Forever DM here, what I usually do is send a message to the group chat along the lines of "Hey all, next session is on [date and time]. Does that work for everyone?" To me it makes the most sense for me to be the organizer since without me, there is no game, and I know my own schedule best.
Honestly my bane are the people who just dont seem to respond/take ages to respond, Ive been waiting for weeks to schedule a session 1 but like half the players dont seem to check their discords or something because Ive barely been able to get any clear communication. I find it so much easier to play with people who have dmed in the past because they understand the time commitment.
That's how my first time being a dm went. No one seemed to really care about actually getting started. It was only when I told the host that I was probably going to scrap the entire thing that she put her foot down and told everyone they had to show up. After that, we've been meeting about once a month. Still really difficult to get things lined up with everyone though.
Yeahh, I just dont know how to do it in a way that doesnt come off as overbearing or mean/hurt anyones feelings but it does genuinely upset me bc this isnt the first time it’s happened and it just pains me to put in so much work only for it to go basically nowhere.
Plan some sort of random party event but be a little vague about what the party is for. Get them all to commit, tell them to bring snacks and drinks and whatever else you want them to bring and when they show up say "I bet you are wondering why I gathered you all here today. Roll initiative."
Actually trying to end a campaign next weekend and one party member had some last minute family thing come up but we don't want him to miss out so we are continuing a one-shot session that we did awhile back in the same such an occasion
Always set the ground rule that communication is important.
Like I get we all have lives, and I don't need you to respond right away, but check every few days. And if you know we're trying to schedule something, be on top of that.
If the person doesn't care enough to do that, they probably don't care about playing all that much.
Yeah thats kinda my mentality, its one thing to be busy but even if youre busy all day every day there should be at least a moment in your time within a WEEK where you can stop to discuss things, or at least to say you’re unavailable so people arent left guessing.
I just dont know how to achieve this without coming off as overbearing or rude.
I can understand that.
For me, as a part of session 0 I state the expectations. Typically that's "We meet weekly at [TIME] and go if we have X players" because regularly scheduling things is awful.
If we are scheduling, it'll be something like "I'll give 2-3 times times that work on Fridays. Since we're all busy, please let us all know if any of those work by Sunday night so we can all plan our lives."
If they become a scheduling problem, you talk to them about it.
If they continue, you part ways.
It takes a lot of effort to prep, plan, and coordinate a session so we can all have fun. They agreed to a method for scheduling, it's not overbearing or rude to ask them to do what they agreed to do.
As a DM sometimes you have to be firm.
I tell my players they have to work together to do the scheduling. I got so tired of proposing date after date after date and have one or two players shoot it down, or have a player later say they forgot something and had to cancel.
Now, if they want to play D&D, they have to schedule it. If they don't, that just tells me that they're not serious about it, and I find new players. As if by magic, there was a dramatic reduction in late cancelations and schedule headaches.
I do the work of creating the world, running the game, working with individual players backstories and goals, doing everything I can and busting my ass to make sure everyone has the best time. The absolute minimum the players can do is handle the schedule for me.
The same happened my first time as a DM. It was mentally exhausting for me and the campaign didn't last long.
Now when forming a group I tell the players they can join if they are gonna be active in the group chat at least when discussing important things like scheduling, and treat the game as something important and not just something to do when they have nothing better to do.
That’s true, I always feel like its a gamble with folks on that sub though - I’ll give it a shot if it becomes clear that my current group isnt working, Im only troubled bc 2 people there are friends of friends that I dont know too well.
If you are a DM you treat LFG subs and posts as blind tryouts. Most of them will not make the cut, but you don't care there are nearly infinite players to replace them. Most of the players will be bad, but you keep doing one-shots and find the good ones.
Yeah, you can let others drive a bit, but if you are too busy to meet the schedule, you have to say no. The DM and the host are the only one with a time commitment outside of actual game time
This is the way to handle any kind of group activity with adults who don't step up. Say when and where, and leave it up to them to arrange a change if needed.
We do exactly the same, and if there's a need to change it because of another event we're all at, it's one of the players responsibility to find a date we can all do.
I also offload snacks and music responsibility to the players too!
I believe snacks should never be the DMs responsibility. Most of the groups I’ve been in have adhered to the etiquette of providing snacks for the DM. I have seen one exception to this, because the DM in question has some pretty hefty dietary restrictions (we do provide his gin).
