The Too-Many Players Problem [A GM Discussion]

I don't really know.

Kristin C. Indeed. That's a good way to go. Tom H. I've sent you a message.

I am GM-ing a game, posted it for people to sign up, got a bunch of responses and was happy to choose with whom I wanted to play with. Yes there were some rude people, most were generally pleasant. I think the biggest problem comes from DM's not filling out their campaign properly. It floods the forums with the same questions over and over again. How often do you see VERY vague game information being posted? No clue when the play dates are, no clue as to what game is being run or what details about the campaign or which "house rules" are being implemented. GM's have all the power, so it should be evident from the very begining and that starts with the LFG forum. Overall I was very happy with the process... now FINDING a game is a virtually unbearable chore for me :)

Dan said: I think the biggest problem comes from DM's not filling out their campaign properly. It floods the forums with the same questions over and over again. How often do you see VERY vague game information being posted? No clue when the play dates are, no clue as to what game is being run or what details about the campaign or which "house rules" are being implemented. GM's have all the power, so it should be evident from the very begining and that starts with the LFG forum. I agree with you about a lot of the new game lists are very vague. Before any new or old gm posts they should have decided on some of the basics like the day and time along with the system including any house rules. I would also recommend having their campaign board already setup with everything needed so that the game can start whenever they get a group together.

I have put much thought into the LFG and Player directory of late. It is beyond a joke when trying to find players or games that suit both play style and time zones. Even with the addition of adding in play times to your campaigns, it can be rather frustrating when you have players from all over the world trying to get into a game that is for a specified time zone. I live in Australia and it can be ridiculous trying to find players in my time zone. For the most of it, I end up with with players outside of my time zone telling me they can play on my timezone and then never showing up and then complaining about not being apart of the game. Its very disheartening as a DM knowing that I must sift through tons of posts of players who put little effort into their applications. It has driven me to create forums of my own for players who are in my timezone and I simply do not accept people out side of it. However most players are either not interested in another forum or see it as a chore, which once again it just means that these players to lazy to be bothered with it at all and give me a good judgement that these players wont put effort into the game. I would love to see a better system for DMs to post up in a timezone relevant area, rather then using the LFG system we have now. So instead of just putting a time and date, it would have a Timezone specification for your campaign and then much like looking for a game system, a player could search for a game within their timezone. I do understand that some time zones are only out by like 1-2 hours in some areas of the world and of course the system would require a function that would allow you to specify X+GMT to X+GMT. Then if a player does not show for a game they have committed to a GM should be able to flag that player as a "No Show" giving other GMs a good reference to what this players reliability is like. This could end unfairly so I guess the system would need to unflag a player after X amount of time.

Wouldn't a quick 30 minute to an hour session with applicants be a good gauge of whether the dynamics for good gaming are there or not? If I advertised to run a game and received 15-20 applicants I would guess that I would be able to drop 2-5 based on the way in which they replied, such as using bad grammar or not paying attention to setting/restrictions, etc. I would then divide the applicants into separate "pools" that match party roles. Looking through those I would be able to drop 1-2 people from each role "pool" based on poor character design, or obvious min/maxing/optimizing whatever. Might leave me with 10 or so peeps. Schedule a session with each person separately. If people show up super late, or not at all, they are out. If they show up, game a bit, screw around, you get a good idea of who they are and what you both expect from a game. It might take a a few hours of extra time, it might make it take longer to start the campaign, but I do believe that it would help build a better group that has a better chance of sticking together. And all the extra time gives the DM/GM/ST more time to refine the campaign, and after having a mini-session with everyone the DM/GM/ST should be "know" the characters a bit better.

Could we help solve the problem of adequate or better GM's and players simply with a thumbs up/ thumbs down button? haha. Of course, only giving paying subscribers this ability would help tone down the trolls. Also altering the search engine to display games posted by subscribers first, would also cut down on flaking games... Under the assumption that those who pay are more reliable of course. Simply adding a few tags that represent the style of game being offered would help as well. Though many do this with description anyhow, I think some may not really understand how varied games can be! :) You can play in 10 different pathfinder games and have 10 entirely different experiences, based on what each GM and group of players is expecting to achieve. I think the same can be said for most games.

A thumbs up and down system wouldn't solve any problems. It only promote a few of the highest rated GM while people who don't have subscribers in their game(s) suffer, even if the person is a great GM. I disagree with implementing any sort of system like that. It creates more problems than it would "fix." You answer the problem of making if available to anyone because it would be abused naturally as you pointed out. Once again, you also answer your own statement. Just because someone pays doesn't always mean they are more reliable, it also creates a problem if their game(s) is/are above the others and that GM isn't active either. I approve Larry. If the GM has the time, it's a good way to thin the numbers.

