Help me undertsand something

Hi, Please help me understand why I see all these games in LFG with 1 or 2 player of like 6 that have a bunch of applicants? Many of these have play times for today (sat). What is going on? Do people make games and just abandon them or something? Why aren't the applicants looked at or approved? What is going on with these games? Why aren't the DMs filling up their games?

I would suppose that all depends upon the individual GMs. Some GMs have limited time to monitor their advertisements and simply haven't gotten the chance to update their ads  after their player rosters are filled ; others may just not give that kind of maintenance a priority . None of that is in Roll20's control. Do people make games and just abandon them or something? That also may happen. <shrug> People gonna do as people gonna do.

Typically, games looking for players get a lot of attention. The DM need time to review all that are interested and form my experience screen potential players before actually inviting to the game. The reason for this is the get to know a little about them so their addition isn't super disruptive. 

the more picky you are as a GM the longer it will take you to fill the spots. myself I only recruit players over the age of 24 for example, that by itself narrows the player base pool. 

Hi I'm a GM and I've been here forever and have run over two dozen campaigns since this site started. What happens is you have people who are looking for a game and so they say hey I'm looking for a game but that is not the most efficient way to get into a game what's the most efficient way is when the GM posts for openings, then they screen applicants for a certain number of slots like five or six and then those posts get all the attention because you're open for business. Now if I'm running a game and I don't really need a bunch of players I'll throw up an ad on lfg that says hey we have five we're looking for six and people wander in but what I'm actively recruiting I'm posting a huge ad with pictures and like that. So these people that are out there posting their ad like I'm a player I want to join a game, most DMS do not browse these everyday cuz they're too busy prepping their campaign and you'd have to end up working harder to scroll through the dozens and dozens of people that are looking by reading every thread making sure it's D&D making sure it's the time frame that you're looking for to run on the day that you're looking for to run and it just doesn't work so it falls to the players to recruit for the games that are actively running. Also it's true that the ratio of DM to players used to be say 10 years ago about 10 to 1 but now it's 20 to 25 to 1 or maybe even higher because nobody wants to take the time to run a game, because it's very difficult and you get multiple dungeon Masters who say oh this is so much fun I'd like to run a game and then they start preparing for the game and they get overwhelmed and even though they might have had four or five or six players they haven't read the rules completely they don't have any Maps they don't have any characters they don't have any tokens they don't know how to run a game via roll 20 or another virtual table top. Then they bail... And they don't want to say to the people " okay I don't know how to do this right...I need to study more" that doesn't happen.... and you see: my DM just flaked out... I'm looking for a game...and that's how that happens. Many people that I meet tell me that they're not so sure if they want to join because every game that they join dies within three sessions but I routinely have run campaigns 12 session 16 sessions, 16 months. But so there's a lack of dungeon masters, those games are always full because I can guarantee you if I throw up an ad for D&D 5e I get 20 applicants within 24 to 48 hours and then I'm full. Other games that aren't as popular like one ring or James Bond or Call of Cthulhu take a good week or two to recruit for. I'm currently running two games of Star Trek Adventures that take about 2 weeks to recruit for cuz you have to find Star Trek fans that are actually coming here, and they're not looking for D&D they're looking for Star Trek.  Kind of rare....and also... There's a lot of players that have a specific kind of character that they want to play and that's all they want to play and they're not very flexible and they say I got this kind of character and I'm looking for a GM to play it and that usually doesn't work for most games because it's already so specific that the GM will have to change the campaign to fit that character, whether it's going to be a drow or a warlock pact of the chain half giant or some kind of hex blade something I mean it's possible to find a DM who is down with all of those concepts but very often DMS that allow those characters in it becomes kitchen sink with no humans in the party. Welcome to Roll20. I hope you find the game you're looking for.

Thanks for the reply, but holy run on sentences batman!

Yeah I'm an old guy with arthritis and I type from my phone using voice recognition and I'm busy all day running games for money.   I hope you find the game you're looking for.

