Shaky Campaign? Fix it with a group chat.
When an RPG campaign first gets going, scheduling your next session can be the biggest issue preventing you from getting forward momentum. The best way to make sure that everyone saves the date on their calendar is with communication. Establishing a consistent way for the whole group to talk to each other easily is a base piece for making sure a campaign goes smoothly in the long term. Here’s how to level up your communication game.
Level 1: Start a Group Chat
Your group chat can be anything that works for your whole group. There are tons of free options, so don’t worry about paying for anything. I’ve used group text chains, Slack channels, whole Discord servers, Facebook groups, and know a few whatsapp groups keeping games on track. Whatever you choose to use, just make sure that it is set up so that everyone can see the posts when they happen.
At the very least, this allows everyone to see proposed session dates at the same time and weigh in together. This speeds up discussions so that one person (usually the GM) isn’t forced to message everyone individually to get buy in. Nothing sucks worse than getting three people to all agree on a date one by one only for the fourth person to have a conflict. When conversation is public, all those conversations get sped up and multiplied out.
Level 2: Confirm you’ll be attending
Now that you have a place to communicate, take advantage of it by confirming that you’ll be attending session. Do this either the day before, or the morning of your planned session. This does a couple things for your group. First, it simply reminds everyone that game night is coming up. When you only play every other week or once a month, people will accidentally forget. Someone popping into the chat and confirming with “See you all tomorrow!” can remind them that they have plans, and people show up when they would have otherwise forgotten.
There are also plenty of times when people are unsure about attending a session. Its amusing the number of times I’ve seen one person drop and then SUDDENLY it turns out other people have conflicts. Confirming you are going to attend with plenty of warning before session does two things for these people. First, it removes uncertainty for everyone else. And secondly, it aims the discussion in a direction of playing the game, vs letting the group chat devolve into a series of people cancelling. You don’t want to begin dreading seeing a group chat notification from your group, because you know it just means that session is cancelled again.
Level 3: the Hype Train
With a habit of using your group chat regularly and it not just being a place for your sessions to go and die, now its time to build excitement for session! Find a time in the middle of your break and start building anticipation for your next adventure. Doing this as a player can be even more effective than doing it as a GM. When your peers are excited for things the whole environment can change its vibe. If you already fill out your 5 minute post-session sheet, you will have things you can mention. You can mention your favorite moment, “I’m still thinkin’ about how mad the Duke must have been after that 20 on intimidation.” Or use it as a moment to ‘RP’ out of session “Blastimus’s wand is getting itchy. Can’t wait to fireball again next week.” Or just share memes! There are tons of RPG memes out there to share in between your game nights.
This has so many knock-on effects, it is crazy.
Your GM feels appreciated, and is likely to spend more time prepping a good session. Better sessions means everyone is likely to stick with it.
Your other players feel the excitement, and are less likely to cancel
When people talk about game night during the break, they are less likely to forget and get double booked.
An active place to throw casual discussion during breaks brings the whole group closer as friends
Feel your whole campaign stabilize
Its funny how increasing communication can fix so many problems with campaign stability. When everyone knows that session is on, they know what day its happening, and they know what to get excited about, you can feel your campaign get into a groove that can let it run for a year or more.
If you don’t have a group chat, get on it. The GM doesn’t have to start it, and feeling the excitement from your players taking the initiative for stuff like this can make the enthusiasm infectious.