I master the game, the game does not master me;
step on up or step on out;
momentum over perfection;
complications more’n obstacles;
the game must go on!

The game must go on! Begin sessions on the day and time scheduled, regardless of who shows or doesn’t show, who is late or whatever.

If each session you take 5 people and try to accomodate all 5, you find that only 3 show up – and the 2 missing include the guy who asked you to change to that new time in the first place. Whereas if you just say, “okay, this is when we’ll play” and stick to it, 4 out of 5 show, and you never see the 5th one again. Which is a pity, but at least the other 4 will be reliable.

Also, running a 7-person game really isn’t too bad. My last campaign I ran 7 or even 8 players at a time, and once I worked out a few kinks (such as keeping a timer on hand to limit decision-making time for combat rounds) it worked out fine. It cost me maybe 10 minutes of extra prep time per session.

Don’t play swap and headaches. If there’s quorum (Over half in attendance) Run. That’s it.

You have to roll with the punches and not treat the game like…well, military service. If one or two people can’t make it, it’s not the end of the world. If it is, maybe you need to learn how to make more flexible plot structures…

Of course, depending on how much of the work you’d like to offload, there may be other less drastic solutions to reducing your workload/prep that might help.

My group is very lucky right now. We have two games that run every week, and are thinking of moving the more-often-cancelled one to every other weekend, and using the free days to run one-shots.

1. Play without Lou.
2. Don’t do the swap and skip that week (possibly doing something else for that week).

Since Lou is only one person, I would tend to go with #1. Missing games are an unfortunate reality. Leave the decision in Lou’s hands on if he now wants to cancel his game or not show in the other one.

I’d go for #1 ..

There is no easy way to accommodate everyone since there is a thing call LIFE that get in the way.

My own session was on hiatus for 1½ months since 1 session was scheduled off and session 2 was cancelled because the DM was under the weather.

There are two games that rotate Sundays.

I run a game at Jack and Jill’s house. My players are Jack, Jill, Bob, Murray, Victor, and Tina.

Bob runs a game at his house. His players are Murray, Victor, Tina, Rich, and Lou.

Lou used to be in my group. He now runs his own game on the weeks I run, while playing in Bob’s game on the other Sundays.

If I swap Sundays with Bob, then Lou is forced to choose between running his game or being a player in Bob’s, since the players in his group won’t swap weeks.

So, let’s say I’m supposed to run on odd Sundays while Bob runs on even Sundays. On Sunday 1, Jack and Jill say that they can’t play on Sunday 3. Normally, we’d swap and run on either Sunday 2 or 4. But since Lou doesn’t want us to move, I’d have to wait until Sunday 5 to run again. If another conflict arose for 5, then I’d now have to wait until Sunday 7.

Does that make more sense?

Matthew – You’ve pretty much pegged the situation. I may pursue the co-GM route, although I’m not sure if the ex-player would enjoy that.

=-=-=Fast forward several hours later, when the player that left my game to run another group had a problem with the swap. His group (which shared no players with ours) refused to swap Sundays, stating that they’d already had alternate plans for the forseeable future and could only play on the original schedule. Effectively, our decision made him have to choose between two games and he would be stuck gaming less frequently (he wants to be able to game weekly).=-=-=

I don’t understand that part. He left your game and his group shares no players with your group. Why is he a factor?

If I’m understanding the gist of things, you have a group who unanimously agreed to alternate the day to get in a game and not go a month without playing. One person (included in considerations for reasons I don’t understand) is being left out. Group > individual.

He wants to game every week, but the main group wants to get one game in that month. . . so let me play a wee fiddle for the gamer who can’t game every single week thinking he has some priority over the group of people who would like to get one game happening over a span of 4 weeks.

I must be missing something, though.

Let me see if I understand: Your group is running two games by two DMs. The players for both games are more or less the same, so you’re used to just being able to flip-flop weeks to avoid schedule conflicts.

However, a player left YOUR game, but stayed in the other game. He now runs his OWN game and group on the same week as yours.

So now you have three games, two groups, and while two of the games are “hot swapable” because they contain the same people, the third game’s DM would then effectively have to be in two places at.

If I’m following correctly, your gaming circle’s got critical mass and it’s just too damn unweildy to make the kind of nimble changes you’re used to.

You could either cut loose the “linchpin” player from both games in your group, thus freeing up your players to flop weeks like normal, OR let him disolve his group and come back into yours. If your game is then too unweildy maybe you could take the linchpin guy on as a “co-dm” obviously he wants some screen time but isn’t really ready or he wouldn’t be so willing to bail on his new group.

On weeks that we have to punt, I often run–or invite others to run–one-shot games. It is usually during these circumstances that we get to try out indy game systems and such. It also manages to scratch that gaming itch.

If all else fails, I have a copy of Arkham Horror and its expansions. Its a board game that feels like an RPG.

Maybe setting up an alternate plan with your players will prevent the situation from feeling so grave?

Was it that badly written? I was trying to avoid names. Maybe I should have used fake names instead?