This Feature is part of my ongoing True Campaign Managery course. If you’ve not been following it — or you don’t know what the hell True Campaign Managery even is — flip over to The True Campaign Managery Course Index to catch up.

A bit of a late edit here…

This lesson is a beast. It needed a way more involved rewrite and revision than most and it got bigger — not smaller — with each pass as I kept changing things around. That’s why it took so long. And that’s also why I ultimately had to split it in two. Unfortunately, I made that decision late in the game and just needed to get this monster published. So, this lesson’s got a very abrupt, “Guess what, there’s a Part II coming!” and doesn’t quite wrap itself up with a neat little summary. Sorry about that. I promise the next lesson will tie it all up nicely and neatly.

Clubhouse Rules: Your Sucky Attendance Policy

Welcome back, class. Today’s topic is one you’re all gonna hate. Why? Because we Game Masters — at least most of we Game Masters — don’t like feeling like tyrants. We know this is all just Pretend Elf Games with Friends. None of us — almost none of us — want to boss our friends around and impose and enforce rules on them.

If you find yourself squirming through today’s lesson, remember everything I taught you in A Campaign Manager’s Guide to Selfishness. Remember that you and your friends have all agreed that you want this game to happen. You’re effectively a trustee; you’ve taken on the responsibility to make the game happen and your players have granted you power over them to make it work. Remember, authority and responsibility go hand-in-glove. You can’t have one without the other and your friends have given you both.

If you can’t handle this shit, turn your screen over to someone who can.

The painful responsibility du jour of the day’s lesson is your responsibility to establish hard, fast rules to do with scheduling, attendance, lateness, and cancellation. True Campaign Managers know that to give their campaign the best chance to succeed, they’ve got to establish and enforce a Scheduling and Attendance Policy.

Why Pretend Elf Games Need Scheduling and Attendance Policies

As I noted above, this is just Pretend Elf Games with Friends. Attendance Policies are the sort of shit we expect from jobs and university classes. And these days, lots of people find such policies offensive. But then, these days, there are dumbasses who say “Punctuality is racist,” — I wish I was kidding — so I don’t worry too much about what lots of people these days find offensive. But it’s still a fair question to ask. Does the lack of a Scheduling and Attendance Policy make the campaign worse or less likely to succeed? Does such a Policy make the game better?

Obviously, yes, the lack of a Scheduling and Attendance Policy makes your campaign worse or else I wouldn’t be writing this, would I? But why? And how?

Game Time is a Treasure

Let’s start with the obvious reason: game time is a freaking treasure. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got almost nothing left in my life that makes me happy. Which is fine because I’ve got no free time to waste on being happy anyway. My point is, if I’m actually able to block a four-hour chunk of time out of my week to devote solely to something that brings me joy, that’s more valuable than a goose that shits chocolate hundred-dollar bills. And that’s every player and every Game Master. At least, every mature, adult player and Game Master with actual responsibilities and commitments and attachments.

The rest of you better appreciate what you’ve got while you’ve got it because it’s gonna end someday.

The point is, that every minute of game time is valuable. And every minute I lose waiting for some dumbass to show up late is a minute of actual joy stolen from my cold, dark, lonely, miserable life. And that shit cannot be forgiven.

Good Games are Good; Bad Games Suck

My game time’s valuable. I want to fill it with the best damned game I can get. If my game ain’t the best it could be, I’m gonna replace it with one that is. Inconsistent scheduling and lateness directly impact the quality of the game in myriads of ways.

Inconsistent scheduling and attendance impact the players’ continuity and investment. And the Game Master’s too. Players can’t remember what happened at sessions they missed and your recaps can only give them raw facts. It can’t provide a complete understanding of missed events or create any actual emotional gravitas. And recapping for absent players takes more time and care either before the game or at the game.

Even if everyone shows up to every game, an inconsistent schedule still hurts your game. If you go too long between game sessions, players lose the thread of the plot and their emotional investment wanes. It’s hard to keep track of what’s going on and stay attached to it. The same’s true for you, the Game Master.

