number I want to call.  I press "SEND."  The phone's answered.  I say something like, "Hey, Vi, how are you?  Listen, there's a major family gathering scheduled for our next run session, and I won't be able to make the game.  I'm sorry I'll miss it, and I'll catch you the next session.  Give my best to your husband.  Yep, you too.  Take care."  

Elapsed time, twenty goddamn seconds.  Anyone -- anyone -- who claims that his or her life is so awesomely busy as to be unable to take twenty seconds out of it to exercise common courtesy is a liar.  (And, as to that, if your life is as awesomely busy as all of that, what in the merry hell are you doing committing to an activity taking several hours a pop?)

Now sure, emergencies happen, and people who've been in a car accident or have a genuine family crisis can be forgetful.  Quite understandable, and nothing there to forgive.

On the other hand, I had a phone call from the father of one of my players, apologizing for him not going to be at the next day's session.  My friend's relatively routine surgery two days before that had gone spectacularly badly, he had a heart attack during it, died on the table, was resuscitated, and wasn't quite up yet to an hour and a half train+subway+bus ride to get to my place.  (Nonetheless, he still asked his folks to call me.)

Quote from: Ravenswing;749963On the other hand, I had a phone call from the father of one of my players, apologizing for him not going to be at the next day's session.  My friend's relatively routine surgery two days before that had gone spectacularly badly, he had a heart attack during it, died on the table, was resuscitated, and wasn't quite up yet to an hour and a half train+subway+bus ride to get to my place.  (Nonetheless, he still asked his folks to call me.)[/COLOR]

Now that's the kind of player I like!
If he's ever in London he's welcome to send me a PM & come play... :cool:

Quote from: S'mon;749934So then no game?

Yep, we have one campaign at the moment, so no GM no game.

Quote from: S'mon;749934If there's one person who absolutely shouldn't cancel, it's the GM. Guess you're ok with it; I absolutely will not play with a GM who cancels for less than a serious family emergency ('child in hospital', not 'must pick up the shopping') - but fortunately most people have the courtesy not to run a campaign if they know they can't be reliable. My own campaigns last because I prioritise them, which means eg babysitting fees if necessary; unreliable GM is one of the most common sources of campaign failure. But obviously your mileage varies etc and that's fair enough.

I'm the GM, so I'm OK with it.

We play weekly in a long-running campaign.

I missed last Easter Monday because my wife wanted me to spend one Monday with her rather than with gaming, but this was a last minutes change. Before that, I was ill for a month, so no game. When I go to a convention, sometimes I can game on the Monday night, sometimes I can't.

So, I've probably missed 4 or 5 games this year, so I have made around 90% of the games.

Over the last, what, 8 years of the campaign, I've probably missed 20 sessions, around 5%, so I've made 95% of the sessions.

Is that reliable enough for you?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;749911Some people just don't have their shit together. People go, "oh, it's the busy modern lifestyle," and all that, but it's bullshit. The people with a 40-60hr/week job, a spouse and kids show up to their PT or game session every time. The young single ones going to uni or with a part-time job are hopeless.

I think this comes down to time management. I work with patents, which means that I have to deal with a whole lot of important deadlines at work I don't get to flake out on, and a lot of work to do associated with those deadlines. That forces me to learn how to manage my own time if I want to have any life outside of work hours at all, and I've done that, which is how I'm able to maintain the gaming schedule I'm able to maintain.

On the other hand, when you're a student or aren't working in a job which requires you to pay attention to long-range deadlines (which is the case with most part-time jobs, where the primary time management task is showing up for your shift), you've got much more spare time, and because you have an excess of it you never have to learn to manage it as carefully as someone on a tight time budget. It's exactly like how kids who've never known what it was like to be especially tight on cash are often lousy at budgeting - you tend not to learn to manage resources you have a surplus in.

Quote from: Greentongue;749275I've had quite a bad experience with people meeting their commitment to be at a game session.

What social contract did your game group all agree to?

Quote from: soltakss;749975Yep, we have one campaign at the moment, so no GM no game.

I'm the GM, so I'm OK with it.

We play weekly in a long-running campaign.

I missed last Easter Monday because my wife wanted me to spend one Monday with her rather than with gaming, but this was a last minutes change. Before that, I was ill for a month, so no game. When I go to a convention, sometimes I can game on the Monday night, sometimes I can't.

So, I've probably missed 4 or 5 games this year, so I have made around 90% of the games.

Over the last, what, 8 years of the campaign, I've probably missed 20 sessions, around 5%, so I've made 95% of the sessions.

Is that reliable enough for you?

Yeah, as a player I'd be ok with that. I'm used to GMs running fortnightly or monthly games who cancel half the time... If I ran a weekly tabletop game instead of a couple fortnightly games I would probably only aim to actually run 80-90% of the time, though missed weeks would be scheduled well in advance. My fortnightly games run about 23-24 weeks a year with scheduled gaps around vacation times.

Quote from: soltakss;749975I missed last Easter Monday because my wife wanted me to spend one Monday with her rather than with gaming

Out of interest, did she have any particular reason for this? I can understand "it's our anniversary" or "it's our one chance to see famous singer X in concert" or "this is the day our friends can come over", but some wives (spouses?) seem to do this just as a power thing, because they can, when Tuesday would be just as good.

Quote from: S'mon;749980Out of interest, did she have any particular reason for this? I can understand "it's our anniversary" or "it's our one chance to see famous singer X in concert" or "this is the day our friends can come over", but some wives (spouses?) seem to do this just as a power thing, because they can, when Tuesday would be just as good.

Just messing with my head - she asked why I wasn't going to the game about half an hour before the game would have started. Dontchya love 'em?

Quote from: S'mon;749980Out of interest, did she have any particular reason for this? I can understand "it's our anniversary" or "it's our one chance to see famous singer X in concert" or "this is the day our friends can come over", but some wives (spouses?) seem to do this just as a power thing, because they can, when Tuesday would be just as good.

The famous "shit test."  This is a sure sign you chose your spouse poorly.