Scheduling Conflicts

Let's just dive right in.

In slum-bagging it through the ol' Reddit detritus for a cheap-ass "Dear JB" to write, I am constantly assailed with post after post of people bitching about "scheduling:" how hard it is to get a day and time set when EVERYone can attend, or moaning and complaining when people miss a session or drop out because of rando stuff like "work" or "school" or "family."

*sigh*

Once upon a time, we lived in a world where there were far less concerns pressing down on us for our time and attention. There was no internet, no YouTub, no streaming services, no 5 billion different TV shows and movies to watch "on demand." There were no smart phones, no SnapChat, no Instagram, no "Meta," no discord channels to surf for hours on end. There were no pay-to-play phone games that ate up every last free minute that we might have to otherwise use for...oh, I don't know...THOUGHTS and REFLECTIONS or SIMPLE DAYDREAMING. The kind of stuff that would lead to ideas that one could work into their D&D game.

We lived in a simpler age where children were not being trained as polymaths, with music lessons and athletic activities and language classes all going on Every Night Of The Week. Instead you were either a "sporty kid" (with a couple of practices per week and a game on the weekend) OR some sort of arty kid (with a weekly piano lesson or acting class or something) and pretty much no other obligations aside from school, an hour of spiritual worship (pick your religion), and maybe a night of Boy Scouts or Campfire or whatever.

TIME. That precious commodity. We have given away So Much Of It over the years. I know I have...and my family as well. Now it's just a struggle...a struggle to find time to exercise (because it's good for me), to find time to sleep (because it's good for me), to find quality time with my family (because it's good for me), to find time to pursue my own ambitions and creative endeavors (because they're good for me, too). 

Where to fit gaming into this mix? There's not enough hours in the day.

Our time on this planet as humans is finite. We get (roughly) 120 years allotted to us, and this gets reduced considerably by our lifestyle choices...to the point that if we can cross the 90 year mark, most of us are celebrating like we won the lottery (and those last 15-20 years can be fairly burdensome ones to get through, depending on overall health). Those years are broken up into seasons filled with months filled with days and nights filled with hours...and many of those hours are accounted for, just for the sake of the necessaries of keeping us alive. We must sleep, frustrating as that may be...in a million years of evolutionary adaptation, no mutation has come along that keeps us from needing to spend one-third of our lives in an unconscious state.

SO...16 hours a day, 7 days a week for a grand total of 112 hours. Say you spend 40 hours of that on your "job" (whatever that is), 4 hours a day (28 total) on food preparation and consumption, another eight hours per week on bathroom activities (including bathing, grooming, teeth, waste elimination), three hours per week on "moderate exercise" (a bit more than recommended for optimal health but whatever), and, say, another 8 hours for home cleaning / maintenance (varies depending on division of labor in the household, need for lawn care, etc.). Of course some people commute (let's go five hours per week), and maybe you have a weekly "movie night," play, or sporting event with your family or roommates as a bonding activity...call that four hours. That leaves you with...what...16 total hours? That's a full day, right?

But, of course, it's never that easy. And even with those (fairly conservative) estimates time just keeps on slippin-slippin-slippin into the future. The only way you can guarantee your D&D game will happen is if YOU, Mr./Ms, DM makes it a priority to happen. 

Give yourself a four hour window. Pick a day and time that works for you Every Single Time, and commit to that. You don't schedule other activities that day. You plan your daily routines AROUND that time. You honor that time slot the same way you would honor any other important commitment...the same way you would with, say, your job or a university class. You put it on the calendar...weekly, semi-weekly, monthly, whatever...and you stick to it. And when the time comes up, you sit down in your seat (wherever that seat might be) prepared to run the game. 

That's how it works. Long term, that's the ONLY way that works. This haphazard, catch-as-catch-can method of tooling around everyone's schedule, making adjustments on the fly, etc. is all just exhausting, non-productive NONSENSE...and it will, eventually, derail your campaign, no matter how much effort you apply to "making it work."  

The session day/time only has to work for one person: the Dungeon Master. Without the DM, there's no game so, guess what? The DM is the priority.

Once you have your set session date, you inform your potential players of the date. And the players can decide if it works for their schedule, and whether or not the DM's game (YOUR game) is going to be a priority for their busy-busy lives. And maybe it won't be. Maybe they're not available on Thursdays from 6pm to 10pm. Maybe they have church obligations on Sunday mornings. Maybe their kid's soccer club takes them out of town on a lot of Saturdays and that's just not in the cards for them.

That's okay. You're not running a D&D game for your players. You're running D&D because you love it and you want to run it. 

