OK Guys; thanks for all of your thoughts, ideas and input. I have decided to do the following; leave the rules for death saves as they are but make them in secret. I will also use tactics to allow monsters and NPCs a better chance to win; but this will depend upon their intelligence, training and motivations. Note that animals are very dangerous for downed characters because they will rend an unconscious creature just because they are hungry...... On the subject of scheduling I don't want a lot more book-keeping, nor do I want to discourage my most motivated players to play. So here is what we'll do: 1) I will announce a slot; I will try and do it 48 hours ahead, but sometimes there will be much less notice. 2) There will be eight slots for each game; players sign up and once the slots are full I will allocate places on the game as follows; a) if there are any 1st level characters, characters who are 3 levels behind the highest character level in the game, players who have not played before, or players whose character recently died, they automatically 'win' the lottery. b) after that it will be based upon the same first come first served system as before; to encourage the motivated players to keep on trying. 3) Players selected decide upon a destination/mission and inform me; they also decide how many of the eight to take on the misison and how many reserves. I will have no input into this except that players can make investigation checks to determine how dangerous the location is.