Such inconsistency also affects everyone’s familiarity with your game’s rule system. If you’re all playing a game you’ve been playing for years and you’re intimately familiar with it, that’s no big deal, but if y’all ain’t experts, it takes regular exposure and reinforcement to keep the rules in everyone’s heads.

Social cohesion also relies on regular contact. Teamwork and camaraderie build slowly over time and need regular reinforcement. Inconsistent scheduling makes it a slog. And frequent absences make it worse. You’ve seen this in action if you’ve ever run for or played with a group with a few regular attendees and one really unreliable person. The person who misses games a lot ends up being like that one person in every office who never joins in any of the social activities. They’re an outsider. Not really part of the team. That ain’t good for a roleplaying game.

And that’s notwithstanding the in-game complications that arise whenever you’ve got a character whose brain didn’t show up for the session. Whatever you do with an absent player’s character — and I’ll address that in a later lesson — it’s a pain in the ass. It hampers the game.

People Deserve Respect

Every gamer wants to spend their game time gaming. And they want the best game they can fill their game time with. We can agree on that, right? Thus, it’s safe to say most gamers prioritize their game time.

What does that mean? It means that, if a friend invites me to a movie on game night, I’ll probably say no. Because it’s game night. That doesn’t mean I’m never going to put anything ahead of game night. Family and work and health obligations come before playtime, obviously. And sometimes something will come up that’s more valuable than game night. If my friend scores tickets to the Superbowl or a Post Malone concert or whatever, I might skip a game for something like that, but it’s got to be a pretty major deal for me not to put the game first. And, meanwhile, I’m gonna do my damndest to schedule my family, work, and health obligations around game night.

And I expect my fellow players to do the same math. I don’t expect them to decline every opportunity that comes along just for my Pretend Elf Game and I don’t expect them to lose their jobs or leave their kids over it, but I expect them to put the game very high on the priority list of optional personal obligations.

That means I know my players are shuffling shit to attend my game. I know for a fact some of my players have deals with their spouses that they get one Game Night a week in return for covering a once-a-week Spa Night or Girls’ Night or Guy’s Night or whatever. I know some of my players have arranged their work schedules to attend my games. But there are also players arranging their lives and giving up opportunities that I never even know about.

Every Game Night that doesn’t happen doesn’t just cost me and my players the game, it also costs us everything we could have done instead and every price we had to pay for that Game Night. It’s called Opportunity Cost. Maybe a friend invited me to a play I really wanted to see, but I said no because Game Night. Only now, I’m sitting around alone because no one showed up and no one called and I can’t even go to the play. Maybe someone turned down an opportunity to pick up extra hours at work for a game that got canceled and they’ve lost that income.

The point is, I want my players to put a high priority on Game Night. And I put a high priority on Game Night. I have no idea what that costs anyone, but I assume it costs everyone something. And that means I’ve got to respect the value of my players’ time. But, more importantly, I also have a responsibility to make sure everyone at my table is respecting the value of everyone’s time.

A True Campaign Manager is responsible for safeguarding the value of every player’s time, not just their own.

Good Policies and Bad

If you’re running a campaign, you need a good Scheduling and Attendance Policy. And no True Campaign Manager goes into battle without one. But what makes a Scheduling and Attendance Policy good? What must it accomplish? And what does it look like?

A [Shudder] Social Contract

I hate the phrase Social Contract. It’s overused in gaming circles by assholes who have no business using the word social to describe anything they do unless they put an anti in front of it. But that’s exactly what a Scheduling and Attendance Policy is. It’s not a writ of law and a list of enforcement actions, but instead just a collective agreement about what an obligation to the gaming group actually means. And that’s the case whether you spell out your Scheduling and Attendance Policy in a Game First way or whether you write the Policy together in a Group First committee. It doesn’t matter who writes it. All that matters is everyone understands it and commits to it.

Which is why you won’t see much about punishment and enforcement in today’s lesson. When I get to Conflict Resolution, I’ll tell you how to handle it when someone breaks the Social Contract.

