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GameMastery Guide / Getting Started / The GM as Host

When to Play

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 13
Sometimes games aren’t hard to schedule. If you and your players all live near each other in college dorms, you might have no trouble getting a game together every night. But if you or your players have other responsibilities, scheduling can become a major headache.

One of the easiest ways is to have a regular schedule. Some campaigns are played weekly, others biweekly, and still others monthly. More frequent games are rare and usually unsustainable, as are games with more than a month between them, since players tend to forget what’s going on after a while. A weekly game is optimal for many people since it’s easy to remember. Weekends tend to be better for working people, but constant weekend availability is probably impossible for any one person. Weekdays after school may work for parents and students, but choosing a day can be tricky, since sports and club meetings may interfere for long periods.

If you do decide to go for biweekly or monthly games, you may want to make the sessions longer. Try scheduling an entire day for a monthly game—or even a weekend, if your household is up to overnight guests. For a game with low meeting frequency, be sure to remind everyone when the next session is coming up. You’ll also need to prepare a good recap of what happened in the previous adventure so the players know where the characters were when you left off.

If you opt for an irregular schedule, you’ll need to schedule every session, which can be more difficult, as players don’t have the option of always leaving certain days open. Scheduling an irregular game can happen at the end of each session or via group emails and phone calls.

Archives of Nethys

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When to Play