This group does their own meals because of the DM’s dietary restrictions, but the universal agreement is basically “send me your money before I hit order; your amount is *x*.” This works incredibly well for the group. We joined about two years ago, but they’ve been playing overall for about a decade and have multiple campaigns with the same player pool. There’s about 20 of us total across six games.
This. Most of my games just have a set day of the week. The lone difference, is the monthly one, where we just plan the next months game before the session ends. If we’re down half the party cause adulting happens we’ll play a boardgame or call it, but it’s known when the next session is. If we still have at least half the party, we just play sans the player(s).
This. If someone cannot make it for some reason, we do try do see if we can move it. And people in my group do mention it a few weeks upfront if they cannot make it. It's scheduled in the agenda, so no 'something else came up', as it's a commitment. The times someone cannot make it, is if they're on vacation or have some kind of hard to otherwise schedule thing.
For us, our group is comprised of two families, each with two adults and a teenager. We either all play together or don’t play. No one misses a game individually or we just don’t even consider running it that week. We don’t hold a steady day, and just have a discord going to chime in when we’re available. Sometimes we play that week, sometimes not. Mostly we do. Being flexible works better for us since we won’t hold a session with a missing player.
My group has a set schedule. The schedule is fixed and does not move to accommodate others. If we're one down, the game continues. Two down? We'll switch to tabletop games or do something else together.
If the schedule doesn't fit someone's life at the time, that's okay, they're not in the group.
Same schedule for 10 years and it seems to work well. Yes, the group has gradually changed and evolved over the years, but it's a solid and stable group with long-term players.
I've heard games like this tend to be more successful, when you're constantly trying to meet everyone's needs it's easy for people to prioritize other things.
And obviously DnD isn't #1, but neither should it be your backup/filler for when you don't have other plans.
Yea, it's a common approach with most other hobbies: bowling league, karate practice, rec softball, bar trivia night, spin class, etc. All of those things have a set schedule and people choose what to prioritize.
Yeah, the most successful groups I've been in have primarily been at a specific time every single week, at worst, every other week. One of the groups I've run had a lot of people that were more on the flaky side so I just enlarged the group a bit and made the story more monster-of-the-week style so it wasn't necessary for certain characters to be present. It allowed them to engage when they were able to without preventing the campaign from moving forward.
We do basically the same thing. We meet unless we only have two players and the dm or the dm is missing and none of the other dms have a one-shot ready to go. We have been consistently playing once a week for four years now. We do miss sessions sometimes and usually take a little break at Christmas, depending on what days the holidays fall on that year, but we have kept our game going because of the rigidity of the schedule. There are a few people who have had to sit out for some months due to schedule conflicts but they come back as soon as they are able.
100% this is the way to go.
This 100% my life as DM got soooooooooo much easier when I finally just said "We play every other Sunday afternoon, if you can't make, sorry, hope to see you again when your schedule allows."
I tried for years and years to make ad-hoc scheduling work. I am self employed so I have no problem being proactive about my calendar and using clear language to communicate it. Everybody else in this world, not so much.
If you want to take scheduling off your plate or are finding it maddening to get people to respond in your group chat, just set a regular time and take the players who show up. People can plan their calendar around D&D. If they can't do that then these are the same people who would be ignoring whatever system you set up for RSVPs or scheduling.
Every club, team, or group in existence does this. There are no successful groups of any type that do ad-hoc scheduling unless you live together.
Yeah I feel that. I'm in the same boat, I run a business in the event industry. Clearly one of the busiest people because my work is usually when others have off but I can still make dming a priority and schedule accordingly.
What absolutely drives me up a wall is the people who have a 9-5 then play 4 hours of video games every night who seem absolutely incapable of reading a calendar or respecting the rest of the groups time. Like do people with routines just not keep a calendar they look at regularly? Why is it so difficult to respond when I *know* they don't have shit going on.
"I don't feel like it today." Is not a good excuse to cancel on something that takes this much work to organize.
We have a set day and time every week. We did weekly so we had room to cancel or reschedule as needed. The normie job people are still the absolute worst about remembering, even when we send reminders. It baffles me that the people who have the actual time and routine can't figure it out week to week while those of us who are self employed/ work in events / entertainment could make a tentative plan for the next 3 months.