The point is that your Scheduling and Attendance Policy defines each player’s obligation to the group. It tells everyone what it means to Respect Everyone’s Time. But that ain’t all it does.

Saving Time with Contingency Planning

Aside from spelling out each member’s social obligation to the group, Scheduling and Attendance Policies mitigate the damage to your precious Game Night when something goes wrong. Because something always goes wrong.

Game time’s too damned valuable to waste. When someone doesn’t show up on time or someone cancels out, you don’t want to waste time with your thumb up your ass trying to figure out what to do. You want to salvage every second of game time you can. Or you want to pivot and find some other fun way to fill your precious leisure time.

A good Scheduling and Attendance Policy tells you exactly what to do when something goes wrong.

Writs of Law, Partnership Agreements, and Oral Contracts

A good Scheduling and Attendance Policy establishes each member’s obligation to the group and it helps minimize the disruptions caused when life inevitably fucks with your Game Night plans. And that’s all it has to do. However you get there, what matters is that you got there.

The point is, that it doesn’t matter how you record, discuss, or agree to your policy. You — the True Campaign Manager — can hand your players your Leges Tabulae and say, “If you can’t agree to this basic-ass minimum level of social obligation, you can show yourself out.” You and your little friends can sit down and cobble out a list of rules and each take a copy home. Or you can just have a totally normal conversation and seal the deal with pinkie promises or palm-spit handshakes or whatever.

That said, informal Pinkie Promise Policies are best for established friend groups that already have a bond of trust. Writs of Law are best for folks with whom you have limited acquaintance or experience, but they’re also good if you’ve got at least one person in your friend group you don’t quite trust to Respect Your Time. Group First committee policies are usually the purview of players who’ve done a one-shot and had some fun and now they’re moving from informal Game Night and are ready to don their big boy campaign pants.

Me? I like to do the Writ of Law thing. Every time. And every time I’ve been lackadaisical about it — I don’t think I’ve ever typed that word before; it really should have an x in there somewhere — every time I haven’t, I’ve regretted it. Of course, as a True Campaign Manager, I’m also open to discussion and I will make reasonable accommodations to polite and respectful players who have specific issues. In one of my games, I’ve got a guy who’s coming straight from work and so, sometimes, ten minutes before becomes breathlessly scrambling through the door a minute late apologizing profusely.

It is just Pretend Elf Games with Friends, after all.

Building the Best Scheduling and Attendance Policy

If you want to call yourself a True Campaign Manager, you need a good Scheduling and Attendance Policy. And thanks to everything I said above, you know what it’s gotta do. But how do you get there?

Here’s the thing: every group’s needs are different. So I can’t hand you a template. I can tell you how to write one and I can tell you what I write into mine, but I can’t tell you what yours should contain. Writing a good Policy is about identifying your needs, addressing them, identifying the likely problems that’ll arise, and planning for them.

Let me walk you through how True Campaign Managers — like me — build their Scheduling and Attendance Policy and that’ll hopefully empower you to go through the process yourself.

The Basic Schedule: When, Where, How Often, and How Long?

Ultimately, your goal is to establish as consistent and regular a Game Night for your campaign as you possibly can. And that means the obvious first step is to figure out when that Game Night is. When will you play? How often? How long will you play for? And where will you play?

The gold standard here is the regular, weekly game night. Pick a day of the week and a time and host Game Night every week on that day at that time. For four hours if you can manage it. I don’t have any science for this, but, the Four-Hour Weekly Game Night is pretty optimal.

If you can pull it off.

The goal really is to establish a schedule that runs on autopilot. If you play at the same time on the same day every week, that game’s part of everyone’s routine. It’s hard to forget, it’s easy to schedule around, it’s perfect. So if you can’t pull off the Four-Hour Weekly Game Night, at least try to come up with something regular. Maybe you can do it every other week. Or the first and third Wednesdays of the month. I don’t know. Whatever works.

If you can’t pull off a Basic Schedule with some regularity, then you’ve got a problem to address.

