[Organzing] How to Schedule Game Times?

I am trying to get some people together and it has been a real chore to try to figure out peoples schedules. It also seems to take a ton of messaging back and forth. I know I cannot be the only host that has this issues. I was curious how others handle this and would love some suggestions as well.

Example of a time schedule I used to use Player Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday ME (UTC-6) n/a n/a 4pm - 9pm n/a 6pm-midnight 6pm-midnight n/a  another (UTC-5) 1am-6am  n/a  5pm-10pm  7pm-1am   n/a n/a  n/a  I've used something similar to this for planning out game days. Anyone that works or has school usually knows their schedule week or two in advance so using something like this helps out.

That's way better than my concept which was post times available, and everyone was confused because we were all using different times zones and standards. The concept was we'll work something out. It was...disorganized to say the least. It worked itself out after I organize it to use one standard and picked a time. I learned at lot after my fails as a newbie DM, and this helps me even more.

It takes a little adjusting but once you get use to it you can look at the player and see that if one is utc-6 and can play 4-9 on wed and the other is a utc-5 that can play on wed at 5-10 and tell it is the same time. It does get tricky as you get wider time zones but the info is there to look over and figure out. The main problem is when people at like utc+10 and others are utc-4. That is 14 hr difference so there is some work to be done to get a game together with those people as an example.

Should be simple. GM sets time for game.  Players who can make it to the game at that time and frequency sign up. I guess if you just want to get a big group of people and play at random times during the week, things will be more complicated.  I don't have any advice for how to make that work (other than that I don't think that game will last very long)

<a href="http://www.doodle.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.doodle.com/</a> &nbsp;&lt;&lt; Learned about this in university, and it could work great. You input your avail. times and then send to your players so they can do the same.

Problem with Doodle is if you do not have e-mails you cannot send it to others. I looked at it, and did not see an option that people could just access it through the web address. I might have missed that function though.

Justin in theory that works, just slap a time on and whoever wants to come will come. That is only if you have a large group to pull from. In this example its a relatively small group, so every person counts. If I want to play with more than 1-2 other people I need to schedule it in such a way that the most people can shot up.

If I'm setting up a new game, I would just say "Ok, this is the time the game is gonna be." My first game I did a "ok, I'm available whenever, but want it to be in GMT evening timezone." and then people signed up with "Yes I can only play Wednesday and Saturday" or "I can't play Saturday at all, but tuesday is perfect" and so on. I had to sort through all that, and then in the end make a call to when the game is anyway. The problem then was telling those players that couldn't make the time that it didn't work. So for new games: Just set a time. If you have a few players already: Contact them, maybe in a groupchat on skype or PM them, and have them input their available times. Then see if you find one that fits all. Or propose a few times "Ok, I can either play Sat 7 pm, Mon-Wed 6pm or Fri at 5pm, which of those could you make and which not?" But if you then search for new players, have that done already and post a definite date in the forum.

Quatar said: If I'm setting up a new game, I would just say "Ok, this is the time the game is gonna be." This. &nbsp;Unless you've already found a small group of people and are committed to them hell or high water regardless of schedule, it's to everyone's benefit for the GM to just pick a time and commit to it. &nbsp;You don't have a small group of people automatically, there's something like 200,000+ users remember. My own experiences are merely anecdotal, but you get a larger (and better committed) group from which to choose from if you advertise your meeting time from the outset. &nbsp;Otherwise, it's like when my wife and I need to pick a place to eat, but neither of us are in the mood for anything in particular. &nbsp;"I dunno, what do you want to do?" for a half hour 'til someone picks something.

Yeah Dave I get that one from my wife too, I typically give her a list of three places, tell her to pick one, then ask 10 minutes later if she has made a decision. Also, I ask her a yes or no question, I tell, "Look honey the answer is yes, no or I don't know and I don't know counts as a no, so what do you want to do?" She typically throws something at me at that time. She works in a law office so getting a straight fucking answer is like trying to pile sand up. Again, the biggest issue is that the pool of interest I have to draw from is so small I want to accommodate the largest group&nbsp; I can. It's not like its Pathfinder or 4E where I can hardly throw a gawd damn rock without hitting a friggn player for that system.

rpgman2013 said: It's not like its Pathfinder or 4E where I can hardly throw a gawd damn rock without hitting a friggn player for that system. It's not impossible (or difficult) to start up games for other systems here, although I have learned a few lessons the hard way when starting out. &nbsp;I really recommend branching out from just the LFG forum to track down players. &nbsp;Beyond the 200,000 members signed up, there are many additional people who are potentially waiting for your game to go ahead and sign up. &nbsp;General interest role playing forums, game specific forums and Google+ Communities are great ways to pick up people who aren't checking the forums here on a daily basis. &nbsp;I was also really surprised at how well the LFG search app worked, but its best not to limit yourself to just one avenue if you're running a game other than new school D&amp;D.

I would love to see a small list of the places you would suggest: google communities, forums, etc.

What RPG are you trying to attract players for?

Talisman, a boardgame.

I know next to nothing about board games, so this is me spit balling here: RPG.net has the Gamer Gatherings sub forum which isn't RPG specific. Fantasy Flight Games &nbsp;(the current publisher) has its own forum. Board Game Geek has game organization forums somewhere in there. Here's a board game Google+ community. &nbsp; Don't forget the Roll20 player network. &nbsp; Again, I'm not into board games apart from Scrabble so my knowledge is going to be limited. Since it's a board game, you might also look into running it asynchronously and then you wouldn't have to worry about times as much. &nbsp;There are quite a few threads on the forums about running asynchronous games if you search for them. Good luck!

Also, I love Roll20 and feel like I get more than five bucks worth a month, but you might want to check in to things like&nbsp; VASSAL .

Yes I am familiar with Vassal, but the issue with Vassal is finding people to play. I suppose you could recruit from Roll20 to play on Vassal, but that just feels ... wrong? Besides I already created Talisman on Roll20 to experiment with deck creation and so on. But the suggestion of Vassal is great, its a friggin great program!

rpgman2013 said: Problem with Doodle is if you do not have e-mails you cannot send it to others. I looked at it, and did not see an option that people could just access it through the web address. I might have missed that function though. You definitely have the ability to just send someone the doodle link via web address, it's what I've been doing (successfully?) for months now as a DM. Just decide what time slots your available, and send the link to others via any chat or email. You can receive email updates when someone fills confirms their availability even.