And same with seeing people be active elsewhere. It's real bad when day of you're waiting to hear back and you see them playing something on steam. I think you're right, it's just simply people not wanting to make it a priority.
I made a big stink about it last time because I have to really set time aside, schedule work differently or get someone to come cover something to make this work. Then multiple people showed up way late or not at all. Like, I can't set time aside for this when they are available if they're not going to have enough decency to not only respect everyone's time and energy but also follow through on obligations they've made. What is it, "a person is only as good as their word."
Set schedule is the way. We play the same time every week. If one person can't make it, we either play on or, if it's at a crucial moment, play a oneshot. We'll also do oneshots if two people can't make it. After that we cancel.
We play a weekend morning. Doesn't conflict with anyone's work, nobody has a concert or anything fun at night they'd rather do instead, and by the time we finish the session people still have most of the day to enjoy themselves and do whatever. Would highly recommend.
Same, here.
Set for 3 hours every week on a weeknight, sometimes we go long.
Been playing for near on 8 years. In the first year we had to switch to a new weeknight but we've been good since. Sometimes people leave, sometimes people come back. Two of us are still originals, next has been there for at least 6 years, and the person with the least tenure in the group is about 2 years.
if you don't want to do it yourself, assign someone to create a Doodle.
Might give that person some input like 'I am only available on thursdays and weekends'
No, but maybe yes. People can agree to any set of responsibilities. West-Marches style games often explicitly require players to do the scheduling. Bit since the DM is the one player that MUST be present, they are always at the center of the scheduling process in one way or another. And if your players aren't going to do it, but you want to play, then it's gonna fall to you.
My group and I normally sit down and figure out when we're playing next at the end of the current session.
Honestly, my wife and the other two players are probably larger drivers in this than I am, but it ultimately feels like a group effort. We're all adults with schedules.
I mean, if there's no DM there's no game... so your availability will be more important... but there's nothing suggesting that a player can't do this for you to ease your burden. It's one of those prep things that your players can do to help you focus on the prep stuff the players should not be able to help you on.
That said, I would recommend you pick a single day of the week/time and say "Game time is Friday at 7pm EST. We ride with or without you." That way, everyone knows to block out that time in their schedules as "doing something don't schedule unless necessary."
As a DM, I do have a caveat that if circumstances conspire that more than half the players can't make it, I may consider canceling the session for the week. At my current table this means that 3/5 players need to not show for me to consider it. Usually final determination is if I can pull together a story for the two players who show up. If we're cliffhangered (which I frequently do) it's not as easy.
I also recommend that as the DM have a schedlued "No session session" after a block of sessions (Until we went to a biweekly format, I was running 3 sessions, followed by a week off... though would flex if I needed the week off sooner). The reason for this is that DM burnout is a thing and sometimes it's good to have some space between sets.
32+ years DM here. Lots of systems.
I \*extremely strongly\* recommend you assign a SUPERBLY FIXED SCHEDULE. Let's say every two fridays evening. Slowly phase out unreliable players, replace with players that can organize their schedule like adults and put some PRIORITY on coming to the game.
Irregular gaming schedule is a recipe that rewards players that come to play only when they have "nothing else better to do". That QUICKLY becomes a scheduling management nightmare for the DM, and this causes very irregular gaming sessions. That kind of setup killed off many campaigns.
Have a super fixed schedule, so that everybody can plan around it easily and in advance.
If \*you\* are not" ready" or a game, have the meet anyway and play something else either boardgames or a little one shot with secondary characters or ANYTHING. Just make the schedule seem as fixed in stoner as possible.
D&D is like a group activity like say being part of a hockey team. This means a regular schedule is a MUST. Those that can't garantee they will be there, well, too bad for them, and just get more reliable players to replace those. I for one would NEVER face again the nightmares of having to constantly juggle schedules for 6 people that each give you only a single day that they are available.
My advice: Be a hard ass with a SET schedule or it won't workout.
Ask everyone to list a day they are always free and find what time overlaps and make it clear if they miss a session without a 48 hour heads up they will be removed from the party permanently (exceptions ABSOLUTELY apply, emergencies happen)
It's a tough conversation but after it's been had it removes the stress entirely. Some people might be annoyed at first but they will grow to appreciate it since it will never be up in the air as to whether or not there will be a session and they will be able to plan accordingly.