I'm not really sure about the thumbs down button either, but I like the thumbs up button. It could be used by any member without any sort of penalty! I think it would give a game, a player, a campaign, more credibility :) A lot of websites use comments as a source of information gathering on products as well. In a sense, each game created is a product. Though it is too often a kind of "negative advertising" which might not be the greatest. After all, keeping things positive is important. I think the root of the issue is determining which players, GM's and campaigns are most suitable with each other. The question that is difficult to answer is: Is a player or GM reliable? Not sure if there is much that can be implemented to determine this. But more depth and information in campaign creation could lead to players choosing games that better suit their style of play. Excessive numbers of players is a good thing, it means there are many with at least some interest in playing in a game. I think there is a lot that can be done in terms of helping direct players to the game that best fits their interests. In terms of website design, more clarity and options during campaign creation. Can roll20 incentivize GM's to host campaigns? There might be some wiggle-room in that area, though I'm not certain how to go about it. Are there going to be players and GM's who are less than reliable? Of course. Can roll20 determine who is who? Probably, but action taken in that direction holds the risk of alienating part of the community, which is never healthy. PS I see flaws in my own ideas often, and try to point them out. But by doing so, I hope someone else can add to the topic by seeing other methods to implement or compliment them. Please try to add to the conversation with new ideas! thanks :)

I tossed a ghostbusters game together and thought with the simple system it would be easy to run. It sucked and I will freely admit it. I screwed up and let my players down. The game limped along but I knew I disappointed them. Any type of ranking you all are talking about I would receive a poor score because of that one mistake. Anyone looking at the scoring would probably look at the last few scores and would make the assumptions that I'm a poor GM. Even if you go with averages, it would lower my score just because of one bad game. Would this be the correct way of assuming that this is how you are wanting the ranking to be done? Gm's being punished because they make an error and the players give them a bad score. Is this what you are looking at wanting. You have a bad game so your players give you a bad rating or even a new GM that is learning makes mistakes and gets a bad score so no one wants to play in his games because of his rating. He would give up trying to gm which would reduce the number of gm's we have. This could cause a cycle of new gm's getting a bad score and giving up when no one would play in their games and soon there would be no new gm's because of the fear of getting a bad rating score. Sounds to extreme, yes it probably is but you sometimes have to extrapolate out stuff to see where things could lead to. So far everyone has been mostly pointing at how good it would to weed out bad gm's and players but it could lead to other results also. That is my few pennies on the matter.

I was going to contribute, but I hated the concept I came up with so I just deleted it. My problem is anything I come up with, I can see the harmful effects. Sorry for just disagreeing and not adding anything to the conversation.

As Steve.B pointed out before, all you need to do is take away the bad side of the voting system and only allow positive feedback. The idea of a "thumbs up" button is great. You need to not limit it to subscribers and allow it to all Roll20 members. Just have a simple button on everyone's profile. It would actually take effort for someone to find the Player or GM and give them a thumbs up. The more I think about it the more I would like to open a forum for each specific game system and then have a Player/GM database that could be browsed similar to facebook or googe+, but also have a forum dedicated to each GM's game allowing them to track the game while they play and share information between game sessions. GM's could actually take applications from players. Players would also have forums to share optimization tips, character sheets and back stories. I would even have forums dedicated to each timezone or at least region like US, UK, Oceanic. Its an idea, but I think I would not get many members and I am pretty hopeless at Php.bb.

To be honest I find the website to be just fine for new GMs, being a new GM myself with only 8-9 sessions under my belt. I started a campaign here a week ago and now I am looking to start a new one, the first campaign was a huge success. I found 4 players that, I fell, are mature, fun to play with and able o role play within the first 3 days. Maybe I am just lucky, but I fell like if you take a good look at how a post is written, have a good description for the campaign and have a quick skype chat with whoever you want to invite to make sure they are ok then it's very easy to find good players here. I do agree that there is a lack of games here, I found it very hard to find campaigns when I was looking to join one as a player.

Rp'ing is a very personal thing, hence, any feedback system will reflect very personally on the individual being judged. In a positive feedback only scenario, the lack of positive feedback becomes the new equivalent of having negative feedback. It also creates the framework for internet drama, elitism, creating multiple accounts to inflate feedback points, positive or negative, as well as the need for someone to create, implement, and oversee the system.

Is elitism such a bad thing? Obviously if it is being used as a weapon to disparage others it would not be desirable, but what is wrong with identifying those GMs that are capable of running highly enjoyable games? A few ideas on how to limit gaming or abuse of a rating system. Some combination of these may be useful. Only paid subscribers can rate or be rated. Rate games rather than GMs directly. Metroknight wouldn't need to worry about experiments ruining his reputation. Allow GMs to decide if a campaign is eligible for rating when it is created. Only allow players of the campaign to give ratings (probably a given). No anonymous ratings. Ratings on specific elements, role play, GM prep/skill/fairness, story, etc Anonymous but summarized ratings, just an overall score from averaging ratings. Dispute system, allow majority of players to veto 'bad apple' ratings. Comments from players and GM to provide detail or dispute.

