Wondering if any groups use one, loose or strict, and what standards you use. We all know stuff happens and people have more important things than RPGing going on, and we don't want to exclude good players who are friends, but at some point you just become a drag on everyone if you miss too many sessions. If you miss more than, like, once every couple of months (let's say more than 10-15% of sessions), I think you are becoming a problem, especially in a long-term campaign. Thoughts?
The group I game with, we fully understand that life happens, and as long as you let someone in the group know, preferably the GM, that you won't be making it before the actual game day, its usually kosher. But i do believe if someone is perpetually late/not showing up without notice, that they may be no longer invited to the games. Its something that should be talked about with the whole group though, not just a fiat by one person. I had moved out of town for an internship so i was out of my gaming group for a while but they let me right back in when i got back, and thankfully it worked out well because prior to leaving my character got murdered by a doppelganger impersonating one of our other party members, was a hilarious story and kept up my track record of dying in every single campaign, and so my character's ghost came back as one of the BBEGs on the times when i was in town for a weekend or so. Was pretty fun. So if there is a way you can work a player who can't make it all the time into the campaign, either as a one shot helper or a villain, it's workable.
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My magic number is 5 players. If one cant make it we play on. If two cant we cancel. Thats the policy. My players are really good about making the sessions /knock on wood. I dont use experience points anymore so thats not an issue. My players dont like missing parts of the story so they really don't like to miss if possible.
One player did have a child about 9 months ago. There was a period of about 3 months he couldn't make it. Saved a spot for him because real life happens. He also is a good guy who takes his commitments seriously. I have had players in the past that saw the game as default nothing better to do night. At the mere mention of anything else they would cancel at the last min. So if you generally respect the game I am willing to make allowances when needed. If you are unreliable for poor reasons then you get the boot.
Life happens. I get that. Every one who plays in the game I run has very different schedules. Two guys are disabled and aren't employed, but they have family obligations that come up. Another guy has regular days off, but they fall in the middle of the week. The other two can usually get what they need off when given enough notice. My job is the biggest pain. I work four days on then have two days off, because of that, and the hours I work (at 3 a.m. half the time) we game about every 2 1/2 weeks.
I'd love it for everybody to be there, but sometimes life happens. I'll run the game with 4 people, but no less than that. If we plan a game night and people end up cancelling we'll do board/card games instead.
There was one guy I kicked out/stopped coming. I had surgery about 9 months ago and after I recovered I decided to do the next several game sessions at my home (we were rotating it to other peoples houses in the group for the rest of the players convenience as I live some distance outside of town) as it made it so I would not have to carry a large bag of books which I wasn't able to do a the time. Excuses came from the guy, all of the legitimate, but each one becoming progressively slimmer. When I was finally able to start packing my gear again and was able to run the game at another player's home he had the same excuse he had the previous game (which was about 2 weeks before that). At this point he'd missed four games in a row. The fifth game, after getting firm confirmation mid-week (always send a mid-week text out as the games are so far apart) he doesn't show. No response to my text and no phone calls. I stopped inviting him to the games. Honestly I don't think he liked our play style, and he and another fellow in the group had a beef with each other outside the game. So given that, I'd have to say if you miss more than five times in a row and you fail to contact me the last time, you're out of the game.
As a general 'rule' if you can't make it let us know ahead of time. No-Notice cancellations are rude. Also, if you have a real life event (Holiday, appointment, whatever) it's all good-take care of your business. If your WOW Guild run is more important, than please don't allow us IRL folks to hamper your style-we will find a replacement.
As a more codified rule: If you miss more than 2 out of 4 sessions without a good reason, expect the boot. It's all about being a good team member. If you don't want to hang out with us, say so.
GNOME
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My group of 5 (plus one occasional extra) has been together about 6 years. It's not really a policy, just an openly discussed understanding:
Everyone is always clear about when they can or cannot make a session, with an assumed minimum deadline of the night before the game. The basic idea is that we are open and honest about attendance - if a player isn't sure about their upcoming availability, we communicate and try to work around it by running campaigns that have less focus on their character, or to temporarily and mutually write their character out. Having multiple DMs also helps, in case one DM ends up being busy we always have an alternate campaign.
In my games, I don't penalize XP for missed sessions. My view is that while it isn't "fair" for the other players, it's also not fair to the player who had real-life issues to deal with and then returns to find their character is less useful, and possibly dead.
My golden rule is "keep the game moving".
It’s a tough call to have one or not, 7-8 years ago we a had a big group, but we played weekly for 10-18 hours, some serious hard core gaming. So during these days, if you missed, there were xp penalties and loss of loot. If you missed unexcused, there was NO xp and NO loot awarded, and if it happened more than once every few months, there were serious conform or be banished meetings.
But as time progressed, since were mostly military, people came and went. As we were mostly single at the time as well, people got married, started families, myself included. Gaming, though still our favorite pastime, became less and less of a priority. Our policies on attendance changed, and so did the gaming systems, with 4E coming along, loss of xp was a relic of the past, there was no chance of losing a level, or spending xp on creating magic items, there was no tiered xp system so all character got the same amount from combat now regardless of level. So those incentives got thrown out the window. Also if people couldn't make it, we just rolled with it, if too many couldn't make it, we'd just play video games, or go see a movie or something. All we asked was, let us know as soon as you can that you can't make it. If they didn't, well we'd let them know that it was jerk thing to do, but that was about the extent of it.
So I guess it really depends on the group, when we were younger, gaming was able to take a higher priority in our lives, and we expected others around us to place a similar priority on it. As we realized that our kids and spouses needed us too, then gaming had to take a lower spot in the list, and we expected that it would for other too. Really I think having a no attendance policy and how severe it is, is a discussion that the group should have, and all agree on, having a harsh policy may be what everyone wants, and if that makes things more enjoyable for the group, it should be there. If it makes life miserable for the group, abolish it.
If one cant make it we play on. If two cant we cancel.
This. One person can be NPC'd for combat purposes and get by alright, and the party can quickly fill them in before the next session; two is a bit too much for me to handle and run the story at the same time.