The Advanced Schedule: How To Schedule Games

Remember that the goal here is to spell out the obligations and procedures clearly and firmly. So if you can’t agree to a regular schedule and have to schedule each game as it comes, you want to spell out exactly how you and your gaming buds will schedule those Game Nights. Maybe you agree to spend the last ten minutes of every Game Night scheduling the next one so everyone comes with their weekly planners ready to figure that shit out and you never leave a Game Night without the next one on the calendar.

One of my groups can’t meet regularly due to some weirdly inconsistent schedules and spousal obligations. We get two Game Nights a month and they’re always on Fridays, but we can’t know which Fridays in advance. So, at the end of every month, I send out an electronic poll via our private Discord discussion to establish the next month’s Game Nights. There’s a due date and if folks don’t reply, I start haranguing them. Once the poll’s closed, I officially announce our month’s Game Nights via that same Discord.

However you handle this shit, don’t be vague, and don’t leave it up to informal discussions at random times. Establish a firm, clear procedure with solid deadlines. Otherwise, this scheduling thing’s gonna be a nightmare.

Cancellation: What Happens When the Game Can’t Happen?

You’re gonna notice a pattern from here on out in this process. Because it’s all about contingency planning now. It’s about figuring out what’s likely to go tits up and then deciding how you’ll handle it.

And the first, most obvious problem once you’ve got your Game Night on the calendar — or you know how you’ll get Game Nights on the calendar — is what happens when you’ve got to take a Game Night off the calendar. What do you do when the game suddenly can’t happen?

The first question to ask is “Who is even allowed to cancel the game?” Can any player just say, “Sorry guys, the game’s canceled!” I don’t recommend that for what I hope are the most obvious frigging reasons. It’s best to make it clear that only one person at the table is allowed to cancel a game. And that person’s me. You. The Campaign Manager. All my Game Night cancellations run through me. Once a Game Night is scheduled, only I can unschedule it.

This is true even of my in-person game that I don’t host. One of my players hosts the game. If that player — or their space — suddenly becomes unavailable, they’ve got to bring the issue to me. I’ll make the official call to cancel the Game Night. It’s a chain-of-command thing. It prevents confusion and ambiguity and puts the responsibility on one person’s shoulders.

The next question is “How to cancel the game.” The message has to reach the players. And by the Principle of Respecting Everyone’s Time, that message must be clear, unmissable, and delivered with as much advance warning as possible. The moment I decide a game’s got to be canceled I send a message to everyone via that group’s private Discord chat. My players know to keep an eye on that chat, especially as game night approaches, in case there’s a change. And, as a side note, the closer to Game Night it gets, the bigger an emergency must be before I’ll cancel a game.

And now, you’ve probably spotted two other issues to address. The first is “Can we reschedule Game Night to prevent cancelation?” The second is “What issues constitute a good enough reason to cancel a Game Night?” See how this works?

Cancellation and Quorums: What Can Cancel a Game?

Game Nights are treasures and everyone’s time must be respected. We agree on that shit, right? That means that only emergencies should be able to take a Game Night off the calendar. Game Nights should only be canceled if there’s no way they can go on. So what constitutes an emergency?

Obviously, if the Game Master becomes unavailable for any reason, Game Night can’t happen. Games need Game Masters. Likewise, if the play space — or the host — becomes unavailable, Game Night ain’t gonna happen. Either of those cancels Game Night. That’s how it’s got to be.

Weather emergencies can also cancel in-person games and Internet outages and technical issues can cancel online games. This means, by the way, that the Campaign Manager has a duty to monitor situations like weather, keep communication lines open with the group, and make judgment calls as early as possible. I live in Wisconsin, winter exists, and, depending on which of our three hosting locations we’re using, one or more of my players have an hour’s drive to get to the game. That means I’m watching the weather like a school superintendent as Game Night approaches if there’s a whiff of blizzard in the air.