Perhaps instead of a rating system everyone in a campaign had the option to tag each other based on the behaviour displayed in that campaign. Like, if after playing with someone you opted to tag, or rate, or whatever you want to call it, another player you would be presented with a list of the factors the community has decided to track and have two buttons you could click for each, each button labelled with an opposite end of the spectrum (like "This player: [focused on RP] [hardly, if ever participated in IC interaction]). Then the player's profile would display a bar that was filled in more to one side depending on the tags they received, this would both more accurately gauge play-style and eliminate the possibility of negative or malicious reviews. Edited slightly, for clarity. (I'm a little buzzed right now : D)

Okay I have seen this type of stuff go on for years. The Problems we got here are as follows: 1) Biggest # 1. LFG is not set up as a list by Genre. it is set up as a list by Time, with most recent first. so you get new guy GMs who want to play pathfinder, posting nightly JOIN MY GAME. Anyone who does not post nightly is buried. Someone please call me a liar. If there was a system where by each LFG posting does not get buried over time, you'd have less of this. My own game, I think I get by posting random I am a GM musings in ongoing convo threads and people search for me, because frankly, I posted my initial LFG in September 3rd, and people have found me since, not by combing back through 200 posts of "LFG PATHFINDER COOL GAME 2NITE! RARE OOP L@@K!" 2) The current system, GMs of rare non pathfinder non 3.5 must petition the admins to get their game added. Thanks to you all for adding All traveller, and all gamma world, even though there are 5 editions of each. I'll deal, I'm grateful. 3) The time zone system is basically dog crap. All you guarantee there is that your people live within 1000 miles of you. Yeah I live EST, but I am playing 4p-8p, so you live EST, but you aren't available then. No lose it, I Prithee. Get rid of it and go to a slots played system, like 12-4 etc. That the GM Posts as is NOW IN EFFECT For when next game is, RIGHT?!?!? I play 4P-8P Fri and Sun. But I got reliable players from AUS, UK and US. Because they are willing to get up early, afternoon and late respectively. 4) There needs to be an easier way to get priv messages. I was here for weeks until I saw the little thing in the upper right for new messages. 5) there needs to be an eaiser way to add new players to the game. Multiple trimes I have told people you got to log in and post a message then I click invite, etc. seems like i don't know, cumbersome? Because me inviting doesn't get them into my game, it gets them to be able to read the campaign forums, and chat with me in roll20. What I want is a way to screen people without inviting. But it's just a minor thing, really, just a bit weird to me. 6) there needs to be a who started the thread kind of tool for privs, because many times i got a box full of privs and it's showing posted by me, not who started the htread whicvh i susually the prospective player. Really we are almost moving to skype for messaging in texts because the roll 20 system is cumbersome. 7) I really like my players. I am lucky to have them. They are all great roleplayers, and we hardly use a map. I wish I could clone them and send them to you all, but I think the deal is I advertised and went on for pages as to what I wanted... who how what where when what movies I like what style of stories, of characters. and NONE of my players has stepped on that. I got 16 applicants. 3 didn't make the cut because they didn't show up to make a character over two weeks. The rest joined, applied, made characters and stuck with it, and we got two groups of 6 and 7, and each session they I think honestly thank me for running the session prior. I run a sort of loose sandbox game, where that can try anything in a sci fi universe with very few restrictions really, and it has led to some wild, off the wall, sometimes weird, sometime hilarious, sometimes chillingly dramatic adventures and we've really only gotten started. Now in episode 6, the players have more handles on their pcs and who is what where with regards to their roles. 8) Too many players not enough GMs. So get your 5 or 6 and play. People that treat you like crap, boot. there are more where they came from. Ratings won't help since it is all virtual, and subject to faking. so don't even worry about it. If there are fewer GMs and players want them, GMs got the power. so use it. When I ran Neverwinter nights there was a lot of hackers and just muckheads trying to wreck servers. So I went to a unique system, if you want to join my game, I want a full page writeup of your history. Thus you get roleplayers that can write. But in turn I had huge setting documents and history of the land and what the politics were. So that the hard core roleplayers get the hard core worldbuilding GM. If you want to not work too hard and have the players do all the work, they won't. Meet people halfway ror realize half measures get you undedicated people. 9) Number 9? Number 9?

I know my reply isn't going to be very helpfull but thought I should still tell you how I choose my players. Any time I'm close to starting a new campaign I start contacting players personally I think would be good players and interested about my upcoming campaign (eg. if the campaign is going to be combat heavy I look for people who are interested combat in RPGs and if it's going to be dialogue heavy I look for people who love to ROLEplay a lot, etc.). I explaing the potential players everything there is to know about the upcoming campaign (that isn't a secret) and ask how interested they are to join. I keep doing this until I have the number of people answering "very" I was looking for. So in practice I handpick my players. I have never used and will probably never use the LFG.

