It's probably not your fault. Year-long campaigns are just a very niche sell. Maybe you need to run a few oneshots instead?
Signed, someone just like you
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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Having run and participated in a few multi-year games with busy adults with children, my absolutely unsolicited advice for anyone wondering how to do the same is the following:
Run the game online. I still like in-person better but you cannot underestimate how much logistical burden is removed by allowing folks to log in and jump on mic/video. I recommend FoundrtVTT - no subscription and it has support for a ton of different systems, particular shout out for the masterpiece that is it's PF2e support.
Get more players. This seems counter-intuitive since that is more points of scheduling conflict. However, what you do if you want to run a 4-person game is get like 6 players. If at least 3 or 4 can make it, have the game. The PCs whose players can't make it just fade into the background and can reappear next session. Sounds weird but it keeps things moving. You'll get a feel for balancing encounters based on who shows up the most and will get better at that.
Run shorter sessions. I feel like I see a lot of posts about people running 4+ hour sessions and when we do get in person, we do that. But for week-to-week games, that is a significant commitment. I know for our group we keep them 7:30pm-10pm with some understanding that the first 15 minutes is usually time spent letting delayed people show up and going over what happened last time (good opportunity to give out inspiration/hero points). A rushed hour-and-half session is still better than a canceled session.
Talk to your players. I think this supercedes the above but just chat with people to see what can work. I mentioned our start time of 7:30 but if people are not able to start that early, we'll postpone to 8 or even 8:30 that night. That comes from communication. Check in with each other periodically to see if there should be other times considered. Essentially, focus on what works for your table. Be flexible, allow folks to miss a bunch of games consecutively if needed. Make sure it's a fun thing and not an obligation.
All that being said, if people aren't engaged in the game or that interested in playing, there's not really anything you can or should do about that aside from find other players.
Another benefit to remote Foundry games: you can stop at any time and the board/scene does not change. Hit a hard stop time in the middle of combat? Who cares! The turn tracker will stay right where it’s at until next week.
It is truly a blessing for the times I torture my players with a 4 hour boss fight which was, of course, preceded by 1.5 hours of them being indecisive at the magic shop.
Hey! Couple q's regarding Foundry. I'm the DM of our group, and have a ton (and I mean a ton) of homebrew for the campaign we're running atm. The homebrew spans changes to core mechanics (no damage rolls for example) to completely revamped classes, races, and backgrounds. How easy is it to homebrew on foundry? I've been eyeing it for a while because roll20 is so user unfriendly I was thinking of going back to Owlbear and manage everything through google sheets, or upgrading to paid VTTs.
I’ve been running games on foundry for 2-3 years and don’t think you’ll have issues with custom classes, races, or backgrounds unless you are doing something really really wild.
The core mechanical changes are going to be harder, but compared to roll20 it wouldn’t even be a competition foundry is just better for customization.
The most annoying thing is probably going to be porting all your homebrew. You can share it between worlds though via compendiums which is a nice timesaver.
Oh, that's nice. Does homebrewing require coding? I have some experience with markup and javascript but not enough to know I won't muck it up.
Most of the classes, races, and backgrounds are forms with various modifiers you can add/remove/tweak in the UI. So those won’t need any real coding unless you’re trying to do something REALLY custom like a new mechanic that doesn’t exist in DND core at all. I think a good example of really custom would be a star shaped spell area of effect. Possible to do, just might need to get a module or code one yourself if no one else has.
For the system rules those are harder to edit and you will need to code for that. If you can make your modifications work in roll20 though I would be surprised if you couldn’t do that in foundry.
Honestly the biggest selling point for me was the plug-ins/modules the community can make. I would take a peek at some of those as they’re such a game changer compared to roll20 and the other vtt’s I’ve used.
Sounds cool ngl, I'll spin the idea to my table and split the cost. Thanks!
Superb advice!