Venture-Captain, Wisconsin—Franklin
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I’m just coming back to GMing after hiatus and had seven players after a walk-up. I wasn’t aware that had changed and was made aware of it only after the fact. Just so I’m clear the policy is now to:
1. See if someone else can punt GM with no resources?
2. If they can’t, tell the walk up to take a hike?
As we our local infrastructure has taken a dive (and probably will again with delta on the rise), I can’t say I’m a fan of turning folks away.
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After it happens once, it shouldn't happen again, so long as the policy is clearly communicated the first time.
Let people know there's a signup, and that it's first come, first serve, if nobody wants to step up and GM.
Our in-person games are currently capped at 5 players, due to social distancing, when we used to allow 6. Same thing. On day one I told the waitlisted person there wasn't room.
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Just so I’m clear the policy is now to:
1. See if someone else can punt GM with no resources?
2. If they can’t, tell the walk up to take a hike?
You are correct, that is the policy.
I can’t say I’m a fan of turning folks away.
You are correct, it is terrible long-term for the player pool.
I would try to convince, maybe even bribe, a regular player to be a backup GM (assuming your physical location is amenable to adding a second table on short notice, which is another barrier). I carry around a repeatable scenario (10-16 for PFS1, 1-06 for PFS2) so I can GM at a moment's notice - maybe if you offer to buy the scenarios for them and help them prep, it would lower the barriers.
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After it happens once, it shouldn't happen again, so long as the policy is clearly communicated the first time.
New players aren't robust. There's 10,000 reasons not to play and only 1 to play. You might lose a walk-in sitting at your table if you start at 6:15 and a DDAL game at the next table starts at 6:00.
I would ask a trusted regular to give up their seat before I sent a new player away. The trusted regular will sign up the next week; or I can offer the trusted regular a make-up game the following day; or any one of multiple alternatives that aren't alternatives to the new player.
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After it happens once, it shouldn't happen again, so long as the policy is clearly communicated the first time.New players aren't robust. There's 10,000 reasons not to play and only 1 to play. You might lose a walk-in sitting at your table if you start at 6:15 and a DDAL game at the next table starts at 6:00.
I would ask a trusted regular to give up their seat before I sent a new player away. The trusted regular will sign up the next week; or I can offer the trusted regular a make-up game the following day; or any one of multiple alternatives that aren't alternatives to the new player.
Unless this is the second, third, etc, time this has happened to the same 'trusted player' after they have consistently signed up each time. Speaking from personal experience in the past, that is beyond frustrating.
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It is frustrating, yes. And if there's no confidence that the lost opportunity would be made up, the whole system falls apart. It's not a very good system overall.
The old solution of 7 player tables was bad, too.
So it just boils down to this: do people view losing new players as even worse than those options?
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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At some point, we simply cannot grow the (local) community beyond the numbers the local pool of GMs are able to support.
So while turning away players feels bad, and may not be good for the overall organization, it is the right thing to do on the local level.
A "trusted player" having to step up to GM week after week when they signed up to play is a sign of a community that is trying to support too many non-GM players, and *will* lead to burn out and ill-will.
If a "trusted player" is having to crash GM multiple weeks in a row, it is time to turn away walk-ins until you can source more GMs.
This is not a competition to see who can grow their team the largest. It is a game where we are trying to deliver the best experience we can. If we lose a player to adventure league, and everyone has a good time, that is hardly the worst possible outcome.
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Venture-Captain, Wisconsin—Franklin
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It is frustrating, yes. And if there's no confidence that the lost opportunity would be made up, the whole system falls apart. It's not a very good system overall.
The old solution of 7 player tables was bad, too.
So it just boils down to this: do people view losing new players as even worse than those options?
The old solution was bad, but workable.
I don't have the time to chase down potential GMs, resources prep and keep extra copies of scenarios/maps, or the energy to deal with the practical drama that comes with any of that. Personally, its easier to stop posting scenarios than deal with all that. I already put in a bunch of time doing prep work and money into scenarios, minis, maps, books, and paper. Now the suggestions are do all that twice and bribe someone because squeezing in a 7th is suddenly unworkable.