If that's NOT the case...well, heck, I don't know what I can tell you. I love running D&D for my kids...Love! It!...but I don't run D&D for THEM. I run D&D because I love running D&D. If they did not want to play (because they have other obligations, priorities, friends, whatever), I would still run D&D. Because I love running D&D. I ran it before they were born. And I plan to run it even after they've moved out of the house and have lives (and, perhaps, D&D campaigns) of their own. 

It's not about the players. A solid, committed Dungeon Master can always get new players.

So, then, what happens if you HAVE players but one or more of them don't show up to the game? What do you do then?

Easy. When that happens, you just run the game for the players you do have.

As said, the players really don't matter. I don't design adventure scenarios for specific players...I just design adventure scenarios. My mind is on the world and the scenario, NOT on how the players will interact with it. I can't predict how the players will interact. I can't anticipate what they'll do when/if bad luck strikes and (for example) kills the cleric. Will the players abandon the dungeon? Roll up a new cleric? Decide to hire the village priest (because now Bob wants to play an illusionist or something)? Who knows? Who cares? 

Not I. 

I don't worry a whit about what PCs Sally and Bill and Terry are bringing to the session. What concerns me is the part of my game world they're in, and what adventures are open to them in that part of the game world. These days, my players (kids) tend to head "straight to the dungeon" (as soon as they can locate one)...in my youth, my players would futz about a bit more in town, getting into trouble or pursuing various ambitions. All that's fine...eventually their wallets will be empty enough that they'll start looking for some loot-filled adventure or quest. All their grandest schemes (generally) require money anyway. Just as in real life. My job is to make sure there are things for them to do (i.e. adventures) because I'm the DM running the thing and that's my responsibility as a DM.

So it doesn't matter to me whether Sally blows off the session because she's got a date that night, or is writing a term paper or whatever. Sally's character won't be available to the party (because Sally's not available), but the rest of the players can still posse up and trek out to the dungeon. Sally's PC is "off doing something" (sleeping off a drunk, or shacked up with some dude, or meditating at the abbey, or whatever)...adventurers, like their players, are a notoriously flaky bunch. The question isn't "where's Sally's character," but rather "what do Bill and Terry want to do?" Sally's PC can always 'catch up later.'

But what about players skipping a session in the middle of an adventure?

Ah, yes...always a possibility as, depending on how a session goes, it is not unusual for me to end a session with the PCs still two levels underground in some (probably corpse strewn) chamber, bagging coins from some newly discovered treasure chest. This is COMMON...I don't force players to 'return to town' at the end of sessions, and for long adventures (like the D-series of modules or some plane-traipsing extravaganza) such a return trip might be practically infeasible. So then: how do you, DM, explain when the next session opens and Bill can't make it because he came down with the flu? His ranger was bagging gold with the rest of the party at the end of last session, what now?

Again, easy enough: the ranger has gone missing. He stepped outside the chamber to answer the call of nature, or eat some rations without being assaulted by the smell of dead hobgoblin, and got turned around and lost somewhere in the dungeon. While the rest of the party sets about exploring (i.e. participating in the adventure) THIS session, Bill's ranger is hiding and/or wandering trying to find his way back to the party, avoiding wandering monsters, and trying not to get killed. Hopefully, Bill the player will be back to full health by the following session, and the ranger can "rediscover" the party...either in the dungeon or back in town.

But what happened to Bill's ranger "off screen?" Nothing of import. He fought nothing. He found nothing. He expended no resources. Maybe he used a torch...and subsequently found a replacement. Through ranger craftiness or blind, stinking luck he somehow managed to avoid combat and confrontation, and avoided falling prey to a trap. Perhaps he was paralyzed with fear and simply didn't move around much. Perhaps he knows the old ranger adage "when you get lost, stay in one place" and just waited for the other party members to find him. Who knows? But GAME-WISE he did nothing to warrant any change in his character sheet with regard to hit points, experience points, treasure tallies, nada. Somehow, his character just "lucked out."

And if Bill actually quits the game...say, he gets a job that precludes him from re-joining the Tuesday evening session the DM has scheduled...then something terrible has befallen his character. It was eaten by a wandering otyugh or something. Them's the breaks.

[unless the DM wants to use Bill's character as an NPC, of course]

You see, it really doesn't matter whether or not a player or three skip a session; the D&D game is not about individual players. Frankly speaking, the D&D game is not "about" anything at all. The D&D game is just a game. As a DM, I run the game, and I get the great joy that such a creative endeavor brings. The players? They just get to play...if they show up.