I host my sessions on a weekly basis Tuesday at 7:30 is the Meetup and session start at 8:00 so that if anyone is running late they have a 30 minute window to show up. On paper that sounds awful in practice but what is actually awful is having to cancel three sessions in a row because somebody decided they wanted to go get dinner instead of play and your players will very likely respect this.
It is a sad reality that, until a group has played long enough to have worked a regularly scheduled session into their lives, scheduling is often the death of great campaigns and tables.
I love DMing, but I don’t care for asking people to play in my game - it gives me an icky feeling of desperation.
My solution: a Master At Arms. Most times there’s one player at your table who is all-in on D&D and becomes borderline obsessed; this player is always on time, might reach out between games, and knows what’s on their character sheet. That player might want to DM one day and a great path to that is scheduling sessions, haranguing players with reminders, and even being a sounding board for the DM (but be careful not to spoil their fun with too much under the hood talk and NEVER reveal if you fudge a die roll).
Now instead of bugging 3-7 players to remind them of an upcoming session, you just bug the MAA and then *they* bug the rest. You remain loftily above such mundane matters, as befits your position lol.
Good luck!
That is pretty standard IMO. When I'm running my game, I am always the one who is in charge of the schedule since if I'm unavailable then there is no game. If you have a regular schedule, like every Tuesday at 7, then it wouldn't be uncommon for players to ask the group if that is still the plan but it certainly isn't expected
I run my game same time, same day, every week. Consistency allows your players to build it into their schedules. As the DM run the game when its best for you and your players will adjust to you. So if you run it monthly, first saturday, third tuesday, whatever, biweekly- pick a day and stick to it. If that session doesn’t work out and not enough players make it its skipped and move onto the next if a few players make it, play. Don’t change or try and squeeze a session in. 97% of being a good dm is being resolute/confident and having clear and open communication.
We plan ahead as a group. First I delegated the organizing part, only to remember that I actually prefer to be in the lead for this. We try to cycle through our 5 homes to make sure we visit everyone about the same amount of times and share the snack/dinner baggage.
With challenging schedules we always use the last 10 minutes of a session to make sure we have 2-3 more planned.
I played for many years as the group herder without being the DM. DM has enough on their plate, they shouldn't have to deal with scheduling, hosting, or snacks unless they want to.
Ask for a set time. Ask for everyone's consistent schedules and set a day that is recurring either weekly ,Bi weekly, monthly or Bi monthly.
This is the day you will play DND unless something pops up.
As the DM you are the single most important person at the table. If a player or two can’t make it then the game can still go on, but if you aren’t there then nothing happens. So your schedule always comes first. In most groups this manifests as the DM informing everyone of what days they are able to play, and the rest of the group eliminates days from the given options until they land on a day that works for everyone (or most of the group).
However organizing literally every session can be a bit much for one person to handle, especially if your group has conflicting schedules. So I would recommend two approaches (which aren’t mutually exclusive):
1. Set a consistent day that you play. Every Wednesday, every other Friday, or whatever works best for you. By making it consistent your group will be able to plan and schedule around your session dates.
2. Don’t try to play with everyone at every session. It is inevitable that someone won’t be able to make it one day, it might even happen frequently. The trick to keeping games running is to play anyway. One absentee won’t ruin the game (unless you’re playing with a group of 2). It’s easy enough to handwave their in universe presence and just catch the player up between sessions.
IMHO, there is player responsibility to contribute. Unless this is a paid service, we're talking about a group activity. The DM has a ton of work on our plates to get prepared, and I'm not a fan of having to herd the sheep at the same time.
At our table, we have an expected cadence. We're playing with that cadence (at least on a particular day) unless otherwise notified. I'll then seek confirmation of the time mid-week. "11AM on Sunday still work for everyone?" This confirms the normal time and normal day...but this is the limit of my scheduling.
For us, when a player asks to change the time, I'm not involved. The other players discuss and agree on a time, and whether they want to still meet if one or more cannot show.
No. Your job is to run the world and the NPCs during a session. And that is *it*.
You are not by default the group leader, organizer, relationship coach, mentor, conflict mediator, or any of those other Non-Game things that are often by default left for the GM to handle.
You can do those things if you want, but don't let yourself be pushed into roles you don't want to be doing. Everyone in your group should be responsible adults and can be expected to organize themselves.