Maetco said: Any time I'm close to starting a new campaign I start contacting players personally I think would be good players and interested about my upcoming campaign Out of curiosity how do you find players you think will be good? Do you do a player search or reference people you have played with previously?

@James.J James J. said: Okay I have seen this type of stuff go on for years. The Problems we got here are as follows: 1) Biggest # 1. LFG is not set up as a list by Genre. it is set up as a list by Time, with most recent first. so you get new guy GMs who want to play pathfinder, posting nightly JOIN MY GAME. Anyone who does not post nightly is buried. Someone please call me a liar. If there was a system where by each LFG posting does not get buried over time, you'd have less of this. My own game, I think I get by posting random I am a GM musings in ongoing convo threads and people search for me, because frankly, I posted my initial LFG in September 3rd, and people have found me since, not by combing back through 200 posts of "LFG PATHFINDER COOL GAME 2NITE! RARE OOP L@@K!" 2) The current system, GMs of rare non pathfinder non 3.5 must petition the admins to get their game added. Thanks to you all for adding All traveller, and all gamma world, even though there are 5 editions of each. I'll deal, I'm grateful. 3) The time zone system is basically dog crap. All you guarantee there is that your people live within 1000 miles of you. Yeah I live EST, but I am playing 4p-8p, so you live EST, but you aren't available then. No lose it, I Prithee. Get rid of it and go to a slots played system, like 12-4 etc. That the GM Posts as is NOW IN EFFECT For when next game is, RIGHT?!?!? I play 4P-8P Fri and Sun. But I got reliable players from AUS, UK and US. Because they are willing to get up early, afternoon and late respectively. 4) There needs to be an easier way to get priv messages. I was here for weeks until I saw the little thing in the upper right for new messages. 5) there needs to be an eaiser way to add new players to the game. Multiple trimes I have told people you got to log in and post a message then I click invite, etc. seems like i don't know, cumbersome? Because me inviting doesn't get them into my game, it gets them to be able to read the campaign forums, and chat with me in roll20. What I want is a way to screen people without inviting. But it's just a minor thing, really, just a bit weird to me. 6) there needs to be a who started the thread kind of tool for privs, because many times i got a box full of privs and it's showing posted by me, not who started the htread whicvh i susually the prospective player. Really we are almost moving to skype for messaging in texts because the roll 20 system is cumbersome. 7) I really like my players. I am lucky to have them. They are all great roleplayers, and we hardly use a map. I wish I could clone them and send them to you all, but I think the deal is I advertised and went on for pages as to what I wanted... who how what where when what movies I like what style of stories, of characters. and NONE of my players has stepped on that. I got 16 applicants. 3 didn't make the cut because they didn't show up to make a character over two weeks. The rest joined, applied, made characters and stuck with it, and we got two groups of 6 and 7, and each session they I think honestly thank me for running the session prior. I run a sort of loose sandbox game, where that can try anything in a sci fi universe with very few restrictions really, and it has led to some wild, off the wall, sometimes weird, sometime hilarious, sometimes chillingly dramatic adventures and we've really only gotten started. Now in episode 6, the players have more handles on their pcs and who is what where with regards to their roles. 8) Too many players not enough GMs. So get your 5 or 6 and play. People that treat you like crap, boot. there are more where they came from. Ratings won't help since it is all virtual, and subject to faking. so don't even worry about it. If there are fewer GMs and players want them, GMs got the power. so use it. When I ran Neverwinter nights there was a lot of hackers and just muckheads trying to wreck servers. So I went to a unique system, if you want to join my game, I want a full page writeup of your history. Thus you get roleplayers that can write. But in turn I had huge setting documents and history of the land and what the politics were. So that the hard core roleplayers get the hard core worldbuilding GM. If you want to not work too hard and have the players do all the work, they won't. Meet people halfway ror realize half measures get you undedicated people. 9) Number 9? Number 9? I believe that all your problems can be solved with a separate forum with a game tracker and player application system. I have run a few Roleplay guilds for some major MMORPGs and I still think that a separate forum is the way to go. The Roll20 system is as you said "cumbersome" and is a lot more effort for those simple things like private messaging and thread tracking.

I am typically a player, and have made a few attempts at playing at DM, back before all this new-fangled virtual tabletops popped up. Despite attempting to DM about 5 different times, I have been very poor at it. But that has been mostly due to my terrible communication "skills". This has been very discouraging for me, despite me really wanting to DM/GM. I will be checking out the various links posted in this thread, to see if they could possibly help me in becoming a decent DM.

Agreed. Moving those functions to Obsidian Portal. Anthony C. said: I believe that all your problems can be solved with a separate forum with a game tracker and player application system.

James J. said: Agreed. Moving those functions to Obsidian Portal. Anthony C. said: I believe that all your problems can be solved with a separate forum with a game tracker and player application system. Absolutely the best idea I have heard from this thread.