Now I understand that a lot of folks who learned the game in a post-DragonLance era are going to have difficulty shifting their brain into the proper mindset because (since DL) so much ink has been spilled and words vomited proclaiming that D&D is "telling a story." And all stories are "about" something. And usually that thing they're "about" are the characters in the story. And you see how THAT logic...built on a faulty premise...leads one to the (wrong-headed) conclusion that the players (or, at least, their characters) are necessary to play the game.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The only thing that's necessary to play the game is a Dungeon Master, armed with the proper tools (rule books, dice, etc.). Got it? The ONLY thing. So as far as scheduling "conflicts" are concerned there's only one person whose time and availability matters. 

D&D is an activity...a powerful activity that has the ability to forge bonds of friendship between people. But the game isn't necessary for those bonds to be sustained...people can remain friends long after their time and participation in the game has ended. We make the mistake of thinking that these relationships we create through the activity are contingent on continual engagement with the activity...that we will LOSE our friends if we don't find a way to make the game work for everyone to play. This is inaccurate. As we move through life, we encounter different people in many different activities and environments: at jobs, at school, at clubs, at church, at events, in sports teams, etc. Some of the people we encounter "stick" with us...for whatever reason...and become part of our social circle. And just because we change jobs, leave school, quite the team, etc. doesn't mean we LOSE these friends...we can still see them, and interact with them, as much as works for our (finite amount of) time. It's not the schedule that matters; it's the prioritization of engagement. 

Don't fear loss. Embrace the friends you have. And make MORE friends, build MORE relationships, while engaging in the various activities (like D&D) that you do.

Happy Thursday, folks.

: )

Dinoriffic

Last night (Thursday) I was out gaming again, but I was back at the Baranof again, for the first time in many moons, and my usual table of players was nowhere to be found. That's because they're still back at Cafe Mox enjoying Dungeon Crawl Classics and I...well, I wanted to try something different.

Yes, I've made a split from my gaming group...an amicable split (I hope). But after doing DCC for a few (six) weeks, I've decided I've had enough and want to get back to something else; however, most of the other players are still greatly enjoying the game and I want them to keep playing/enjoying it if that floats their boat. I am about encouraging table-top role-playing and growing the hobby, after all.

: )

So, I've withdrawn from that group (for the time being anyway) and now find myself back where I initially started, more than a year ago: in a booth at the Baranof, sitting across from a single player with a pitcher of beer between the two of us.

[the bartender was so happy to have us back, SHE bought the pitcher...nice!]

There were a couple-three differences between that 1st session at Baranof's and this week. For one, the player at the table was Josh from the regular Thursday night group instead of my brother (who doesn't show up anymore). For another thing, I'm not feeling like "oh the group will never grow to be bigger than me and one dude." I've done the "build-from-scratch" thing once already and know it works (too well...the regular group has just gotten bigger and bigger over time!).

The main difference, though, is we were playing my new micro-game, Out of Time, instead of B/X. Really wanted to try out the dinosaur thing (in case you haven't gathered that from my recent posts).

All things considered, the game worked pretty good, even with only one person. Josh hadn't actually bothered to read the rules (one page, dude! C'mon!) but it took very little time to explain things and character creation was extremely quick (as designed). The most difficult part for me was the prep time involved in creating an "adventure;" however, even that yielded some good thoughts/fodder for game design theory, and I'll be posting a series here shortly about RPG objectives...or rather the lack thereof in many (most?) RPGs.

For this first session, I limited the character concept somewhat in that all PCs (in this case, just Josh) would have to be someone who'd be found in a Humvee driving around Afghanistan. This could be US army, UN peacekeepers, imbedded reporters or foreign correspondents, etc. Josh's character turned out to be an army engineer/demolitions guy and (as a sergeant) the highest ranking enlisted man in the Humvee.

There were three other army guys in the Humvee (NPCs): Sally the driver/greasemonkey, "Tex" (he had another name, but I can't remember now) manning the coaxial machine gun, and Bill who had some medical training (at least, he was the guy carrying the medkit). While in hot pursuit of some Afghani patriots...er, "insurgents"...the Humvee crew managed to drive through a dimensional warp and into the Land of the Lost, smashing their rig into a huge-ass, prehistoric tree.

Much hilarity ensued.

I like the system of the micro-game a lot, and I'm thinking of ways to incorporate it into other, non-dinosaur-themed games. Josh was rolling well all night, and never had to burn cards to get "extra effort," nor did he spend them to offset the damage he took in the single actual combat encounter (a fight with some dire wolves that killed good ol' Bill). Combat worked well, though I had to invent some spot morale rules (which were fine). It sure is tough to hit a pursuing t-rex with a vehicle-mounted machine gun while bouncing across a grassy savannah at 50 mph.