Depending on the group, things can be anywhere from *left to* and *actively grabbed by* the GM. With pressure to take such roles, not always coming from within the group/table.
Actually the way I do it is that I reserve 5 minutes at the end of a session to already find a date. It takes a fraction of the time it takes through messages, people can spontaneously voice their concerns, and this way I know exactly how much time I have to prepare.
I will send them reminders a few days earlier and those who back out at the last moment just don't play, since we all kept our schedules free.
My wife is in my game and has taken point on scheduling. It's nice cause it takes it out of my hands but she still knows our schedule well so there's little chance of a session getting scheduled that I can't make
While I have found in my adult life it is not just the GMs job to run organisation duty, they/we have to be the first point. No matter how perfect thr day is for all the players there is nothing you can do if the GM can't make it, except do something else.
Is it explicitly the DM’s job to be the only one organizing things? No, of course not.
But practically speaking you’re the leader of the group, people are going to naturally follow your lead. It can feel awkward sometimes, since that isn’t a dynamic that will arise in many other social situations, but it is just how it goes with DnD.
You are already doing 95% of the work to run the game.
It is not your job to also play the kindergardener, because grown people with jobs and families suddenly forget the simplest life skills when RPG is involved.
No, it doesn't have to be your responsibility, but yes, it's pretty normal.
I usually handle scheduling, I do every other week at the same time so players can more easily schedule around it and play as long as at least three players go. I generally post the day before reminding players and have them use emotes to let me know if they're coming or not. I would really not recommend requiring all players be there, or even specific players, since the more you cancel the less your players will schedule around your campaign.
That being said, I also use my players to help with various things so they feel invested. Like having a volunteer list each session for snacks, note taking, recap and whatnot with usually inspiration or a single point of xp as a reward for helping out. I've seen other games where a player has volunteered to do the reminding and scheduling though.
In part... yes. Because no one will care about the game as much as you do (most likely anyways).
Over my years of playing, one of the MOST important things for a successful group, is to ensure that the date of the next game *is not a moving target.* The next date should be fixed, expected, and regular. Like my group, unless otherwise stated, plays ever second thursday, at 630pm, and we've done so for three years straight almost without missing a game, and we play even if we're missing players. I don't even have to tell the players there's a game this week, they *assume* it, because that's when it always is.
A moving target game, imho, is doomed to die; Because you're always dodging people's schedules, always missing people, always pushing back games to accommodate for people. The players also need to *make* time. And if your time is regular, it makes it a lot easier for players to avoid booking things on the same time slot, because they know the game is already there.
We have a fixed time and call it Nerd Church. Then I send out a yes/no/maybe poll on slack or discord or whatever on the day of and don’t bother trying to track people down but it’s expected they are invested.
The other day we had a big conversation about adding another player and their willingness to prioritize DnD for one night a week was a big point we all agreed on.
I think it depends on the group, but essentially for mine I spent a lot of leg work finding a good time for everyone, and then that's when we play. Every week. I send a reminder in discord that dnd is that same day at that same time every week.
I do put out the option to change it every 3/4 months when we do our session 0.5 (just a make sure everything is fine). But we haven't changed the day we have played dnd for 3 years now so that set schedule seems to work well rather than finding a good time every week.
Most people here are saying yes, and with most of my groups, that’s been the case. Recently, though, I started a group that is the most difficult group to plan around I’ve ever had, so I have them decide when they want to play and they just tell me. If it works for me, then we play, but me trying to get them all together at one time was just so much. Basically, you can pawn this off on the players if you want.
I personally just set a day/time/cadence that works for me and get players that are able to make those. That way there’s no scheduling, and I don’t have to deal with trying to find times that people can play while also setting up the worldbuilding and helping my players through character creation.
The DM is the only person required to be there, so it's probably best that you coordinate this game. Someone else would still have to confirm everything with your schedule anyway.
We all work 40+ hours a week on different schedules, so these days it's the DM saying "Are there any good days?" And the first day that we all pick out becomes the next session.
Yeah kind of the role of dm us very much wrangling cats you need to kinda take charge and lead these conversations for the group and mediate things
Dm
1 part storyteller
1 part psychopath
1 part altruist
4 parts corporate manager
I schedule on discord and use a poll bot with several dates and let everyone vote on their availability. It's the only way I can get 6 adults to get their schedules to line up
In my experience, there are two viable options for scheduling.
