First, if you’ve been together for a while, and you think you have a great group that is worth preserving, be prepared to take extraordinary steps to maintain it. It is a given that your group will loose a player eventually. Life is like that–full of the unexpected. Someone will be offered a job out-of-state, have their priorities rearranged by marriage or children, die, or simply loose their love of the game. Some things just can’t be bargained with. When it does happen, if you collectively decide that it is necessary or beneficial to recruit new talent, you should be careful. If you don’t approach it with the mindset that all of your existing players are paramount, you run the risk of alienating one or more of them and doing more damage to a group that is already suffering from the loss of a part of itself. You’re never more vulnerable as a group than when the easy balance has to be readjusted.

So what, exactly, does that mean? Any new person you bring in should be thought of as probationary. If their participation begins to cause stress to one or more legacy players, the wisest course is to compassionately let them know that it isn’t working out. That isn’t easy when the new players is a close friend or relative of one of the existing players. My suggestion for handling that is to have the sponsoring player break the bad news. Not only will the excluded player be able to best cope with rejection coming from their sponsor, it gives the sponsor a reason to frame the reasons for it in their own mind and to take ownership of it. As the recommending player, you have to be strong enough to bring someone new into the game, knowing that they might not work out.

What we have embraced as an informal contract amongst ourselves and through trial and error over many years, is that anyone in the group can veto the inclusion of a new player, once given a fair shake, and the others will honor their decision. That doesn’t mean it can’t be discussed, or that the nay-sayer can’t be convinced to change their mind, but it does mean that everyone in the group can feel comfortable knowing that the value they have to the group outweighs the value of any outsider. The moment someone feels otherwise, the bonds that hold the group together begin to weaken and the fracture lines begin to appear.

Obviously, that kind of arrangement won’t work if the members of the group aren’t well-intentioned and receptive to some level of change. You’ll never find a carbon copy of your lost mate to fill his or her niche. But you’d be surprised how many people will fit nicely into your closely-knit group. You can increase the odds by selecting people who are intelligent, civil and honest. The more extreme their personality, the more likely that one or more of your group will react negatively to them.

Another tip and I’ll shut up: it’s best if the wheel changes hands now and then. GM’ing non-stop for years on end is a path to burn-out. It also promotes a group dynamic of “Jim’s group”, with a clear pecking order where Jim is the leader, giving Jim a swelled head and reducing the likelihood of compromise. Even if some of the players never GM, and it is likely that some won’t, having several members hold the reins in turn keeps the democratic nature of the group alive and well. The benefits are obvious and I won’t belabor them further.

I think it’s axiomatic that it is far easier to keep a great gaming group than it is to build one. I hope that my thoughts and experiences are of some value to someone out there.

Everyone has to be on the same page. Every possible crisis/ sticking point/ point of annoyance you can clear up before play is one less that will screw up your game in later. You can have bad plot, poor encounters, npcs that are flat, and still have a good/ entertaining game. You can have an epic plot, great encoutners, npcs that are full of life, and everything just short of a prize winning novel, and it will come crashing down around you and everyone will hate it if a big enough social issue comes up. It is important to get the group together and thinking about it.

Discussing what is expected and what people want in the campaign, beyond the table rules, is gold as well. In “Starting a Campaing The MoonHunte Way,” ( http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=1461 ), I detailed how I go through and start the campaign. The key to my campaign success is feedback.

Give your players what sort of thing you are willing to play, look for their feed back. Ask them what they want to play, incorporate that. Get them involved in the game by getting them to build up ideas they want to see happen. It is all about making sure that your troupe is engaged in the game.

So work with your group and have your group work with you on all things. It will make the game better for everyone.

My group doesn’t have a spelled-out social contract, and while we’ve had the requisite discussions — and benefitted from them — we’ve never used the term at the table. The important thing, like you said, is that it gets talked about — it doesn’t have to be formalized as long as everyone’s on the same page.