Apart from a lack of Game Master, a lack of playspace, or an act of God, the only reason I’ll cancel a Game Night is lack of quorum. What’s a quorum? It’s actually a business term stolen from a religious idea. It’s the minimum number of people who must be present to conduct official business. And every Campaign Manager should establish a quorum — a minimum number of players — below which there’s just no point in running a game.

I’d love to have all hands on deck for every Game Night, but that shit just ain’t gonna happen. True Campaign Managers know they’ve eventually got to run a game despite an absence or two. And that’s why I decide, in advance, the minimum number of players I need to run a game. And I’ve got two different minimums. First, I’ll never run a game for less than three players. It just seems pointless to me. But I might be relaxing that soon for reasons. Second, I’ll never run a game for half a group or less. That means, if I’ve got a five-person group, three absences cancel a game. And if I’ve got a three-person group, even a single missing player is enough to cancel over.

Those are just my personal rules, though. I ain’t saying you have to follow those. I ain’t even claiming they’re the best rules. Which is a rare thing for me to say. But I am saying that you absolutely should establish your own quorum rules.

So those are my cancellation rules. If there’s no Game Master, if the scheduled playspace is closed, if God hates my game, or if I don’t have the minimum number of players, the Game Night’s off the calendar. I announce it according to my policy and that’s that.

Or is it…

Rescheduling: Can You Save a Canceled Game?

I think I mentioned once or twice that game time is a treasure. So it’s better to reschedule a game than cancel it, isn’t it? Absolutely. That means it’s worth thinking about the procedure for rescheduling a game.

Basically, rescheduling combines the questions about canceling with the questions about scheduling. Who’s authorized to reschedule a game, how does the reschedule happen, and how do you establish a new date and time and location for Game Night?

As with canceling, only I’m authorized to propose rescheduling Game Night. And I’ll do it the same way I do everything. There’s a clear communication channel, I use a poll with a definite end time, and if we can get a quorum for some alternate Game Night, I’ll officially schedule the game with an official notice.

Clear communication, same procedure every time; that’s how you do this shit.

That said, there are two issues I clear before I even propose a reschedule. The first is whether or not I — the Game Master — can be prepped to run the game in time. That can be an issue if you reschedule a Game Night for an earlier date. I won’t even propose a reschedule if doing so means I won’t have time to prep. Second, if I ain’t the game’s host — and it’s an in-person game — I will talk to the game’s host privately about the possibility of rescheduling before I put it to the whole group. If the Game Master can’t be ready or there’s no place to play, there’s no point in even putting the idea before the group. Doing so might pressure the Game Master or the host to agree to something they’re not totally happy with or it might disappoint the players when the host says, “Sorry, I can’t reschedule at all” and the game ends up re-canceled before anyone can vote.

So far, though, I’ve been discussing things that absolutely must cancel or reschedule a game. Things like weather emergencies and not having a Game Master or enough players. But what if something minor comes up? What if a player’s not available for a specific night and wants to ask for a schedule change to see if they can avoid missing a game? Or what if someone’s availability changes and they can’t attend the regularly scheduled Game Night anymore at all? What then?

Schedule Changes: Who Can Change the Schedule and How?

Everything above’s about unavoidable problems you’re stuck with just sucking up. But what about non-emergency schedule changes? What if Adam wants to go out and celebrate his birthday on Game Night? Can the group accommodate that by moving the game instead of playing without him? What if Beth’s work schedule permanently changes and now she can’t attend regular Game Night? How do you address that?

With firm policies and official procedures. That’s how.

At my table, for instance, no one can change the schedule — or even discuss a schedule change — without first talking to me. If Adam wants a one-time accommodation so he can have his birthday cake and game too or Beth wants us to move the game so she doesn’t have to choose between Pretend Elf Games with Friends and gainful employment, they start by sending me a private message.

At my discretion, I’ll then put the matter up for a group vote via our official communication channel, or else I’ll talk privately with each player in turn to work a deal that way. That’s if I, myself, am willing to accommodate the change. And if there’s a Game Night host, I’ll talk to them privately as well to make sure the change is even doable.