It's a lot of added stress for a twice a month hobby.
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Have you considered sharing those thoughts with your community?
It sounds like they aren't aware just how stressful it is for you, their sole GM, and communicating that seems like a great segue into getting more players to step up as GMs. Or at least getting players to cut back on taking advantage of you.
It doesn't matter what the hard cap is. It could be 4 for a Pregen-only Adventure, 5 for a socially distant game, or 6 because Scenarios no longer have scaling for more; you're always going to have N+1 if you don't a) communicate the limit, b) enforce the limit, and c) recruit more GMs.
And sometimes, for whatever reason, a venue gets maxed out. It happens. If you've done all you can for the moment, be happy with that until another opportunity presents itself to expand.
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I would encourage folks to use creative problem solving to address these issues and those like them.Such as?
*play with 7 that one time and inform the new person of the organization
*ask for a person to step up to GM
*ask one from the player pool to step out this time
*turn the new player away with the information of how the group organizes
*switch to a prepped repeatable for the new player and whoever else wants to join
That is it off the top of my head. I'm sure that there are more creative solutions.
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Venture-Captain, Wisconsin—Franklin
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Have you considered sharing those thoughts with your community?
It sounds like they aren't aware just how stressful it is for you, their sole GM, and communicating that seems like a great segue into getting more players to step up as GMs. Or at least getting players to cut back on taking advantage of you.
It doesn't matter what the hard cap is. It could be 4 for a Pregen-only Adventure, 5 for a socially distant game, or 6 because Scenarios no longer have scaling for more; you're always going to have N+1 if you don't a) communicate the limit, b) enforce the limit, and c) recruit more GMs.
And sometimes, for whatever reason, a venue gets maxed out. It happens. If you've done all you can for the moment, be happy with that until another opportunity presents itself to expand.
The community is aware of and largely non-committal and/or non-communicative.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I would encourage folks to use creative problem solving to address these issues and those like them.Such as?*play with 7 that one time and inform the new person of the organization
That one is specifically not allowed.
The rest are fine as one time things, but as posted above, when they become a weekly occurrence, there is a problem.
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The community is aware of and largely non-committal and/or non-communicative.Have you considered sharing those thoughts with your community?
It sounds like they aren't aware just how stressful it is for you, their sole GM, and communicating that seems like a great segue into getting more players to step up as GMs. Or at least getting players to cut back on taking advantage of you.
It doesn't matter what the hard cap is. It could be 4 for a Pregen-only Adventure, 5 for a socially distant game, or 6 because Scenarios no longer have scaling for more; you're always going to have N+1 if you don't a) communicate the limit, b) enforce the limit, and c) recruit more GMs.
And sometimes, for whatever reason, a venue gets maxed out. It happens. If you've done all you can for the moment, be happy with that until another opportunity presents itself to expand.
Then Nefreets last comment applies.
And sometimes, for whatever reason, a venue gets maxed out. It happens. If you've done all you can for the moment, be happy with that until another opportunity presents itself to expand.
Expand at all costs is not a sustainable strategy.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Expand at all costs is not a sustainable strategy.
But recruiting new players to replace the inevitable players who stop coming IS a sustainable strategy.
You sometimes need to recruit as hard as you can just to stay even.
If you lose GMs, you may have to contract for a while until you get more.
One of the hardest things I had to learn as an organizer is that sometimes you have to take a deep breath, and let the group contract. As the alternative is to burn out your GM pool, and have it collapse.
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If your community takes advantage of you, find a different community. Online tables happen often. Round up a few folks and round robin GM. If you are your community's only GM and you don't want to GM anymore, then don't. They will very quickly realize the need for folks to GM when there isn't one anymore. Let games not firing because of lack of GMs happen. If you are a volunteer, remember that you are a volunteer not a human sacrifice for the sake of others entertainment.
If no one else is willing to step up to GM, that isn't a PFS community.
If there is a problem, address the problem. If no one is interested in helping fix the problem, then leave. People who are willing to GM every so often are rarely turned away from other actual communities.
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The community is aware of and largely non-committal and/or non-communicative.
The natural tendency is this: to give a lot of slack to people you do know (the regulars), and shrug off the concerns of people you don't know (the visitors).