Sphinxthelion said: Please help me understand why I see all these games in LFG with 1 or 2 player of like 6 that have a bunch of applicants? Many of these have play times for today (sat). What is going on? Do people make games and just abandon them or something? Why aren't the applicants looked at or approved? What is going on with these games? Why aren't the DMs filling up their games? We can't know the particulars of any of these listings (unless one of their authors happens by), but... Could be a schedule. I'll post at night and not come back until the next night. I've noticed occasionally, someone will have replied (I get a PM noticed or a reply to my thread notice) but then the reply is removed. Did they second guess? Did they decide I wasn't responsive enough? IDK. Could be a lack of interest. I pride myself that I reply to every serious request which attempts to address my listing and it's guidelines. But I often don't answer "I wanna play" or request that make it clear they didn't read or didn't care about my guideline. They didn't respect my time, so I respect it for them Could be part of a process. For every opening, I identify the listings I like, and then I ask my players to take a look. Those listing will always get some reply, but often not until by players have hand a chance to weigh in. Could be someone didn't get enough replies in the timeframe they thought was reasonable, and just gave up. And sure, it could be flakiness, or they got the ones they wanted and didn't bother with the rest, and they left the listing up. Or they got kidnapped to be the lead fighter of a desperate alien race in their intergalatic war. Too many variables. It's also possible the forums here are the only tool people use and they might fill their games through another forum for a discord server or such. If you see one of my listings... the page has a good (IMO) summary, and a pretty detailed forum post about what I'm looking for in a player, and in a character proposal. I list what info I want, and I list what resources are acceptable. Still, every time I have an opening, at least half of the applications I get don't address some or all. They less they address, the less likely I am to reply. And if I DO reply, minimum response time is usually a day during the work week. I only wonder if others have similar desires, or other specifics. I don't imagine there are too many people making listing just for fun. As far as browsing the forum here, I do that a lot when I have an opening in the roster. I do it sometimes when I think maybe I can add a player (3-4 is my sweet spot, but I go 5-6 occasionally). I almost never reply to a LFG that doesn't list day/time/timezone. I never reply to listings the DO list day/time/timezone that are incompatible, unless there's a little wiggle room. I also don't reply to obvious play style differences. I run text. I someone doesn't specific, I mat reply to say "How about text." If they say "Absolutely no text; text is for losers!" I assume they won't be interested and don't waste their or my time. When I DO reply, I usually ask for PMs and if I don't get a PM, I don't follow up. In short, I think there's as many answers to this as there are listings.

Teller said: Could be a lack of interest. I pride myself that I reply to every serious request which attempts to address my listing and it's guidelines. But I often don't answer "I wanna play" or request that make it clear they didn't read or didn't care about my guideline. They didn't respect my time, do I respect it for them This is huge.  Respect for someone's time.  A GM has a lot on their hands to actually make a game happen and entertain everyone.  If I've taken the time to lay out what the story and game is about and create an application with questions that need to be answered, the least you can do is read it and fill out the form.  If someone can't be bothered to read the directions or fill out the application, it tells me they're not really serious. I do read every application that gets posted to my games and answers the questions I have.  Some of the answers to those questions can raise some serious red flags that tell me that person's not a good fit for the game, the group or my style.  A GM running a game that's been going for awhile can also start to get pretty picky about who else they let in since they have to not only fit with the game and setting, but work with the already established group and what they've been doing.  So when you're joining a game that's already got like say 3 or 4 people, GMs can get much pickier since they're not desperate for players and looking for a much more perfect fit to round things out. I don't have time to reply to every single application that's not a good fit for what I'm running or explain why this doesn't fit and rework every applicants character or argue with them about why something doesn't work. One thing that can help you get considered for games that's helped me is pitch more than one concept.  Maybe they already have someone playing what you're pitching or they really need something specific like a healer.  It's a bit different for me since I run World of Darkness games like Vampire and Mage rather than D&D, but very similar pitches for PCs make their characters a lot less unique in the group and can make things less fun when there's too much overlap.  By pitching more than one character you can increase your chances of getting into a game just by the additional chance that something will fit.

The applicant pool is full of bad gamers. The good ones are much harder to find.