Here is an independent site that is being built to support off site forums for roll20 or so I understand it. <a href="https://www.tavern-keeper.com/home" rel="nofollow">https://www.tavern-keeper.com/home</a>

Just got back from a Total Network Kill (cats, router) and haven't read all of this. I just want to say that how many players you get or respectively if you even get the game going very much depends on time zone. When I search for European/EST time zone as in I run the games my late night or my evening) I usually get more than enough players, for all tabletop systems. Unfortunately, I can mostly play my mornings, means Australian time, mostly. And for what I am planning to run more of there seem to be no Aussies. But then I guess threads get overlooked pretty fast, too. It would be nice if we could sort by genre and time zone. Ignore me if it has already been said, I'll try to read the thread now :)

Flaky players make GMs burn out, this is true, but there are also a LOT of flaky GMs from what I have seen. In the three games I have gotten into here on OpenRPG, NOT ONE of them has actually started, two were canceled and one is on indefinite hold, before any sessions! The only game I am currently in was one that migrated from OpenRPG to here. No wonder a lot of players feel no loyalty to a game. If 3/4 of the time, they go through the trouble of reading up on the game, making a character customized to fit this world, then the GM flakes, what do you think that teaches the players? I have GM'd on and off for 35+ years, yes I am old :(, and have even GM'd at large conventions like GenCon which is a lot of fun if you get the chance, and I have completely given up on GMing online. It is just too much trouble for me. I find a group of players I think will be good and two don't show up the first session, so I have to somehow try to merge two new characters into the group and move forward, then someone is unresponsive a lot, so I find out they actually have two games scheduled for my time slot and are trying to play both, sigh, another new player has to incorporated. So on and so on... it makes it very hard for the story to remain coherent when the group is constantly changing. My longest campaign online lasted a bit over a year, I only had one player make it that long, the other five changed out many times. Players will eventually try GMing if they have reliable games to play in. This means that reliable GMs are needed, which becomes a catch-22 since the GMs tend to burn out when the players don't bother preparing for their game, try to hijack their game, or worst of all, don't bother to show or participate in the game. I really don't have the answer to all this, but it isn't just bad players. Paying to play, I would do, if there were a money back guarantee. Bad GMs I would drop quickly, good GMs I would gladly pay $1-$5 per session, depending on the game. I would not pay the site to play, the problem remains too many bad GMs and not enough good games, being a supporter won't solve that, and their are free VTTs that I could go to instead. I know pay to play is a very unpopular idea, but I think it might work if anything has a chance to. A vouching system would be sketchy at best in my opinion, too many people vouching for their buddies and none of them are any good for the type of game I want to run, and vice versa, I would probably suck at the type of game they like. Doesn't make us bad RPGers, just not compatible ones. So how do find compatible players and GMs? It's a tough problem, tons of players, VERY few competent GMs. It's an interesting post, will keep reading and see if someone has an answer I think will work. I would love to see the issue solved in a positive way, I am very afraid RPGing is dying and I love this hobby.

I'm not sure it is dying but pen and paper gaming is contracting. This is a cycle and the hobby will grow again in popularity.

RPG is growing in leaps and bounds at least here in Germany, although often only for German language or German language supported systems. Cons need larger playing space almost every year. I've fluked out of gamesbefore, there are a 100 reasons it can happen, luckily in most I was able to keep my commitment both as a player and a GM. Online gaming is, in my opinion, harder to organize not only for the time zone but also for the fact that, as long as you are home, family will get in your way no matter what your plans are. At least in my experience. When I'm gone to play at someone's house or have people over, I don't have that issue.

Hi there, This is going to be a long one, so strap in... First time DM here. About 6 months ago, I had only dreamed that I would be running a game, let alone one with a group of decent players. While I don't have the experiences of some of you who have been doing this for a while, I do have input. I tend to DM for enjoyment. Sure, sometimes its a thankless task when your players decide to derail everything with all the finesse of a 1 year old trying to shove a square block in a round hole. My previous group of players IRL had that attitude. Apologies if I am reiterating things. regarding monetisation: I would heavily suggest this being an opt out thing if it ever did actually make the feature list. Primarily, this is my hobby. I like DMing because I like constructing the world. I spend my time and I do not think its a waste, most of it goes into creating and repurposing maps and finding loot/monsters/ideas to fling at people. I don't expect anyone to pay for my time. I chose to spend my time this way. If tomorrow I couldn't find the time to DM anymore then I'll make the practical decision of not doing it. regarding player vs DM ratio: I'm completely on board with some kind of mentoring program for DMs. I'm actually going over to Keaggan's DM academy and filing my application. Maybe I'll learn something. In my game, a slot opened up and I had crazy clownshoes attention for it. I solved my problem by using 4 rules: 1. Created an application thread in my LFG posting for rule 2 - anyone posting outside that thread were automatically disregarded regardless of amazing spiel. 2. I asked in a clear concise fashion for certain criteria to be met on application - i.e.class needed, character sheet at x level, what they can bring to game, backstory, motivation, etc - if the players got say 4/5 criteria down - they get into the first draft. 3. When first draft is drawn to an end I end up having about 7 or 8 players to choose from. At this point, I tend to ask them to speak to me on skype. I explain a little bit about the game and ask about them a bit. Usually that reduces the choice by at least 1 or 2 players whom you feel you cannot gel with. 4. lastly, I run a small game - perhaps tied to the current game for ease - and see how people play - RP, combat, team worthiness, all sorts of things you can see when a player shows their craft. At all times, I do make sure to thank people for their application and make sure there are no hard feelings about not making it. I feel that It would be a disservice if I just went "yeah, too bad jack - you didnt make the cut". As a player and a DM, you gotta foster that gaming love. Rating system: Forgive me for stealing an Idea - but instead of a yes/no system of rating players or DMs why don't we adopt something like the League of Legends system. People upvote you based on criteria which are positive. That way, even if a player doesn't make the cut for a game but you thought they had potential you could earmark them for other GMs and thus build a category of players who we would know are good players. you could give them a gold star on co-operation, being team players, GM friendly, punctuality etc. That way you remove the risk of people being petty about subjective issues and downvoting folks. This would of course assume that the DM's actually played a small game with them or something like that.