I recommend fighting that tendency, and reversing your attitudes. Be a little harsher with your existing community - sign up as a player and wait for someone to step up to GM next week. You can't single-handedly support the whole group. On the other hand, the new players represent people whose attitudes aren't already set, maybe one of those can grow into being an alternate GM. Take the effort that you save catering to the unappreciative, and spend it elsewhere.
recruiting new players to replace the inevitable players who stop coming IS a sustainable strategy.
It is, in fact, the only sustainable strategy.
I have made this (semi)joke recently, but I bet there's someone out there who thinks the game is called Warhorn because they tried to walk in to a table and were turned away with only "sign up on Warhorn."
Pathfinder isn't well known, and the licensed mass media isn't as popular, so there are very few walk ins who are going to show up with a targeted request. Most new players will either show up saying "I'm a friend of (regular player)" or "hay guyz what are you playing".
And while not being super popular isn't the be all end all, in the end you've got to have minimum viability. If Pathfinder stays the same for years, what happens when a more popular or a fast growing competitor asks for more space at a convention/FLGS to expand, or Paizo starts losing their best writers to Hot New RPG Co?
No, you don't have to give up your mental/physical health to scour the face of the earth for new players. But I'm guessing what we're talking about is more on the scale of "once every 2-3 months make a tough call and disappoint one regular" than "GM goes overboard on accomodating new players." We are well on the side of being unbalanced towards not being accommodating enough.
Creative suggestion needed? Make a rotation of which regular it is. Assign each regular a month to have a repeatable scenario prepped. If a new player shows up that month, they run a second game.
Venture-Agent, California—Silicon Valley
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Having consistent GMs is always the main issue. I can't remember the last time we had a game with a GM but no players.
Our lodge is online only at the moment and we attract people from all around the world. We have a few dedicated GMs, myself included, who only GM for 2e. We have some GMs who still only run 1e, but not consistently, and some who GM both occasionally. My VL and I are the most common GMs for our lodge, usually GMing once every other week, while every other GM just does it on occasion.
We still end up with tables without a GM though. I will usually purchase a scenario if someone is willing to GM a table last minute as an incentive to get the table to fire, but it doesn't always work. For example, two Fridays ago we had two full 1e tables fail to run because none of the 12 players wanted to step up to GM.
It's just very disappointing to see the vast difference in number of GMs compared to the number of players.
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I want to get back to GMing 1e, but every time I consider it, I run into more 1e players who make me put the thought away for a couple more months. Pretty sure I'll have to selectively recruit for a 1e AP if I want to get back into it, which means it probably won't be a lodge organized activity :(
I never minded the 7-player tables for my local/non-online tables, but I know I was in the minority of that opinion. While our lodge has lots of venues/options, it wasn't easy to split to an extra table at some of the venues to accommodate walk-ins, even if we had an extra GM.
In the online setting though I really appreciate the 6-player maximum.
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The community is aware of and largely non-committal and/or non-communicative.
Then why try so hard to do nice things for them? As stated up thread, that attitude is not a community. A community works together for the benefit of all. We experienced this in one of our local area. We beat our heads against the wall week after week trying to get people to signup in advance, volunteer to GM, work out special start times with the FLGS to accommodate working schedules, personally reach out to each member individually to accommodate their needs and it was unsustainable. Eventually, we just stopped trying. It was not a community, it was a bunch of self-entitled players who wanted to contribute nothing to the health of the community than show up at game time often unannounced. Ain't nobody got time for that. So, we joined some other communities including online where players actively took an interest in the efforts of the organizers and respected their investment.
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I'd forgotten that these discussions used to take place in the bubble of "But I'm fine GMing for 7!".
The cap of 6 wasn't enforced just to make the lives of GMs easier. 7 players decreases everyone's experience.
In the past I have signed up for games two hours away, arrived, had the GM accept a 7th player, and then turned right around and drove home. I don't appreciate the physical, verbal, tactical or time constraints of that many people. Could I GM that many? Sure. Do I want to play with that many? No.
So when someone gets upset that the cap is N, because they are personally fine with N+1, remember there's more people to consider than just yourself.