Anyway, that's enough for now...I need to catch up on some sleep. More later.

Dino Questions

So I have a few free minutes now that the baby's asleep (the days of using my "day off" for late breakfasts and power writing are long gone, I'm afraid), I wanted to revisit some of the questions and critiques of my micro-game Out of Time (downloaded 170 times! right on!). Since I don't have a whole lot of time to organize this stuff in any sort of alphabetical FAQ, I'm just going to run down the list and address folks' concerns:

Inconstant Hit Points: Out of Time (which I will hereafter abbreviate OOT) uses an abstract method of tracking "damage" to a character called Hit Points, a familiar term to most role-players. HPs in OOT are determined by rolling a D6 and adding it to a certain base number depending on your character's ability scores. This D6 is rolled at the beginning of each session, meaning your character may have more or less hit points to work with each session.

This is purposeful within the context of the game. As a survival game (you're stranded in a prehistoric time hoping to find someway back to your own time), your overall health will vary over time...who's to say your character isn't ill some week with a tropical disease one week or feeling great and on the ball the next. Living like a castaway, you're sure to experience rough patches "off stage" between sessions...you're not always at your level best. There is no "home base" to which you can retire between sessions. Sure, you might fix up your cave so that it's livable, but there's no guarantee you don't pull your back carrying water up the cliff face. The D6 roll is just random health/fatigue/luck of the week; your ability scores could provide as many as 21 base hit points or as few as 0. And if a T-Rex bites you, well, it won't matter all that much regardless.

Wildly Skewed Abilities: In OOT you are dealt a hand of cards at the beginning of the game that determines your abilities; it is possible that your character is completely deficient in one or more areas or evenly balanced.

For the OOT character, one has to realize this is just a starting point. Think of your character as one on a television show or movie: especially in B-Grade adventures (the type featuring dinosaurs, natch) characters are often 1st presented as cardboard archetypes...the strapping action hero, the weedy scientist, whatever. Also keep in mind that having a single card in one of the four abilities makes the character average in that ability; drawing 7 cards gives you a good chance of being at least average in most of the four categories. But as with a TV show or film, characters start with a strong concept and then deepen and develop over time, gradually changing or revealing hidden depths. The "hand you're dealt" is just a starting point for the player, a direction of how to play your character. Think of yourself as an actor and THIS is how you were cast by the director. Consider the characters in the TV show "Lost:" mostly average Joe-types whose actions later determined their depth.

"Advancement" (or lack thereof): There is no "advancement" in OOT, there is development...a character's gradual change over time. Your character might start out as Joe Shmoe, but after a session of dinosaur survival, he might trade one of those extra cards in Skill for one in Strength...a little more physical exercise, a little less video game playing. The development is important...you start with a certain hand, but you can change over time, reflecting your preferences of how you want your character to change.

But it's not "infinity up." If you develop a hardened persona from living on the edge of survival, something else is going to give: perhaps you start to spurn technology, taking a more "back to nature" approach (moving Supply to Skill). Perhaps your character becomes less empathetic to his fellow man, having watched so many folks die (moving Spirit to Strength). There is a price to be paid for developing one ability over others, and the development rule reflects that. Likewise, people who are already excellent in an area (face cards and aces) have a more difficult time changing their ways...they've found what "works for them" and are set by inertia. To me, this reflects a bit of real life. A guy used to relying on his muscle to get things done will tend to continue to do so, rather than develop other strategies. Characters with more minor ability draws (i.e. number cards) will be more adaptable over time (necessity being the mother of invention and all that). I find this to be a nice little bit of game balance.

Anyway, the goal of the game is to find your way home, not to become "He-Man Dino-Killer." This isn't a game about superheroics. It's about survival and ingenuity.

Deficient Abilities - Too Harsh?: There are four ability scores in OOT and if a character is deficient in any one of them (i.e. has no cards) then he automatically fails any challenging task (i.e. "rolled" task) that would use that ability. For example, if Spirit-deficient Tarzan tries to sweet talk socialite Jane ("Hey, Me Tarzan, Yo") there's no way she's going to dig his rap. Likewise, if Joe Scrawny tries arm-wrestling Tarzan, he's going to lose-lose-lose.

However, as stated in the rules, there's more than one way to skin a cat and if you can find a way to use another ability score to accomplish a task then you can do so. This is, after all, what we do in real life. We may not have the strength to haul a piano upstairs, but we can rig a pully system to do so. We might not be able to come up with the most romantic patter to woo someone, but we can find other ways to impress/interest the subject of our affections. Finding ways to do this (i.e. player cleverness) is the name of the game.

