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One of our local games has two players that are both relatively new. They are both well-liked and we all hope to retain them in PFS. The problem is that due to outside forces they must leave each week about halfway through the scenario.
This presents a problem for both themselves (partial chronicles) and the rest of the people at the table (losing one or two party members at a 4-player table really increases the difficulty).
We had initially been handling this the way we would usually handle someone needing to leave early: that player gets a chronicle with 1 XP (if they completed 3 encounters), 0 or 1 prestige (depending on which success conditions they've completed, and partial gold (based on the treasure found while they were there). The GM introduced a pre-gen (of the closest class and level to the character leaving) to assist the rest of the party for the remainder of the scenario.
But that was before we recognized that this would be an ongoing issue, week after week. The above solution seems to be less than ideal. The players who leave are frustrated at not getting full chronicles; the remaining players are frustrated that they are carrying all of the risk though the final encounters (which are usually more difficult); and the GMs are frustrated that this situation is making the game they are running less fun for everyone.
I wonder if it is possible to suggest that those players who need to leave play pre-gen characters instead of their characters, and we leave those pre-gens in play after the players are gone, and the players are given a full chronicle for that scenario when we meet the following week?
Or maybe someone has a better suggestion to handle this somewhat frustrating situation.
Bottom line: Please help.
I agree with melferburque
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You have to be mindful of the players doing the right thing too, though. Why can't those other two players commit to the schedule? Leaving part way every session doesn't sound like an emergency has come up.
Not sure how running a second scenario in the second half of the slot would work with only two players left; you've still got the same problem - half a party (not even a legal table?).
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Unfortunately, I think that if they can't commit to the schedule then they can't play (emergencies excepted, of course)
The one exception would be if you're scheduling long sessions (5+ hours). Then it MIGHT be possible to shorten the run time sufficiently so they can play.
But its really not fair to anybody else to have players leave half way through.
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Well, I can sympathize with the two players having to leave halfway through, I would stay for the whole session if I could, but my game nights are on a thursday, across state and I am still in school.
So I always have to leave early, but thats not my choice, if anything, ask them whats going on and see if they can either sort it out.
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You have, as I see it, three options:
1) Deal with it. (Not ideal obviously)
2) Tell them that if they can't commit they can't play (Not ideal).
3) Split the scenario over two game days. If you run half of a second chronicle after they leave, you run into the problem of whether the players can play the same character (they can't) in the second scenario while the first scenario is as yet unfinished. This would be similar to a play-by-post game. Your character is locked until you finish the current scenario.
Ultimately, while a group may want to accommodate everyone it can, and be as inclusive as possible, there are just going to be some people you can't accommodate for reasons outside your or their control. Sometimes circumstances suck. I know that sucks to hear that. But sometimes its true.
Game store hours may not allow you to stay later, these guys may have to leave at 9pm for whatever reason, they may not get off work until 8pm and have to show up an hour to an hour and a half into the start of the scenario, or whatever.
Part of the social contract we sign when we sign up to play organized play, is that we do our best to respect everyone else around us. And you are doing nobody any favors by allowing these guys to create a negative environment for play. Even if that means they end up being excluded through no fault of their own.
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Well, I can sympathize with the two players having to leave halfway through, I would stay for the whole session if I could, but my game nights are on a thursday, across state and I am still in school.
So I always have to leave early, but thats not my choice, if anything, ask them whats going on and see if they can either sort it out.
How do your organizers handle the situation?
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Split the session into two gamedays or you have to start excluding the players from the game.
Andrew nailed it with the last part of his post. There exists an implicit agreement between everyone who chooses to participate.
If you can't abide by the very basic "finish the game" tenant, you shouldn't be signing up in the first place. To show up, start the game, and then routinely leave part way through a scenario shows a level of such disrespect to everyone else that I'm amazed that the rest of your players haven't said "umm... how about no" when they sit down yet. Do these players understand that what they're doing is considered rude?
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I only can't understand which other players would voluntarily accept playing scenario half way through since these are two problematic players and you need at the very least 3 players to maintain a table. While I would have no problems as a GM to GM for such a group, playing half way through with these players would be annoying and not so fun experience for me. What I would do in this case is, split them and make them 5th (or 4th at worst) player at any table. Table has to be able to keep on running without problems even without them. This seems like only alternative solution to me.
Adam
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Modules or APs might be worth considering, especially run in campaign mode so that other players don't lose access to their PFS characters. The Wednesday night group I have recently joined has players that have to leave after 2-3 hours, but we're playing through RotRL in campaign mode, having a blast and everyone is getting full credit.
If/when we get more quests, they may also prove to be a decent solution.
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A couple additional thoughts as Andrew covered this quite nicely:
-Is this outside force predictable or unpredictable? There's a significant difference between "I'm a doctor/plumber/etc. that's on-call" and "I have a commitment at the same time every week." As such, how you handle it varies significantly.