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*ask one from the player pool to step out this timeIt is interesting that one of the "accepted" solutions to not turning someone away is to ask someone else to go away. All things being equal, I just don't get that concept.
The thought process is pretty obvious.
If this only happens very occasionally (a big if, I know) then the regular is very likely to come to the next game. And hopefully the new player will enjoy themselves and become a regular and, ultimately. a GM. So, hopefully, your community grows this way.
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Creative suggestion needed? Make a rotation of which regular it is. Assign each regular a month to have a repeatable scenario prepped. If a new player shows up that month, they run a second game.
Honestly, if you have that enough people willing to regularly GM, you probably *aren't* having the problem being discussed.
The reality is that there are a lot of lodges which, during slow periods can maybe rustle up 1 GM per night, with maybe one other person in attendance who is willing and able to GM.
That is the group that is having the problem.
As for the "what if some other group steals our players..." The community is not a zero sum game. D&D has taken off massively, but that has only grown PFS, if anything.
Contributor
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When I was a VO, I found it useful to recruit GMs before they were needed. I would regularly plant the seed in a good player's mind: "Gosh, you are so great with rules and roleplay. Have you thought about GMing?" Then a couple weeks later... "I would love to sit at your table as a player the first time you GM, if you're open to it." We'd provide encouragement, mentoring, and the standing offer to loan flip maps for an evening, collecting them after the game was done.
The more people that we got volunteering, the easier the 'ask' got, because everyone saw that the majority of our player base GMed occasionally -- about once every two months for casual players. That rhythm has been disrupted since Covid though. It was harder to find online GMs as some people found the tech really daunting, so we had less casual GMs in the mix.
Now that in person has started up again in our region, we are going to have to rebuild our casual GM base again. But we did it once, and I plan to do it again once our game store can support more people in the room. With social distancing requirements, less people in the room means fewer folks that you can ask, and our time iimit is so tight on Wednesday nights now that we need efficient GMs more than we need new GMs.
Still.... it's worth the effort. Which reminds me that it is time to start planting some of those seeds.
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Contributor
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If you're having problems getting alternate players to GM, it may be worth asking someone who you suspect would be a good GM to run a particular scenario for you. "Hey X, I'd love an opportunity to play scenario A and I think you'd be a great GM. Would you be willing to run it for me sometime? I can help you schedule it."
It's not a guarantee to fix all problems, but a request to GM a specific scenario will likely be more successful than a generic plea for more GMs since it constrains the ask to a very achievable and discreet outcome. You can hopefully build on that a few times and that person might start doing it themselves, especially if feedback from other players is positive.
I saw Cavernshark's comment after I posted, and I wanted to give it a thumbs up. This is a very effective strategy to use for the ask. If I mention that I have never gotten to play a certain scenario, that specific request will nearly always get an offer of GMing from our casual GM base. People like to repay their GMs in this way, and it makes it a personal ask.
Asking an individual is far more effective than asking the room.
Hmm
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It is also critical that V-tier entities schedule well enough so GMs that do prep and are ready to run don't get ignored because 'don't want to play THAT'.
When an over-scheduled Repeatable is at one table (because that's what the backup GM is comfortable running (with a player) and the other table is overloaded for the 'new hotness', it can be incredibly demoralizing for the backup GM.
Again, speaking from personal experience in the past.
Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
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The issue with unexpected walk in isn't that the adventures are capped at 6 and not 7, it's that you don't have enough GM's. If the max table limit was 7, you'd still have the same problem - 7 sign ups, and 8th player walks in. "seating one more player" isn't really a solution - otherwise, you could limit sign ins on 5 players and keep that 1 seat reserved for walk ins.
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The issue with unexpected walk in isn't that the adventures are capped at 6 and not 7, it's that you don't have enough GM's. If the max table limit was 7, you'd still have the same problem - 7 sign ups, and 8th player walks in. "seating one more player" isn't really a solution
Splitting a table of 7 means 2 tables with 3 players each (because one of the players becomes a GM); splitting a table of 8 means one of the tables becomes 4; conversely, splitting a table of 6 means one table has 2 players.
So, yes, it does matter where the breakpoint is.