Hey! Definitely a latecomer to this topic, but I've been GMing for 10+ years now, and it's one of my favorite things to do, so I thought I'd give my 2 cents worth. First of all, I think the main reason there are WAY more players than GMs is simply because GMing is a lot of work. Don't get me wrong, it's extremely fun and rewarding work, but it does take far more effort to build and run an entire world of NPCs than to simply run one character. Also, when you play an RPG, the story is about YOU. When you GM, the story is about your players. So, our natural Human tendency to be self-centered dictates that more people are going to find playing fun than GMing. As a GM, I know I often find myself tempted to create NPCs based on my favorite PC ideas, or to reuse NPCs that I hate to let go. But as this relates specifically to Roll20, I think that we're always going to have more players than GMs here, plain and simple. What we can change, though, is the quality of those GMs. I'm 100% on board with the idea of a GM mentoring/training system. Many players dream of GMing someday, but simply don't know where to begin. It would be awesome if there was a separate forum for this very purpose, a place where GMs and players alike could get 1-on-1 counsel from experienced players and GMs. As for some of the other ideas that have been suggested: Pay-to-Play: I'm very much against this. As many people have stated already, GMing is a labor of love, and most of us probably wouldn't even want to be paid to GM. But also you could have people who start GMing simply because they think it will be an easy and fun way to get extra money or free stuff on Roll20. But also, if you have to pay for a session, what happens if you have to log out or your computer get's shut down mid-game? Rating System: I personally don't like the idea of "thumbs up/down" button. There's too much potential for abuse and trolling there. Instead, how about a review section where players who have joined a campaign can post things they like about their GM on his/her profile? You could have several different points to rate them on, such as Friendliness, Helpfulness, Fairness, Storytelling, etc. This idea needs fleshing out, but I think that could work well. Player Quality: All I can say here is; Screen, screen, screen! As the GM, YOU have the right to choose who will get to play your campaign. The first step is to be very specific and descriptive when posting in LFG. I personally prefer to post a thread in the forum before simply creating a looking for players posting. That way I can start getting to know the potential players before they even try to join, but they can get to know me as well. Don't be afraid to tell them what style of campaign you're going to be running. If all you put out there is "Star Wars game, Saturday night @ 10:00," then you'll probably have players who decide to drop out when they find out you plan to run a high-action, Jedi-centric hack-and-slash game while they were hoping to play as members of a Hutt crime syndicate that seeks to gain political influence through bribery and blackmail. Recently, I decided to create a game set in a popular anime series that would focus on a lot of action, humor and camaraderie. By stating clearly what type of game I intended to run, I ended up getting a very good group of players who all seem very committed to the game so far. In-Game Features: I would very much like to be able to sort games by genre, and we really need more RPG systems placed on the "official" drop-down list. That way, I can actually see if there's anyone else playing the HERO system on this site. There also should probably split LFG into a player and GM section, that way you can already tell if the post that caught your eye is a GM looking for players, or a player looking for a GM. To help with the time zone issue, maybe we could use the same feature that auto-adjusts the time in the campaign menu where it says "next game will be..." in the LFG posts? That way, instead of having to sort through time zones, you could just see that the GM wants to play at 4 AM in your time zone, and know that probably isn't the game for you. There needs to be an easier way to invite players to your campaign. Instead of having to email or pm them the join link, how about a good old-fashioned "invite" button on someone's profile? When you click it, it asks you which campaign you want to invite them to, and then you're done! It sounds like the "rugged reroll" changes coming up are attempting to address my biggest problem with Roll20, the voice chat that never seems to work properly! I'm looking forward to not having to use Google+, Skype, or Teamspeak to run the voice chat in-game... I'll always love GMing and playing, but I have to say that GMing, while more challenging, can be far more rewarding as well.