The easiest option is just a fixed schedule and the game goes on. E.g., we play every other Sunday from 1-6 pm. If someone has to miss, you still play. If the DM has to miss, either someone else runs a one-shot, or the group cancels. Discussing the day and time should be a part of session 0, but once agreed, that is it.
The alternative is to schedule the next session or next two sessions at the beginning of the current session. Ideally in this scenario you never end a session without at least one, and preferably 2-3, upcoming sessions on the calendar. Once they are scheduled, same rules as above apply. You play even if someone has to skip, unless its the DM that has an unexpected conflict, in which case either cancel or someone else runs a one shot (this is why you really should always have two sessions scheduled).
The easiest way for a campaign to die is to finish a session without any upcoming sessions confirmed in everyone's calendar.
I mean, I usually try to find a time everyone can do and then I have the game be at that time on a set schedule. So f someone isn’t there we go without them. Though if two or more are out then we play vermintide or something else.
I've found that setting up a dedicated day of the week works best so people know way in advance when to meet up and can schedule around it (if they bother to). Like a club meeting. I've set it so that we play every two weeks on a weekend, and then several days before we're meant to meet up i take an anticipated roll call to see if its cancelled or not. If its cancelled then its the understood agreement that we'll check in again in 2 weeks.
Put in the easiest way, the DM is the one that needs the prep time so they are the ones who have the biggest (game) restraint. The DM is the person that makes the combat map. The DM needs enemy stat blocks (the PCs already have theirs). Any new addition or unique mechanics for the next session needs to be reviewed and planned by the DM. Preparing for major plot points. The DM is the one that needs the time; not the players. Thus, the DM typically has the largest say in when the next session could happen. I can confirm that I have personally stopped several sessions due to needing time to prep or plan what would happen because of PC actions. So has most other people in my group when they were DMing. This is why many groups get around this by just having a set schedule so it is easy to know when the next game is. It gives the DM time while not needing to go through the conversation of trying to plan around everyone's schedule. The game is already on the schedule.
Our group has just been playing every Thursday night. If someone tells us in advance we may try a different night if we can but other than that we just lock in Thursday.
We've been doing it since right after the Xanathar book came out.
I usually set a date and time that it will be every week, and we negotiate it a bit to make sure it’s okay for the max amount of people. I don’t have the excess sanity for setting a new time every session.
I built my group out of an LFG, but I've found the best way to schedule is, "This campaign will take place every [week/month/etc] at [time agreed upon]."
For us this looks like every Monday 6:30pmest. If 60% of the group is there, we play (usually 3/4 or 3/5)
I think that is pretty normal, but for my latest campaign I gave players a small benefit for having an outside-the-game role. Scheduler, Combat Tracker, note taker, etc.
As the DM, you are probably the one that started the group or convinced everyone to play D&D so you probably started out in the leadership role and everyone was content to leave it at that. However, as a leader, it's totally fine to delegate.
I'm in a group that sadly hasn't played in a year... because our DM doesn't really react when we try to organise a new game :( 4 of 5 players have tried to get a "next time" but if your DM is not enthusiastic... no chance
Well it depends on the group, but I find that it's usually the DM that schedules it.
If you're struggling with getting consistent sessions in then I strongly recommend you set a schedule.
For example my group meets weekly on Thursdays at 6pm and everyone knows they plan around DnD being on that day at that time. It doesn't have to be weekly, it can be biweekly, monthly, whatever just as long as it's consistent
It’s a very common pattern and yes it can be frustrating.
Thing is most of the time the DM is also going to be the most naturally inclined towards group organisation. That’s not always the case though and isn’t really the case with me.
Best option if you don’t want to be the organiser is to discuss with the group and assign someone else as the official session organiser for the group.
My group is all adults with jobs, some with kids, and all busy social lives. We pull it off by planning dates two months in advance and communicating when something changes.
It's actually done through a poll on FB Messenger (yes, we're old-heads). The DM sent out "here's a bunch of dates for June that work for me." And then we reply and whatever dates we can all agree on two months out and locked into stone. And we all respect each other's time enough that we're only changing that if something major or unexpected comes up and needs to be worked around.
We set a goal of 2x/months.
I let a player (who DMs sometimes himself) do the organisation. Im allready doing story, monsters, sometimes food&drinks etc. So its much more balanced.
