Best Laid Plans of Yada Yada

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just cannot keep a gaming group together. Like Dell Paxton said in That Thing You Do, "Some bands last for just one album and even then that is one album too many." It seems like my group has taken this to heart since its inception - we added a member shortly after forming, lost another member to have him replaced, lost the replacement but only after gaining a new member and then getting back one of the original crew, and most recently losing not one, but two (possibly three) other members. If you wondered why I have not been as active on the blog these past few months, this has been a major portion of it.

The most frustrating part of all of this shuffle is that my own plans for the group have gone pretty much out the window. Yes, I can add in even more players back into the group, and set them up with equivalent level characters, continue and finish out the campaign plans I have in place. But it's awkward as one, possibly two, of the original players are out of the group and I already feel uncomfortable finishing without them. Especially as the one that is definitely out, that player's character's name is part of the party's name. Yeah, he may come back, but it's going to be a long time and I just don't want to let someone else play that character in the meantime.

What is a Dungeon Master to do? Continuing with That Thing You Do and Mr Dell Paxton, speaking of bands and their propensity to disintegrate with no warning, "Ain't no way to keep a band together. Bands come and go. You got to keep on playin', no matter with who." The plan at this point is to get the remaining party members together, find out who is actually still in and up for a game, maybe send out some invites to a few former coworkers who are up for the nerdy pursuits, and determine where we go from here. I do have to admit that I have built in a logical reason for anyone joining the group in my current campaign, so we may stick with that (the current party belongs to a Musketeers-like organization, so they can be "assigned" in or out of the chapter house at my whim), but as there are so many good, long 5e official campaigns already printed we may go with one of those. Or the new Eberron core book is coming out soon. Or Cyberpunk Red just had a "lite" version put out, and everyone expects the main, full versions to come out in the very near future. Or I have been (slowly) building up a Savage Worlds worldbook based on SM Stirling's fantastic Emberverse series of books, I could finish that off and we could run it. Or I backed the Planet Mercenary RPG, based on Howard Tayler's excellent webcomic Schlock Mercenary, that is full of sci-fi and mercenary goodness, been dying to try that one. Or... the list goes on. Think I have a post about how pursuing hobbies in a modern, 1st world country knocking around, need to finish that up.

We have options, that much is clear. Figuring out what we are going to do is going to be the issue. And who is going to be playing with us, that of course is the bigger question. Stay tuned for more thrilling adventures!