Forbidden banished exiles. Especially in MMORPGs, I've found that the most common overall in-setting guild theme is "we don't belong in the society that this setting established." It's not just in MMORPGs, of course. It's often a crutch (or training wheels, if I'm being generous) for some roleplayers to participate by not participating. I'm not saying that a character (or a player for that matter) has to bend the knee to Lord So-And-So, but it's kind of hard to find plot excuses for the the forbidden banished exile to even be in the same picture, let alone get the quest to do the thing.
Plot armor dependents. Yes, it's quite likely that if I'm running the game and telling the story that I won't have the guards kill a player character on sight even if they do something exceptionally stupid just to see what happens, like stabbing a random citizen. Those kind of players don't tend to last long if their only contribution is "try to knock down the props just to see what happens on set."
People that directly lift an established character in well known fiction, often just changing the spelling, and often not even trying to resemble or act like that character. In an older MUD, I recall a "Frrodoh Bhaginz" that was a Half-Ogre hunter. Again, it didn't ruin the game, but it was annoying. I admit it can sometimes be a red flag warning, and a helpful one, if the lifted name is from chud fiction, like if they have "Rahl" in their name. It can show me what to expect, either in a tabletop group or in a MMORPG guild.
I mean this is kind of serious, but scheduling is the number one game killer. No one can make it, every always has shit going on in their lives. The longest campaign I hosted/was in this year last two sessions before I called it quits. Time zones disparity make things even worse. Any further details would just be depression posting, so I'll stop
so many campaigns ended this way
fucking sucks
In my experience, you really have to book people in advance, especially early on. I've noticed that if you can get people to meet three weeks in a row - preferably on the same day at the same time - they'll start deliberately keeping that slot open into the future. But if you're only meeting sporadically every couple of weeks on random days, its a lot harder to get a full table. I also find that getting +1 the game table minimum is handy so you don't have to cancel if a single person can't show up. Four players and a DM is usually a good number, since you can get by with three and you've got room to go to five. But I'm in a "Kingmaker" game that has north of 12 players on paper, for which we get anywhere between 3-6 on any given Sunday.
I set up campaign. I had a dozen people interested, only 6 joined the discord, 3 RSVP. Only 2 made it to the second game. I tried to get more, no one was interested. I give up and I lay down on the ground waiting for the sun to explode.
Check out Axe & Sickle Discord. (linked on the sidebar, but here it is again: https://discord.gg/R5dPsZU)
My perennially sick kiddo has kept me out of games for months. But I know the group and they've got at least five or six regulars, plus three rotating DMs, who do at least one game a week. Often three or four. They're all fun to play with. The DMs know how to write a good adventure. And the Westmarches style allows for a lot of flexibility in attendance, so its not too hard to get a full board.
No I've been in there from the start and I can't play dungeons and dragons anymore. All it feels like is 75% of play time is taken up by combat, which is just me scrambling to come up with what to do because the battlefield changed right before my turn or it's just me mindlessly rolling to attack. It's for that reason I don't like large games, I have no interest in being a foot solider in someone else's fun, and I'm not very vocal, especially in large groups of people I'm not familiar with.
Even more is that I cannot give a single shit about Tolkien fantasy anymore, there is nothing you can do in dnd to escape kings, goblins, fighters, elves and alignment based gods. You could make an entirely new setting and players will still pick the default stuff with the default baggage because they are in the core. It doesn't matter if you make how you try to hack it and turn it into something it's not, it will always have that 70s wargame DNA that I detest because wargaming to me just feels like a waste of time, a competition between who rolls better or minimaxed better.
I feel like there thousands of possibilities of stories and adventures, I don't want to waste what little free time I have fighting goblins in the woods for 1d10+4 gold pieces, scaled up to infinity.
Fair enough
global economy should kick back up so people don't have to work 3 jobs at the same time and i can finally get a group back up, jesus christ
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