I wouldn't mind a simple thumbs up system. Just don't add a thumbs down. Players who liked the experience can still show their support for the DM by giving him or her a thumbs up.

I'm a "Forever DM", and while I have yet to run a game on Roll20, I have been running online games for 2 years, and offline games for nearly 20. I believe I've run games for well over 200 different players over the course of that time, as I've run at Conventions, FLGS, and I've moved around quite a bit. For online games, I limit them to 6 players, as any more tends to create too much "noise to signal". How they are chosen is a semi-complicated process. First off, I announce/advertise the game via a forum and I generally have a webpage created detailing any House Rules or alterations to Character Creation. Any player that contacts me with a character idea that conflicts with the rules, or voices issues with the rules as posted loses a potential seat, as there are a plethora of players willing to abide by the restrictions. Next, out of all the submissions (for a Star Wars Saga edition I once had 50 submissions during the course of the campaign), I judge based upon content and quality of their writing. If they appear to be too lazy to use legible writing, or if they use "Text Speak" (such as "u" for "you"), they lose their potential seat. The third round of elimination comes when I ask them to create a character and write a short background. Obviously powergamed characters, characters created around a "build", Mary Sue backgrounds, overly epic backgrounds, or anything that raises a flag are weeded out. At that point, it's a rarity that I'm still not sitting with plenty of players. At that point I go through and see if I can't find out more about the player by performing a bit of due diligence. Are my methods a bit harsh? Yes. Do I weed out a bunch of problematic players and flakes? Yes. Do I weed out players that wouldn't enjoy my style, or would be disruptive? Yes. Am I a bit of a jerk? Most likely. I generally inform people of why they were eliminated from the game, and while it does elicit a few disgruntled responses, at least they are informed of why they weren't chosen. The opinions of those that aren't playing generally don't concern me.

Simon S. said: I'm a "Forever DM", and while I have yet to run a game on Roll20, I have been running online games for 2 years, and offline games for nearly 20. I believe I've run games for well over 200 different players over the course of that time, as I've run at Conventions, FLGS, and I've moved around quite a bit. For online games, I limit them to 6 players, as any more tends to create too much "noise to signal". How they are chosen is a semi-complicated process. First off, I announce/advertise the game via a forum and I generally have a webpage created detailing any House Rules or alterations to Character Creation. Any player that contacts me with a character idea that conflicts with the rules, or voices issues with the rules as posted loses a potential seat, as there are a plethora of players willing to abide by the restrictions. Next, out of all the submissions (for a Star Wars Saga edition I once had 50 submissions during the course of the campaign), I judge based upon content and quality of their writing. If they appear to be too lazy to use legible writing, or if they use "Text Speak" (such as "u" for "you"), they lose their potential seat. The third round of elimination comes when I ask them to create a character and write a short background. Obviously powergamed characters, characters created around a "build", Mary Sue backgrounds, overly epic backgrounds, or anything that raises a flag are weeded out. At that point, it's a rarity that I'm still not sitting with plenty of players. At that point I go through and see if I can't find out more about the player by performing a bit of due diligence. Are my methods a bit harsh? Yes. Do I weed out a bunch of problematic players and flakes? Yes. Do I weed out players that wouldn't enjoy my style, or would be disruptive? Yes. Am I a bit of a jerk? Most likely. I generally inform people of why they were eliminated from the game, and while it does elicit a few disgruntled responses, at least they are informed of why they weren't chosen. The opinions of those that aren't playing generally don't concern me. Nice. I think I am going to copy this for inspiration, just in case. I am new to on line Table Top gaming, and excited, but there seems to be a lot of players to DMs. I have been DMing a very long time irl too, and am ready to go at it here. Good luck with your games.

Just remember, you are providing a service, and you owe them nothing. You are also a commodity in high demand, you can tailor house rules and restrictions to your desire. If someone gives you grief, wish them luck in finding another GM/DM that is running a game more congruent to their tastes and ignore any further attempts at contact. There's no sense in wasting your time attempting to convince an individual that won't be an asset to your game.

Pay to play: put it in as optional. Those that want it can use it, those that don't can ignore it. Personally I think it would be a fantastic filter. Nothing like the commitment of some real money thrown in on the player's part. Flakes with money may even fund new books for prolific GM's. It's a door fee, like at a bar, and only grants admission. Don't like it leave and don't go back. Paywalling a game is something I would do. Just 2 to 5 bucks as a token - about the same as the price of snacks at a face-to-face game where it is expected everyone brings something. Dedication: time is obviously important. Weeding out players is like finding a good tabletop group. You kick out the saboteurs, munchkins and socially-dysfunctional until the group works. Requiring a written history is a great filter. Anything with work & time required to get in the door will filter players who aren't going to "give" to make a game work well. Chatting to someone before-hand is always required (IMO). Freedom: since this is all voluntary you can have any standards you want. :-) It's a great environment for everyone. Power-gamers can find the GM's who like that stuff. Thespian-gamers can likewise do it too. Plot-chasers can also find what they like. Any idea or notion that a GM is obliged to do anything they don't want is wrong - just like the players. Be firm and stick to your guns. If you know what you want go for it. Those GM's who can run a good game will accrue loyal players. There's an initial time investment to filter the group but the gaming will be worth it.