Any such schedule change must be agreed upon unanimously by the group. Every member must agree. Why? Because this ain’t about rescheduling to avoid cancellation due to an emergency or a lack of quorum; this is about doing someone a favor. And everyone’s got to be on board. Which, by the way, if you — the player asking for a reschedule — don’t treat the request as a favor when you bring it to me in the first place, I’m not inclined to even bring it to the group. You and I are gonna have words, that’s for sure.

It’s like this: if Adam wants to reschedule our Game Night so he can celebrate his birthday without missing out on his weekly chance to kill some orcs, but Beth ain’t available any night but Friday, it ain’t fair to move the game. I’m not going to accommodate Adam if it leaves Beth out. The group agreed to Friday. Everyone’s got to be okay with changing the deal.

The same is true for permanent changes. If Beth’s work schedule keeps her from attending Friday Game Night forever after, but the rest of the group can’t find a night other than Friday that works for everyone else, moving the game means leaving someone else out. That ain’t right. Sadly, Beth’s just got to leave the group. That’s how it is sometimes.

And because that shit’s sad and stressful, whenever the issue’s about someone leaving the group, I will handle things through individual, private communication instead of having a public, group vote. I don’t want any strife or conflict resulting from Adam refusing to drop his Magic: the Gathering league so the group can switch to Tuesday nights so Beth doesn’t have to quit. If Beth’s gonna be pissed off at anyone, I want her pissed off at me. That’s part of leadership too. It’s the sucky part.

Note that, front and center in my approach is a sense of fairness, ownership, respect for everyone’s time, and cherishing Game Night as a treasure. And note that everything’s about firm rules and clear communication. This bullshit’s miserable, but it’s also how you keep scheduling nonsense from killing a campaign.

Absences and Lateness: What to Do When Players Can’t Show Up

So that’s all the big stuff handled and there are really just two questions left. The first is about how to handle absences. What do you do when a player can’t attend a Game Night? What do you do when they warn you in advance? And what do you do when they don’t?

First, take note that the established rules about quorums and rescheduling requests already cover the issue of planned absences pretty well. If you’ve gotten this far, you already know how to handle it when a player contacts you to say, “Hey, I can’t make it to Game Night.” If there’s a quorum and you ain’t trying for a reschedule, the game happens one player short. No big deal. And if that absence brings you below a quorum, you know what to do then too. It just sucks.

This is why you want to crowbar it into your players’ craniums that you expect them to do everything they reasonably can to warn you of absences as soon as they reasonably can. If there’s a scheduling conflict, it ain’t a big deal. It happens. Life happens. And the more warning you — the True Campaign Manager — get, the less disruptive it is.

It’s important to spell out exactly how you expect your players to communicate this shit with you. And I’ll have more to say about that below. But part of your Scheduling and Attendance Policy is telling everyone how to communicate. Tell your players whether they should throw such scheduling messages in the group chat, send them directly to you by private message or SMS text, or use some other platform. It’s not enough for your players to know you expect them to communicate with you, but to tell them exactly how to do that.

Unplanned absences are trickier. If an emergency arises just before Game Night, your Pretend Elf Game with Friends might not be your player’s first concern. And that’s totally understandable. I expect my players to do their level best to let me know if they’re not coming, but I ain’t gonna harangue anyone for taking a couple of days to say, “Sorry I was a no-show; I was in the emergency room with a haunted leg” or whatever. Emergencies happen and it’s just games. That said, it’s also never been easier to send someone an instantaneous message with a few second’s effort. If you get held up at work and you know I’m waiting for you, unless it’s an emergency situation, you can say, “Boss, I’ll stay late, no problem, but I need ten seconds to send a text to cancel an appointment.”

The point is, I expect my players to take whatever reasonable, human steps possible given the situation to get word to me if things go bad. That’s part of the Doctrine of Respecting Everyone’s Time. It’s up to everyone’s individual judgment to decide what that means and I ain’t gonna second guess anyone, but if your individual judgment leaves me out of the loop too many times, we’re gonna have to talk about that.