Why Shooting is a Supply Roll and NOT Skill: There are no skills in OOT; your ability scores determine your capability in each of four areas and you can develop from there over time (if you choose to do so). "Supply" is the ability that governs all use of mechanical stuff, including firearms. If you want to repair a vehicle found in the jungle or fly a plane or fix a transistor radio (not that you'll get any good stations), or shoot a gun...all of those things fall under Supply.

A gun is a tool and like any tool, requires a certain degree of knowledge to use effectively, especially in combat. There are plenty of very coordinated and athletic folks out there that don't know the first thing about guns or how to use one effectively, just as there are people who are great shots despite being lousy in the "Skill" ability (mental acuity and dextrous proficiency). And yes there are some people who can do BOTH...in OOT, these would be people who drew cards in both categories.

For the purposes of OOT, there are people who have mechanical aptitude and those that don't. This particular conceit comes from my own experience: I am pretty terrible and hate most things technical or mechanical. Other folks (like several "manly guys" I know), love screwing around with guns and cars and power tools and aren't afraid to take shit apart when it breaks. For purposes of the OOT game, that is one category of capability (i.e. ability score) that not everyone is proficient in.

Likewise, these same folks have a tendency to collect and hang on to useful tools and such; the real outdoors types carry Swiss army knives or Leatherman multi-tools and are ready to dismantle or tighter or jury rig shit they come across in the random time-dimension of the OOT game. If you want to be a skilled surgeon or chess player or fencer or academic than you have a high Skill score. If you want to be MacGuyver or Joe Survival Nut, then you need a high Supply roll. That's how OOT works.

Equipment and Resources: OOT is NOT a resource-type game. It does not track the number of bullets left in your clip or how many beers are left in the mini-fridge that just dropped through a temporal portal. My idea for the more "robust version" of the rules was to have certain "special bennies" available for characters who drew Aces in a particular category...like a working vehicle for an Ace of Supply or psychic intuition for an Ace of Spirit. I also toyed with the idea of characters having available equipment based on their starting draw in the diamond suit (i.e. Supply category).

But Supply is more about your ability to use gear and make something useable out of nothing. Yes, the person with a high starting Supply score should be able to start with some decent equipment (maybe...it depends on where and when the character was when initially sucked into the OOT world). But people (and things) are sucked into the OOT world all the time. Even if your character didn't make the trip with his trusty thirty-ought-six, it doesn't mean he won't find a .50 caliber Browning somewhere along the way. And anyway, all weapons are (generally) on "human scale" anyway...the game is designed to be cinematic and abstract, and for the purpose of OOT there's no practical difference between a handgun and a rifle. Especially when it comes to a charging T-Rex.

Scale of Damage: The damage rates are pretty satisfying to me, though I might include a "big game" category of firearm for those foolhardy types looking to hunt a triceratops with an elephant gun (good luck!). Such a weapon...and possibly .50+ caliber military weapons...would do 3D6 damage ONLY TO CREATURES LARGER THAN MAN-SIZED. Against humans, there's a finite amount of tissue damage a shot can do, and this is determined by the random damage roll.

Because it's a cinematic game, the full version would probably also have rules for "knocking out" opponents with fists and clubs (and rocks) instead of "mortally wounding" them. I like the "contusion scale" found in Horror Rules, and might try adapting something like that to the game. Or maybe not...I think it's totally valid to leave the decision to K.O. someone in the hands of the player administering the beating (and if they choose to break the character's neck or back, well, that's okay, too).

All right...I think I've answered all the issues. If anyone else has follow-up questions or comments (or actual play feedback!) please post it here. I appreciate the input, truly!

: )

Dealt Dinosaur

All right, you can download my new, one-page micro-game here:

Out of Time

Personally, I think it's pretty sweet.

This is actually the foundation/skeleton for a decent little Lost World RPG. The full version would have fuller examples and elaborations on how to use the ability scores for task resolution, not to mention more stock antagonists (cannibals, Vikings, Roman legionnaires...plus more dinos, of course!). It would (will?) also furnish rules for scenario creation, probably with a few random tables.

The "end game" included with the micro is a simplified version of what I would use for a full game. It should be enough for play-testing. Unlike some RPGs there IS an objective to the game: getting the heck out of dino-land. As with the D&D endgame, not everyone will choose to pursue this goal, instead continuing to wander ("adventure") or settle roots in the prehistoric world.

Those folks will probably be eaten.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it; any and all feedback is appreciated. In addition to six-sided dice, you will also require one (1) deck of playing cards. I recommend using ones with a dinosaur theme. I picked up a set for myself today ($6) from Top Ten Toys: The Age of Dinosaurs.