Online Player Retention

[shezingzh]

damned, your awesome and all but the fact that I speak for more than half the DMs out there is a fact. I first started with Dungeon of the Mad Mage got off the ground I even informed the people when I made my first post I was a newbie to VTT 3 weeks later every player quit on me except 1. The one that stuck with me was also new to VTT. I ended up showing him how to run the VTT as I attended the college of lore and began learning on how this program functioned. hes the only one that stuck it out. Now I am down to 4 players out of 11 after 7 quit on me over this past 2 weeks. All of them asking me to run campaigns instead of one shots.

Sundays game: started with 4 - 2 quit
Saturdays game: started with 5 - 3 quit
Thursday game: started with 8 - 6 quit

These players asked us DMs to commit to campaigns and not to quit after they complete their first campaign. I have literally every tool a player could want to create the best classes and characters ever. I have added the Psion/Mystic class and the Dragon Lord class. Yet with all of my commitment this is my reward.

So damned I will do something for the gentleman, I am going to offer a choice between saturdays game or sundays game. As a DM I am going to put the player on notice. He gets one shot and one shot only. I will accept no excuses, I will not tolerate a no show, I will not tolerate a no response when a request is sent asking what happen to you. If he quits before the campaign is done. I will request he no longer posts here as a player again until he runs his own campaign as a DM so he can experience what we go through.

FG License: Unity (ultimate - demo accepted)
Game System: 5E

Time Zone: CST - Florida ( UTC/GMT -4)
Day of week and time: Sunday, 7:00 PM cst
Planned start date: in progress
Planned Duration & Frequency: 4 hours, weekly
Term: Until Campaign Ends

Text or Voice: voice
Voice software used: discord
Will this be recorded and/or live streamed? No.


Roleplay & Combat mix: 20/80
Number of Players in game & needed: accepting one
Character starting level & equipment: Sunday campaign "Storm King's Thunder" (Level 8 - equipment will be provided for the appropriate level) in progress. Saturday "Sunless Citadel" (Level 1/ starting level equipment) in progress
Character restrictions: Limited to Fantasy Grounds resource books and all the resources purchased from Fantasy Grounds/Smiteworks and DMSGUILD.

damned, I will accept him as a player he has until 12 noon cst on Friday to pm me as to which game he wants to be in. Here are my conditions:

1. If he quits I will make sure the forum knows.
2. I will accept no excuse for a no show. He misses one day he gets kicked.
3. If he does quit an he ever advertises again as a player I will call him out and request he advertise as a DM - ONLY!
4. Don't enter my game as one of those boss type arguing rules players either. You are coming into my game not yours.

I am going to start keeping track of every player who quit and reason why they quit so other DMs will know not to accept these players. Us DMs need to start a player reputation scoreboard. damned, got much respect for you, but this is the reality and Frostrazor1334 is a rare breed to even agree with me.

My offer is open until Friday 12 noon cst all he has to do is pm me. lets not forget, the gentleman in Japan offered him a spot and he never responded or accepted the offer.

[damned]

Hi shezingzh

Ive moved your post to a new thread.
Running games online introduces a whole slew of challenges and players ghosting is absolutely one of them.
You are recruiting from people you dont know and will probably never meet face to face.
Many people have wildy different expectation about what they want from a game.
There are many styles of play and even more styles of GMing.
People have **** going on in their lives and also many people dont understand that joining a campaign should be a commitment of sorts.

Say you joined my game and really didnt like the style of game, or someone else at the table, or my annoying habit of <insert one of many here> or your schedule changed or you didnt realise that starting at this time would be as hard as it was or your mum got real sick or your hours at work got cut back by 25% and you didnt think you could pay all your bills or the other game that you applied for which was the one you have been desperate to play in came available or... you get it.

What is important is that we show each other some respect and we tell the GM - or the player - or the group - that we are sorry - the game isnt working out for me and I will drop out at the end of the session. Be polite. Dont criticise the others - things dont work for lots of reasons and often that reason is ourselves.

We used to say "mark experience and move on".

[similarly]

Communication about expectations is really important, but flexibility on expectations is probably even more important. I think it's just etiquette that people give some notice before leaving: example, at the end of the campaign, or the end of the month, or two weeks from now. It gives the GM and players time to adjust, fill gaps, write people out of the story, and write new people in, etc. But as a longtime GM, I also realize that people sometimes have unexpected things come up in their lives, and those unexpected things get more frequent and more important the older we get.

I'm just getting back to D&D after a 25 year absence (in part because I moved away from my old group), but it's no coincidence that my children are adults now, ergo, I have more free time.

[damned]

Also no public naming and shaming will be tolerated on any FG site - here, Discord, Facebook etc.
What you do in your own space is up to you.

[Mytherus]

What?!

