Hey treetop, I applaud this effort to try and get a stable group on roll20 and sometimes it's as you say pull your hair out to not have people drop because they got a date with their girlfriend or whatever. all of those issues. My game is about as hard-core as yours, (Super gritty healing, healing potions rare, encumbrance, ammunition, water and food requirements of the desert, critical hits, and a very well defined style of play that is just very hard-core because I am a military veteran.) except I don't have gnomes steam punk, but I have done that kind of "these are the conditions, if you don't meet them, I don't want you in my group." It works, defining what you want exactly. Prepare to take a lot of flak for this, though, and get blasted before the mods step in, and tell people to keep on topic. Sounds like the start on the pirate ship is cool, that is pretty good reminds me of treasure hunt module from second edition D&D. In any case I'm not the guy you're looking for, but I respect that your game is gonna be pretty cool, as I am retired and I run two regular 5E campaigns a week plus I also run one shots for people new to Fifth edition D&D, and new to roll 20 to try and grow the community, because of the I guess is 20 to 25 players to one DM ratio. I hate to see the process of screening for absolute new people that they have to go through to get play here. Plus, moving to Thailand in February, for retirement plus some undergoing eye surgery next month, plus my wife is sick, recovering from surgery on her skull on her ear. So I'm not the guy you're looking for but I am the type of guy you're looking for, and you will find those people, so good luck dude. I think I've seen you post for games before, I sort of recognize your name. All the problem people that you have listed, yeah I have run into those/ Although sometimes it's a GM problem. I recall a scenario last year were a guy had all the player characters in episode one of the Numenera campaign be homosexually raped by clowns as the first scene of the first episode. The second scene was all of us leaving the game!! hahaha Good luck With this,man. We are Seemingly kindred spirits.