Advice for inconsistant schedualing?

I have been trying to get in a Vampire: The Requiem / New World of Darkness game for a while, but with a shift in employment I am no longer bound to a consistent scheduled. To those of you guys in the graveyard shifts, pulling split shifts, or just have random responsibilities being the only consistent part of your day, how do you all manage to get a game in? Right now I am looking for just one-shots because I do not want to put other players or story tellers in a bad place due to me suddenly having to pick up a shift on the planned night. While I can offer a scheduled for the week, a consistant day of the week set for play is completely impossible. I would love to hear any advice you have to offer. Thanks for your time, - Derek

One shots and play by post games are generally considered the best option for that type of schedule. Episodic adventures are also good to run. Each session is a one shot but the players would show up as they can, basically a rotating pool of players that had their characters to play. Session 1 players a, b, c, d showed up and played and finished the adventure session 2 players a, b, d showed up so they played continued playing in the same setting and ran in an adventure for them and finished it up session3 players b, c, d shows up so they play their characters in another adventure. session 4+ etc.... This works best if the GM can handle some randomness of the players coming and going and is willing to be flexible with character levels.

I've found that games with a good "home base" tend to work well with inconsistent attendance, as long as you design the sessions to begin and end at or near the "home base". For example, if the game is sci-fi and you have the characters going back to the ship after every session. That way, you can easily explain where the inactive characters currently are.

Have you run into games that are at all like what you are describing?

I've actually ran a few, although they weren't on Roll20. One was for Star Wars Saga that lasted over a year, and I had 8 players. Usually 6 would show on any single game session. I had a map for the ship as the "home map" where I had all the tokens stored, which also allowed for ship-side encounters.

Look for some "Open table" games. This can be better than one-shots, because you can return to play again whenever you want. I run an open table game of Basic Fantasy. It is dungeon exploring and players can come & go as they please, when I am GM'ing. Players can even propose new times to play a session. I just need at least one player at any given time for the dungeons to be open. Usually several other players will show up and join your delve. This game is not currently listed in LFG so PM me directly asking about "Basic" if you want to join this one as an alternative. There are other "Open table" games you can find in the LFG, and there might be the game system you are looking for.

Thanks for the insight Gold, no, I have not found any group that would seem to be a good fit. I've played a lot of fantasy (DnD 3.5 and Pathfinder predominantly), so I may have to look into your game though I do not know the ruleset for Basic Fantasy. Lately I have been churning out a lot of characters for nWoD and V:TR, also a few for Black Crusade, I enjoy those darker themes and exploring stories from those angles. I actually haven't found alot of open table options, or any real options period. Would love to discuss what it is you are doing with your Open Table Basic Fantasy game, see if there is any interesting angle to explore the world you have offered to your players.

Basic Fantasy is a rules-light game system modeled on the classic RPG rules of the early 1980's. Though based loosely on the d20 SRD v3.5, Basic Fantasy RPG has been written largely from scratch to replicate the look, feel, and mechanics of the early RPG game systems. It is suitable for those who are fans of "old-school" game mechanics. Basic Fantasy RPG is an Open Source game system, supported by dedicated fans worldwide who have contributed hundreds of pages of rules supplements, adventure modules, and other useful and enjoyable game materials There is work being done on a BFRPG sheet template but it has not been approved to the public list yet. It is still in the github

Thank you Pat!

You are welcome It has been my go to system for the last 10 years.

Basic Fantasy started to come out in 2006 in beta.

I couldn't remember if it was 8 or 10 yrs since I was hanging on Dragonfoot but I thought Chris was working on it in Dragonfoot back then. I swore I thought I grabbed a pdf of it back then but I could be wrong on that anyway. Memory gets foggy once you reach a certain age.