What to do about flaky GMs

[whine] Ok, I know no one is holding a gun to their head, so why do people that have no intention of actually GMing a game, create a game and sign up players, just to flake? I have been in 5 games, count them 5 !!!, in the last 5 months that have not even played a single session. The GM creates a game, signs up players, then disappears. The players are left wondering, will the guy/girl come back? It is really getting annoying for me and for the people I have been through this with. The last game I was in the GM said point blank, "I just created a game because no one would accept me into their games, I really want to be a player". What? Are you for real? Why would I invite you to play in a game if I know you are a flake? Do you think you are helping your rep by flaking? [/whine] I know roll20 likes to pad it's stats with all the "games" they are hosting, but I wonder what percentage of the "games" never get played. As players, what can we do to get the word out on what games are real and what are flakes? I shouldn't say roll20 does nothing, they do give us info on people, just not much. Like I saw last night a potential GM had 9 games and only 50 hours of playing time, talk about a warning sign, that means her/his average game last 6 hours. This is good info for a player. I don't want to get into a big he said/she said thing, but if anyone has a good idea on how to weed out the "false" games and reduce the signal to noise ratio, I would love to hear your idea.

Riley sent me the following : 7.5 million hours played 232,031 unique campaigns played So, according to the roll20 numbers, the average campaign in 2013 played about 32.3 hours of game time. If there are 6 players and a GM, that means each campaign averaged only one 4.5 hour session. I know online games are notorious for not lasting, but come on guys, can't we do better than this?

On my end, I've got one campaign that I run and two that I play in. Then I have a bunch of one-shots (single session or multiple session but one adventure) ready to go at all times, some that have been played multiple times, some that haven't even been played as yet. My personal stats on this account are 266 hours played and GM of 3 campaigns. My other account is 1614 hours played and GM of 14 campaigns. Some of that time was just being in-game creating things rather than actually playing. Point being, flaky GMs are an issue (as are flaky players), but I'm not sure the actual numbers you have there bear that out. I bet most games are one-shots and not campaigns and plenty of them are just campaigns that are created and not played. As with in-person games, finding the right GM and players is often a matter of trial and error.

Hey Daniel, I'm curious as to how communicative the GMs were in the phantom campaigns. Did they post details on the game? Respond to questions? Ask you questions? Was there any attempt to get to know you as a person or player or did they just blindly invite you to the game? Good GMs out there could use guidance on how to set themselves apart from the pack and sharing any hallmarks you noticed in these attempts could prove beneficial to others. I don't think there's a way to infer anything meaningful from the stats, unfortunately. There are too many variables at play to come up with a way of figuring how likely a campaign is to continue. I can at least provide anecdotal examples of long lived Roll20 games and encourage you to stick with it as there are plenty of games running and continue to run.

I've run 14 sessions of Traveller. 3 sessions of all flesh must be eaten. That last one, had 8 players, 2 showed up for session three. the rest were no call no show. Thus that game I killed off, and deleted. I'm running 2nd edition today 8 players, 1 is sick 1 advised he will be missing for today. We'll press on. I'm playing in a 3.5, and a trail of Cthulhu, and a Traveller. All good GMs. If the guy is saying he'd rather be a player, he'd rather be a player. So he finds a game and plays it and drops you guys. there is not a lot you can do about it, other than get to know the GM. Ask questions etc. What is their history, what is their stryle, how have games in the past gone. Even then, it depends. I try to find people that would rather be a GM. Because we are doing this crap for free, no pay and we get no call no show players. Who basically have to punch some numbers up on a fillable .pdf, write a back story if they are courageous, and show up on time, no other investment of time or energy. The Good, dedicated GMs are evident, they let you know what is going on, what the schedule is, what's up, who what where, when. I try to be one of those, but I have a short fuse for bullshit. Good luck, Daniel. EDIT: The game went real well 4 of the players showed up (1 had called off pre-game), Players present were enthusiastic, lots of fun had, they are looking forward to next week's session.

@Dave, the PF game I am in has a great GM. He required lots of interaction before the game and during the game, maybe that is a clue to look for. @James, ya, people who want to GM are definitely better GM's I certainly agree with you on that, but the problem is that the ones that don't want to GM, don't exactly have a sign on that says "flake", so it is hard to spot them sometimes. I think Dave is correct, the amount of interaction before the game is definitely a sign of things to come.

I'll consider writing a guide on this.

Daniel B. said: @Dave, the PF game I am in has a great GM. He required lots of interaction before the game and during the game, maybe that is a clue to look for. Bingo. Not surprisingly, the players who likewise ask questions and want to know more tend to be the ones that keep the long games running. Good luck!

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgyeUHH_V0g" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgyeUHH_V0g</a>

You ask him, "Where's my adventure?" "Well it was eaten by snakes."

GM Mu said: You ask him, "Where's my adventure?" "Well it was eaten by snakes." That got a real life laugh outta me... +1 to your next dieroll, GM Mu!

If those were games with a long description where the GM talked about: - play times, - number of players in the group, - play-style/system, - what should every player bring to table, - what would you will be playing in, -what times and for how long the game is going to play... etc, than I would really doubt you found 5 games which never happened. If you joined a game listed as Pathfinder with the description being "Core rule books, PST 9:00PM Friday" and the GM sends you and invite without any further description/doesn't have a chat with you... yeah, you will keep finding flakes.

It works the other way round, players seem to net even read the requirements, sound enthusiastic for a day or two then disapear, as a GM trying to get games going, that's frustrating. I'd say, if a GM doesnt get back to you within 24hrs, i'd probably get miffed and leave the campaign, it's the 21st century and theres very very little excuse for non coms.

I agree, AdeSant... flaky players are much more common than flaky GMs! The difference is that, as a GM, it's easier to deal with players no-showing; throw a rock and you'll hit 20 people wanting to join your campaign! But when you join as a player and the GM flakes out, that's frustrating, at least to me. As someone who, historically, has always been 'stuck' with the GM position, finding a game where I get to be a player is a rare and wonderful occasion... and when the GM flakes out after a game or two? It's annoying to say the least! Gives me a massive case of Blue Dice if you know what I mean! q;}

I find the amount of flakes goes down with the amount of effort people put into the game, or into setting up the game, in this case. This seems to go both for players and for DMs. I wouldn't necessarily say that the amount of time someone has played vs the number of campaigns someone DMs according to their profile say anything. Odds are half of those are test campaigns, and all but one of the rest are just oneshots. Effort seems to be a much better indicator for me.

I put in tons of effort and still have problems. But I am lucky to have the players that stick.

There's a way out of this cycle.

Just like everything else, it's just a matter of finding reliable people you like. You often have to meet 11 strangers that aren't worth your time before you'll find the 1 person in a dozen that you're glad you met. Then those people will often be unavailable or otherwise unsuitable for your needs. Or you might be not be suitable for theirs. Even if you have to meet dozens of people that don't fit, if you stick with it you will eventually find at least one person who makes the search worthwhile. After that it's just a matter of repeating the process 3-5 more times, and hoping the people you meet along the way don't clash. (or that they at least clash in interesting ways.) As far as DM's wanting to be players, yeah, most of us do. I'd say most people only start DM'ing because they're the only one who was willing to put in the work when no one else was. If you count that as a strike against a DM, you may be without a game for a while.