Though the topic is obvious the contrxt of adressing damned is confusing. But that aside i am a DM as well. I'm just exploring other sites/groups for player recruitment just for mpre options. That said as of now all my FG players came from these forums (lfg) .

I've had very positive results. A few quit as time went on. But they were valid reasons and respectful to me. I think i had a total of 4 people over 2 years quit. 1 was he realized he was too busy and had to free time up. He was a good dude and a fine player i was sorry he left. Two others left again respectfully because of other lets say "game philosophy " differences with one or more other players. The last one is the inique cast i wont detail. All these players read these forums so i wish to return the respect they have given me.

My point. Life happens, as damned said in his post, you may not know the reasons players drop. They should at least give you one upon leaving your game.

Its an old sayong but I've found its largely true..
You get what you give.

You want respect give it first. You aggressive post of "this guy doesnt do this by then he is done" style...i wouldn't play with you either.

My way is this and it works for me. I think one thing above all...i dont care how great a player is at the game...as long as they are willing to learn and listen. I do care they are respectful and act like adults. At the same time I'm not their dad and i dont play with kids. If someone gets passionate about a rile once in a while hey it happens. Just be respectful and they need to know when the dm says stop..

Stop.

Conversely i know there's better dms than I . I know i have frustrating habits that probably drive my players crazy. However i put forth and effort to constantly better my dm skills...i am respectful (btw respectful doesn't mean lay down and get rolled over) i play more "rule of cool" than blind devotion to RAW and we joke around to have fun.

Does it stink when a player is late yeah...but life man. You take it in stride.

[JohnD]

This is going to be long and burn a lot of my time to type, so I hope it's helpful/appreciated by the OP or indeed anyone else.

Of all the things vying for someone's time, an online game will likely be on the lower end of the priority scale. That's just the way it is.

Work, kids, inlaws, family, parents, bills, chores, real life in person commitments, day starting before sunrise and bleeding into way after sunset... all of these things will likely trump an online game with a collection of online strangers whom you will never meet in real life to share a beer, a joint or a burger with.

It is perhaps one of the most frustrating things a DMhas to come to terms with when gaming online. You can almost never just show up for a session without prior ground work being done. Or exhausted after a work day that has alternated between kicking your butt and kicking you in the junk over and over again. So, sure - when people flake and disappear into the internet ether it can be frustrating.

Look up the term "churn" - it generally applies to employee staffing and customers in a business setting, but it is also what you're going through in your games. You recruit 6 players (customers, employees) and after 2 sessions (purchases, shifts), they quit on you. You're churning people right now - all that means is you haven't found a group of people that meet your personal style, game style, game frequency, game start and end times, whatever, etc....

The only way you can really get through this stage is to keep churning. For every 6 people you recruit, you might keep one. But eventually you'll get from a solid reliable roster of 2 players, to 3... then over time, 4 and so on until you have whatever number you feel conmfortable with.

It's a big kick in the pants... I used to sit down with a new player and spend an hour to 90 minutes walking them through character generation, how to use FG, etc... this was in addition to building content and actual game nights. Then sometimes I took 30 minutes of an actual game night to integrate that new player/PC into the group in a holistic in-setting in-character manner... only to have the person self-select out a week or two later. It really, really used to piss me off.

But then I realized I was casting my net far and wide and accepting any old fish or crab or algae that happened to get caught in it. A DM is far better off having a group of 3 solid reliable 85% of the time people than a group of 6 where you're never sure if 5 of them will show on game night.

Be specific and target the type of player you want in your game. Don't recruit a 19 year old consumer of soy and vegan products if you want a 50 year old whiskey drinker and meat eater (or vice versa). The majority of my groups are in their 40s/50s/60s and older, but there's one player in his early 20s who just fits in beautifully.

Here's what I've found works well for group cohesion (and I've been running games online since 2002):