But more on that below. And then later when I teach you how to resolve conflict. Because the point here ain’t establishing any system of demerits or strikes or punishments. Rather, it’s to get it into the players’ heads to treat Game Night like a promise and to prioritize and communicate accordingly.

And everything I said above applies to lateness too. If a player’s running late, I expect a message as long as it’s reasonably, humanly possible. And if a message ain’t possible, I expect an apology when they arrive. “Sorry I’m late and that I couldn’t message you,” does wonders. It means you recognize you made a promise, something went wrong, and you did the best you could do. “Sorry I’m late” is actually code for, “I respect you.”

And that brings me to the final issue…

Missing Players: When It’s Time to Start and Someone’s Missing

The minute you acknowledge lateness and absences are totally normal, human things that are gonna happen and that, as long everyone respects everyone else by doing their level best to communicate their issues, you also have to accept there will come a day when you’re sitting at your game table as the clock ticks over to game time and you’ve got an empty chair. You totally expected a body in that seat, it’s game time, but they’re missing in action.

Related to this is the day you’re sitting there at the start of the game and, instead of a player, you’ve got a message on your phone that says, “Running late, be there soon.” Or, “Be there in ten minutes.” Or an hour. Whatever.

Hopefully, y’all remember how I once told you to establish both a firm Arrive-By Time and a firm Start-of-Game Time. That’s part of your Scheduling and Attendance Policy too. Everyone’s got to know when you expect them to walk through the door or connect to the Zoom room. And everyone’s got to understand that if they show up at Start-of-Game Time, they’re late.

From a contingency-planning standpoint, you don’t want to waste game time wondering what to do about the unexpectedly empty chair or the running late text message. You should already know how to handle that shit.

Here’s what I do. If someone warns me they’re running late, I’ll wait to start the game until they arrive. How long? It depends on the group and the session I’ve got planned and whether I’ve already got a quorum and whether they told me when to expect them and how often this particular truant fucks up my Game Night schedule. If everyone’s chatting and having fun and I’ve got a firm ETA, I’ve been known to wait a half-hour to start the game. But normally, it’s closer to fifteen minutes. Then I start without them.

For a No-Call, No-Show situation, my first move — which I do about five minutes before Start-of-Game Time — is to send a message to their point of contact saying, “You coming?” or “Everything okay?” And then I wait to see what comes back. If I get an answer, I can evaluate the situation. Otherwise, I’ll wait fifteen minutes and then start the game.

It’s worth noting that late arrivals are really disruptive. And the later the arrival, the greater the disruption. That’s why I prefer not to start if I know someone’s on their way. I’d rather lose a few minutes of game time than start the game, stop it when they show up, catch them up, work them in, and so on.

That’s also why part of my Scheduling and Attendance Policy is making sure my players know that if they show up and the game’s already in session, they’re to come in quietly, sit down, get their shit ready, and then wait until I’m ready to deal with them. They are not to disrupt or interrupt the game in progress. That’s also why I make it clear that no one is to show up more than one hour late. If Adam’s got a scheduling conflict that’ll make him 90 minutes late, say, I’ll tell him to just miss the session. And if someone has an emergency and gets held up, I expect them to turn around and go home if they’re gonna arrive more than an hour after the Start-of-Game Time.

You’ll want to address these same contingencies in your own policy. That doesn’t mean you need to handle things the way I do, but you do want to address the same concerns. And the more experience you’ve got managing campaigns, the better you’ll be able to foresee the contingencies you’ll want a plan for.

Holy Crap! Is That the Time?

I just looked at the clock and holy shit did I run over time. Which ain’t great; I’ve got a few more things to cover here. I want to share some useful tools, talk about contact and communication information, discuss the needs of the game itself, and talk you through handling minor player slip-ups that need a slap on the wrist. I’ll just have to finish up in the next lesson. I’d keep going, but I want to respect your time by not keeping you late. I’m sorry I rambled on so long.

See? A simple apology is all it takes! Why is that so fucking hard?!