-Is the nature of these outside forces such that it's effectively a time limit or a deadline? If the latter, is it possible to have a table start earlier to accommodate them?
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If/when we get more quests, they may also prove to be a decent solution.
Just in case you're not aware, we have seven quests available for download. Ambush in Absalom and Silverhex Chronicles which includes six parts. And we have a history now of providing new quests every GenCon, so its reasonable to expect (up to) six more this summer that will be available.
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I would suggest not letting them play also, in lower scenarios (just starting out) you should be able to run a scenario in 1 hour to 1 1/2. That is not asking to much from your players, and if they can not commit to this, then later on when the scenarios get longer they won't be any use to have play.
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Gulf
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The players who leave are frustrated at not getting full chronicles; the remaining players are frustrated that they are carrying all of the risk though the final encounters (which are usually more difficult); and the GMs are frustrated that this situation is making the game they are running less fun for everyone.
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Or maybe someone has a better suggestion to handle this somewhat frustrating situation.
Bottom line: Please help.
Sometimes the most fair thing is the most unfair to them. They have to commit to a full session. Let's say the tables was full and you turned away a player for the folks who leave halfway?
Do they come with the chronicles applied to characters and are just unable to play on?
Silver hex is a good option for one hour play.
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If this is an ongoing thing, what do the other players on the table think? Surely there must be some of these carry over from game to game? Dont they voice their annoyance? 'Oh hell, those 2. Im gonna pull out, as they wont even make it 3/4 way through the game'.
I find it weird that they havnt said anything.
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Weighing in here:
If this was a rare occurance, I could understand it. However, as mentioned above, if it is a habitual thing and not something which happens to crop up from time to time, it may be best for the regulars to not allow those players to join.
It has come across my path a couple of times where a player said at the start that they'd have to leave at x o'clock. This was fine at first, but then the next game it was the same thing, then again. Finally, I had to say it straight that if they couldn't commit to a full game, I would not seat them as it was unfair to the other players.
Now, things come up, and that's understandable, but to enter an arrangement in which they are signing up knowing full well they'd have to leave is just silly, plain and simple. I do feel sad that this cuts playtime from them, but it opens up other avenues to play at a time which they can fully commit to, whether it be in person or through online means.
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I guess quests might be the best solution, at least short term.
I'm not the organizer; I'm just one of the players/GMs that is affected by this. We cannot ask them to not play. The store we are playing at has made it clear that we must seat everyone.
I don't see the situation changing for these players, but I might be wrong. My understanding is that this is a curfew issue, or something akin to a curfew issue.
Responses to some of the other suggestions:
Starting earlier. We start at 6 pm on a weeknight. Most of the group work for a living. Six pm is already pushing things on that end. It is not unusual for that start time to get pushed to 6:15 or 6:30 to accommodate players and GMs who need to scarf the food they picked up on the way to the game.
Splitting the game day. I'm not sure how this would work. We have a table with 5 people at it—a GM and 4 players. Two people leave. Now we have a table with 3 people. I was under the impression that you need 4 people minimum (3 players plus a pre-gen) for a table to go off.
Playing online. Maybe that is a good suggestion for the two players who leave. I have no interest in playing online. I play PFS to hang out with people face-to-face.
I guess we can try to play quests for the next 7 weeks. Maybe more quests will be released soon or the situation will resolve itself before then.
Thanks for the suggestions.
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Quests: note that the Silverhex Chronicles, the "better" quest, has a couple of restrictions, which include only being able to play using the iconic pregens, and only for first level.
Ambush in Absolom and the other quest from Kobold's Quarterly, The Urge to Evolve, do not give any rewards but a minor boon.
Speak with the organizer, maybe get the site involved. If these players are disruptive to the table, which leaving early consistently is, then you can tell the organizer and site that these players need to either play the whole thing, or just cancel the game due to lack of enough players for the whole time.
Have the organizer explain to the store that you cannot seat everyone. Have him (or her) explain that if 8 people show up to play, that you have to refuse seating at least one of those players, due to campaign rules. Also explain that players taking seats from others, or discouraging others from playing due to bad table manners, is a bad thing.
Having players flake out every time is going to be bad for the morale of your other players, and the GM. Even if you give them appropriate chronicles, there will come a point in time when their PCs are either not high enough level, due to insufficient XP from too few encounters, or are far enough behind on gold, due to full XP but partial PP and GP, to play with the rest of the group, either due to scenario tiering, or being a liability/weakness to the party.
Basically, seating these part-time players is not being fair or considerate to either them or the rest of your players and GMs.
