There is something I dread more than anything else in gameplay—that is the gap. When we have a scheduled session that fails to materialize a certain snowball effect can occur. We can miss one, two, three sessions. Without notice suddenly a month may have gone by without our regularly scheduled game. When that happens the game becomes dangerously easy to abandon forever. That's happened to so many of my games that I can't even begin to count them.
I don't know any way to keep them when it seems that the lack of play is causing them to fail and sputter. I'm not sure if anyone else experiences this in their games, or if there are tried and true methods to keep them on track. That's all for today. My musings are grim and faltering.
I have had the same experiences as you. I try to keep a regular gaming schedule. If you fail one session, it's not big deal, but if, for some reason, you fail two sessions in a row, my own interest tends to fade. The pacing is lost. For the same reason, I avoid monthly sessions. The gap is too great to gain any momentum. The moment you stop to play for three whole weeks, the second session fails to achieve the same manic energy of the first. The third is worst than the second and so on.
ReplyDeleteMy solution: enforce a quorum rule in which if the majority or at least half of the players is present, you play no matter what. Players are notorious for avoiding compromising for long periods of time to a game. That's why campaigns longer than a few months are rare.