- get an email address from everyone and make it clear that while you aren't going to send emails every 15 minutes, there will be at least one between most game sessions.
- use the FG Game Calendar and make it a requirement that everyone is a member of your game page.
- schedule your games in the calendar utility that's on your campaign page.
- schedule your games as far in advance as possible - at least a week out works well.
- a few days after you put a game in the calendar, check to see who has voted they will attend ("Yes") and who has voted they won't ("No") and who hasn't voted at all yet.
- send an email to the whole group telling them there is a game in the calendar that you would like them to vote their availability on.
- set the expectation for a minimum number of "Yes" votes for the game to be confirmed. I use 50%+1 myself for a quorum, but make up your mind on this.
- there are positives and negatives to whatever you set as your minimum player turnout so give it some thought and be willing to change your mind on the spot
- confirm your game 24 hours ahead via email to everyone - this is important as it is a reminder of a commitment coming up.
- don't be afraid to cancel a game if you need 5 people and only 2 show (alternatively, perhaps those 2 are the foundation of your future solid group so consider going ahead with just them if it is feasible).
- update your players when FG is online prior to game time, or establish a routine - I like to have FG online around an hour ahead of game time as a standard and everyone knows they're welcome to connect early.
- spend zero extra time introducing a new person into your group - this is counterintuitive if you like to run a story in-character based game, I know. But don't waste time when you don't know if you have a looky-loo or a serious person on your hands yet.
- have some NP-PCs on hand for new people (Non-Playing Player Characters). These can be hangers on that sometimes adventure with the main group but usually stay in camp staffing the fire wood chopping, horse feeding and cooking duties of a successful adventuring party.
- once the player proves themselves reliable, work on a new personal PC with them and write that PC into your group with an in-game in-character introduction.
- be upfront with people and let them know your requirements for attendance. Expecting 100% will likely lead to your disappointment. But establish some guidelines like not voting in the calendar for 3 consecutive games and not maintaining email communications will see you drop them from the group. No response/vote is actually much worse for a cohesive group than a "No" response or vote.
- don't be afraid to boot people who aren't showing up - they have 99% of the time self selected out of your game and just haven't had the courtesy to let you know. Don't name and shame these people but do keep your own personal list of email addresses, forum IDs and names.
- in fact do the above on both ends of the spectrum - when someone leaves that was really great in your group (but life just got in the way or whatever), add them to your "would play with again" list because who knows 18 months down the line circumstances might change... and if someone leaves the wrong way, add their information to the "never bring back" list. Build your own naughty and nice list - a good foundation for future recruiting efforts.

Anyways, that's way more than enough advice garnered through personal experience... it should help smooth things out going forward for you... if you're so inclined.

Edited to add:
I'm going to also suggest you discontinue the hostile attitude; for one it is right now poisoning your efforts to recruit new players right here on the FG forums. People game to get a respite from the crap every day life throws our way and the attitude is something I would also shy away from (I get enough of that from my wife unfortunately...). It's a game not a 2nd or 3rd job to make ends meet where you have to swallow your tongue and put up with the a-hole boss.

[Granamere]

So far my current group I started with 4 players. One dropped out after a couple of sessions. AKA bad schedule conflict. Life happens. Then her brother in Germany joined the group. Going in we knew there would be weeks he could not play but others in the group ran his character for him. It made for some interesting stories when he came back.

We have had several weeks where we had problems with the scheduled date. So our rule is if half the party can not be there then we either rescheduled or wait a week.

Then I killed the whole group off. The reason I did this was I listened to my players. The current game was not what most of them wanted. They also wanted to play different classes. They really wanted a 95% dungeon crawl with 5% roleplay. So the fastest way to make them happy was to start fresh. After one of them trying to win an unwinnable fight the rest after they saw what the fight was moved to taking about what they wanted their next character to be and got much happier in minutes.

All this to say sometimes you have to listen to how they say things and not be unwilling to scrap everything.

When we restarted the sister came back and we lost the brother because he was moving back to the US. Once he gets settled he might rejoin the group. So not sure where this places me on player retention.

[damned]

A couple of points that I will add too:

If I have a new player join an existing table I encourage them to pick up an existing abandoned character for their first session. That way the story lines are least affected and there is little to no prep work required.
If I have only 2 players show we will almost always play - I want the players to know that the game is on and ensure they get their reward(?) for also committing to the time - but we might play a side quest if the story is crucial at that point.

[spoofer]

I have been DMing via FG for ten years now. During my time, I have completely changed my approach to this problem. Here is what works for me personally these days...

Charge money.

Now let me explain. When I recruit, I tell the new players that I will be charging money and that the money will go towards supporting artists who create tokens and maps. I have a few favorite artists that I try to support as much as possible. However, the real reason I charge money is to filter out the players who want to join our group. I have experienced players having a strong, negative reaction to the concept of paying money to play a rpg. These are the players that I do not want at my table. And they do not show up. They do not even respond to the looking for player posts. So that is a win-win for everyone.

On the other hand, the players who do show up are committed, and stay with the group. They have already gone through the thought process of "do I really want to give some stranger money for this??" and concluded yes. Part of that thought process is thinking about how priority of the game in their busy life. No player who has paid me money has quit after a short amount of time.

Now, here is the best part... I charge 10$ US a year. Yup, that is right. Like I said, the only reason I charge money is to force the player to think about priorities and commitment levels before joining us. And it seems that a tiny amount of money is enough to do just that. And being able to support the fantasy artists is an awesome bonus.

That is what works for me.

[spoofer]

I want to add something. I am the only one in my groups who charge money. Some of the other game masters struggle with this problem of quick quitters. Another game master I play with recruits face to face from the local board gaming meet ups and has no problem at all. His new players always stay for a long time. So there are lots of different solutions to this problem.