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This is an interesting issue, I mean it is fine for the store to say that you must have all people playing, but do they understand how the game works? Maybe someone should talk to them about it? I mean I understand their side of view, but they have to understand that when people just leave halfway through an adventure it could really screw it up for everyone else.
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I just can't see a gaming store failing to understand why players continuously leaving in the middle of a game would be disruptive to the entire experience.
If they really are unable to understand the concept after taking the time to explain it to them, it's time to start looking for a new venue.
Either that, or watch your player base dwindle as people get tired of jockeying for position in the "no I don't want to play at the table with them" game.
Also, playing Silverhex is fun... the first time. There's only so much you can get out of playing level 1 pregens over and over in the same content.
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One of our local games has two players that are both relatively new. They are both well-liked and we all hope to retain them in PFS. The problem is that due to outside forces they must leave each week about halfway through the scenario
I feel that some of the comments suggesting that these players shouldn't be allowed a seat are not taking into consideration the initial point of this thread which is retain these players in PFS. I am assuming these players are young (hence the curfew, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) but appear to be committed to PFS or else they wouldn't keep coming back every week.
PFS to my mind should be a wholy inclusive environment, and any efforts where possible should be made to help facilitate these players. Turning real life human beings away from the community to preserve XP:gold ratios or survivability of a group for the fictional characters we play during an adventure is wholly unacceptable, and not in the spirit of this community.
Rant over... sorry about that.
I would (and this may not work for people in your area) ask if there are any GMs & players that would be willing to play through a series of modules. Assuming everyone starts at level 1 (maybe with 1 XP after having completed the quests). Looking at it (and having not played any of them), you can go from levels 1 - 11 and beyond quite comfortably in shorter sessions this way.
Level 1: The Godsmouth Heresy, Tier 1-2
Level 2: Murder's Mark, Tier 1-2
Level 3: Feast of Ravenmoor, Tier 2-4
Level 4: Fangwood Keep, Tier 3-5
Level 5: Carrion Hill, Tier 4-6
Level 6: Broken Chains, Tier 5-7
Level 7: Realm of the Fellnight Queen, Tier 6-8
Level 8: Cult of the Ebon Destroyers, Tier 7-9
Level 9: Doom Comes to Dustpawn, Tier 8-10
Level 10: Curse of the Riven Sky, Tier 9-11
Level 11: Ruby Phoenix Tournament, Tier 10-12
Then retire with Wardens of the Reborn Forge.
Maybe by the time all of that has been ploughed through, the timing issue will have been solved and this way they can keep on earning XP and gold and wont fall behind in terms of level appropriate gear, setting them up to be able to attend future games days or conventions without having to play Harsk.
And that is ultimately what all of this about, fostering a strong local community where nobody has to play Harsk.
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I feel that some of the comments suggesting that these players shouldn't be allowed a seat are not taking into consideration the initial point of this thread which is retain these players in PFS.
I am in no way saying that there shouldn't be alternate game times or game sessions spread over multiple days to accommadate them. That'd be great if possible.
But as it sits - if they sign up and commit to a block of time with the knowledge that they can't actually do what they've commited to - that's a jerk move on their part.
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The Fox,
I used to be the VC for Vermont & Western MA. I stepped down earlier this year because I moved.
I remember store coordinators in groups just starting in Western MA, would often scramble to make sure we had enough people to make a table. I was often either the 4th player, 3rd player, or the GM with 3 players.
So I think there are some excellent suggestions The Fox.
1) breaking the scenario into two slots, so the game session fits into everyones real life schedule. This is an excellent suggestion.
2) Jack Amy's suggestion of playing through a series of modules, is also an excellent suggestion. this way you are not necessarily bound by a 5 hour time block in which to get a 5 hour scenario done, when you may need smaller units of time.
3) Has somebody suggested an Adventure Path? You can get PFS credit for playing an adventure path in campaign mode. Campaign mode is where you make your own characters, and as you play through the adventure path, certain sections of the adventure path are picked to be "sanctioned" for PFS play, and you can pass credit for playing through these sections to a PFS character.
I agree, I would be much more concerned about inclusive, rather then exclusive,
Best of luck,
Myles Crocker
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If you go with the module route, keep in mind that Broken Chains may not be appropriate for certain audiences.
I would go through and do a little auditing, depending on how young your audience is.
oh man, I had so much fun playing broken chains at the tail end of extra life (when everyone was punch drunk from sleep deprivation), but that is one filthy module! definitely not for the under 13 crowd, and if you have players like we did, consider it R rated.
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This particular venue runs one to two tables per week. We haven't had to turn anyone away, as far as I know. The closest we came was when we had only one table prepped and two tables worth of players showed up. Fortunately someone had a scenario with them that they had GMed before and offered to run. That happened to also be the first time that both of those two players left the game halfway through. If they hadn't been there, we could all have played at one table without anyone leaving.