My gaming group can't agree on play-by-post or scheduled games

Question

I'm currently helping out as one of the DMs of a larger gaming group that will periodically see two or three players plus a DM go on a mission, usually handled in play-by-post format.

Right now, I have a group of three that's been having pacing problems from the start despite multiple strategies to address them:

• When we first started, all three players had differing activity levels, and the most active player was complaining about not being able to play because they were spending all their time waiting.
• I adopted a faster activity level myself in response, and the least active player started complaining about not being able to play because everything was happening while they were busy with real life.
• We called a post-mortem to discuss how to handle the pacing issues. One of the players suggested moving from play-by-post to a more traditional scheduled meeting, and another player actually shot this down complaining about not being able to play because making it an obligation took too much of the fun out of it.

Unless there's an organizational strategy I've missed besides play-by-post or scheduled meeting, I don't think I'm going to be able to run a game for these players, and while I expect the answer is going to be "find better player(s)", that's a last resort, partly because nobody likes asking players to leave the table and partly because I don't know if I'll be able to 'leave' this subgroup without leaving the whole group.

How do I run for this group?

Answer 1

Zachiel here, player in a living world (where problems of this sort keep showing up, I swear).

You say in a comment that the faster player's complaint is not that he's hot having anything else to do while the others are slowing down the game, but that they want to play their current character more.

We also know that it's forbidden to follow two missions at once, and that group rules dictate that party composition is out of your hands.

I see only one solution to this: be open with your players and tell them that the current group composition makes it impossible to provide a fun game for all of them. Ask them to party up with players with a similar schedule next time. If it is not possible or satisfying to abort this mission immediately and reallocate the players, keep your mission short.

Hopefully they will also see that your hands are tied. Depending on your players, telling them to take a look at the answers here might be a good idea.

Answer 2

You either:

1. Give them options and then tell them they have to unanimously choose one in order to play (e.g. vote for as many of these as you'll do: as long as it takes for the slowest player, one round per hour/day/whatever, synchronous session), and it's their problem to decide not yours, or

2. Run on the cadence you want and tell them they can like it or lump it, since they can't come to a consensus and you're the GM.

There's no magic solution that makes different people with different needs happy. They all have options. Fast person can get another hobby besides this one to burn his time; slow person can miss some turns; anti-session person can get over their "sense of obligation" - but in the end it's their problem not yours. It seems like there's a default in this group of how this kind of thing is scheduled and works, and you've had one player try to change it and others don't want to go along so the burden is probably on him.

It's OK if everyone can't participate because there's no one solution that will work for everyone. See the Five Geek Social Fallacies if this seems mean.

Answer 3

Consider a second campaign for the faster players.

Play-by-post moves at the speed of its slowest player. That's just the way it is, and if players have incompatible pacing preferences, they're really not going to be happy playing together... unless you are willing to run (and the fast players are willing to play in) more than one campaign. Run one campaign with all the players and offer a second fast-paced campaign for anyone who wants in and is willing to commit to the faster pace. This would be outside the organized structure you have created--different characters, different story, maybe even a different game world or an entirely different game system. It would let the faster players get their fill while waiting on the slower players in the campaign.

This is more work for you... though the play-by-post format really does take a lot of the pressure off the GM. Fast paced players will appreciate the increased gaming action and slower players will enjoy having the pressure off. This is definitely doable--playing and running multple games is typical for players and GMs on a lot of the play-by-post sites you could use. I am currently running one game and playing in four on the site I play on. You could even take the opportunity to try other game systems you've been wanting to try.

Be sure to manage expectations up front.

Be firm about posting rate in this second game. Let everyone joining know that if they miss a deadline, you will NPC them for the round/turn/etc and push the game forward. You're starting this whole second campaign to accommodate faster players--they need to keep up, or at least not complain about being dragged along occasionally.