What col. S said, cubed.

My one major complaint with Roll20 is that my players cant buy me pizza, as is customary within many circles.

Actually with my main pizza/Chinese delivery services now taking Paypal I did get pizza from online players before :-)

Hum, I wonder if I could get my players to throw in for pizza? Even in our face to face games we have always taken a rotation of providing food. For our online games, I bought one of my players (my brother) his subscription. But it did not give me credit under acomplishments, which was disapointing.

The biggest issue I have been running into is that there is no way to get a sense of a player before bringing them on board. Alot of people I have had the pleasure and displeasure of playing with in the short time I have been running in Roll20 I have no idea what kind of player I am going to be interacting (Either when I am GMing or playing a PC). One thing I try to do is ask for characters details and history before I even accept them in. It gives me a chance to see what kind of character they play, a tone they prefer, their ability to write creatively, and it is a good way to weed out the people who are jumping in for the sake of just trying to fill their time but have no real interest in the game. The other thing I am often finding is with so many newer players, their is very little trust given to PCs, and often times shamefully it is with good reason. It's frustrating to jump into a game with a bunch of newer players who you want to help and give them the chance to build up something more than a sheet of stats and it turns into a critique of why you didn't make a 20 Dex on a Rogue from the GM. It's difficult to run a 1-shot with players who view RP and exposition rather than opportunity, and the same when you are a PC trying to get more from the NPC and instead it becomes a case of being forced into the cavern to slay a bunch of goblins I have no idea why they are their, etc. I have also found a handful of newer players who may stumble with RP but try very hard and find a whole new level of play when they start finding depth in their character, finding combat more engrossing when they do more than "Roll To Hit, Roll Damage", and start touching on whole new ideas they never were presented in the few games they have played. Ideally I try to keep it to smaller groups (3 is ideal) because I dont want to make 4 players waiting their 'turn' while another player is indecisive on what spell they are going to cast just to end it with "I cast Magic Missile". When things are really going, 3 players will be all you need, enough flexibility to offer the GM material to work with for a given scenario, but not so much that everyone is talking over one another. There is discussion of GMs being paid for their time. While this might be a solution, I really just see this ripe for abuse. The few who have played in my games would probably tell you it's a very solid game, but I wouldn't start demanding money because then it adds something else I need to factor into what I choose to do and who I choose to play with. Trying to make a quallity game for a newcomer also means I need to not only make a more beginner friendly scenario, I also need to involve a PC who is experienced enough to start running the type of game that has legs, and how the PCs have more input than they may initially think, and I want them to learn from those experienced players to have a better grasp beyond stat-creation.

If a door-fee for a game was implemented then it would be fair to add a rating system for those that have turned over some money. If you transact you are open to being rated by the other party - so the player and the GM can rate each other if they transact with a door-fee. I don't advocate subscription fees for players - I'd never pay it except in the most excellent of gaming situations - yet any money changing hand should allow a review system. It works for eBay (and many other situations) so it could work in this one. However, if you don't pay, you don't get a say. Roll20 could take 2% of all transactions as a facilitator's fee. Oh, and make sure it's bitcoin friendly. ;-)

opposed to gm fees.

Let's be honest - only celebrity GM's will really get players willing to pay to play. But why take the option away entirely? It's in Roll20's interest to implement it. Imagine the premium someone like Monte Cook or Skip Williams might get on their door-fee.

[GM] Col S. said: Let's be honest - only celebrity GM's will really get players willing to pay to play. But why take the option away entirely? It's in Roll20's interest to implement it. Imagine the premium someone like Monte Cook or Skip Williams might get on their door-fee. I wouldn't assume that. No one is talking about 20 bucks per month or anything, but it would be great if f.e. the mentor status would get paid... which would be 50 cent to 1 buck per month, and I don't think thats unreasonable...

Fair enough. Without the facility to do it we may never know. :-)

Ethics and dilemmas of charging GM fees aside,the hassle for Roll20.net in dealing with the regulations regarding money transfers and taxes are a lot to deal with for a market and transactions this small. Buying the GM credit on Roll20 is a lower-overhead (and higher profit) mechanism.

Given that roll20 low end transactions are 4.99 your point has no merit.

Taking a 4.99 donation is one thing. Taking 4.99 and then transferring that to another customer with potential tax liabilities is totally different.

Not if it's done through PayPal. If it's done with bitcoin then it's even easier. Understand that I don't want anyone to be forced to use it. I want the option to exist for those who would use it.