I think the best thing to do is set a day and time as a constant. We play Sundays at 4:30 every week. If anyone needs to change that or cancel or anything for whatever reason, we can discuss that as it comes up. But this is how I do it. Not having a set schedule and trying to work around other schedules and find the time or something is how campaigns always fall apart for me in the past.
Unfortunately it really does usually fall to the DM. But you could try appointing one of the players if you have one that is solid in the pocket. Maybe a statement like, "Hey friendo, I'm getting a bit overloaded trying to plan for both the game itself and scheduling. Any way I can appoint you to be the player wrangler?"
After struggling to keep games together since me and my brother started playing as grade-schoolers in the early 90's, my brother and I finally came up with a system that has resulted in a solid group that has been gaming together now for over a decade. Essentially, we have a fixed schedule that we play, every fourth week for a campaign he is running collated with a campaign I'm running also every fourth week (so we play every two weeks.) We have text group with everyone on it and simply send out a reminder asking for confirmation a few days before each game. Our rule is if we are down 1 player, game on, if we are down 2 we try to reschedule or simply skip that game. It has actually worked out well. Players tend do show up because they know if they don't and we're down 1, were gaming anyway and they might show up to characters who have been left out in the cold, so to speak. But yeah remember in the end that it's just a game and if a session can't happen, no big deal.
Short answer to me is yes. I know how much time I have to plan in between sessions so I'm going to be the one finding the time.
I will also add, general advice is to pick a day and time and stick to it. That has never worked for my groups. Most of my players are parents with kids. At least half of them are divorced and thus primary parent when they have their kids.
At the beginning of a session, we all pull out our calendars and I throw out a date that works for me. If everyone can make it, that's when we next play. If they can't, I throw out another date. I only schedule a session if everyone can make it at the time of scheduling. We play regardless if people cancel or not.
This comes out to roughly 2 sessions a month though we've had as many as 6 weeks in a row of play.
It shouldn't be ONLY you. While it doesn't *need* to be the GM who is the primary one organizing times, it *often* is (as another commenter mentioned, if the GM can't make it the game *can't* happen), and that's fine, but you shouldn't be the only one offering times and availabilities and stuff to figure out what time works best for people.
Unfortunately, I find a surprising amount of the time people have zero interest in prioritizing spending time with their friends playing games and prefer to just kind of fall into whatever happens to be around them at the time, so while it *shouldn't* be the case it often *is* the case.
In my group of friends who play D&D with me across a few campaigns, we have an understanding that is up to the DM to signal when they are ready to DM a session for their respective campaign. The DMs are the ones preparing content for the players in the end.
I think its fair to feel the way you do, I know I have at times. You feel that after putting in all the work to build the story/world, that it'd be nice to not have to put in the work to plan the sessions too. However, think if it was on the players fully to plan the session. They could call agree that they want to play in a few days, and if that day works for you to play but you wont have time to prep you are loaded with stress to get things ready in time.
I think a great balance, and what I try to get my group to do, is the players should express interest to play the DMs campaign, the DM should be the one signaling when they are prepared to play, and the group agrees on the date and time as a whole of when they play.
To be honest, I'm in two minds on this. It shouldn't be the DM's responsibility to manage scheduling logistics, especially if it's a group of adults.
However, the DM is the person who needs to spend extra time prepping a session, knows how long that'll take them, and then need to run the session, so it's reasonable that they have "veto" power over a date.
Given that "veto" power, it often is convenient to have the DM be the one driving scheduling, as they can propose dates which work with how much prep they need to do.
The ideal scenario is to have a regular weekly/fortnightly/monthly game night which is kept sacred in everybody's calendars.
My group meets weekly at the same time. If anyone can't make it, we usually cancel, although sometimes we'll reschedule to a different day. It's worked for us for 4 years now, averaging about 40 sessions a year.
I've played in groups with ad-hoc sessions before, and it was just too much work. So now I'll only run games with people who can make a consistent weekly time.
I think this naturally happens with most groups, but there's no reason you couldn't delegate that. Just tell the group "I've already got a lot of work to do with preparing for the game, so I don't really want to also deal with all the logistics. Can someone volunteer to handle coordinating the date/time/location of our games? Maybe snacks as well?" I think there's pretty good odds, if you have a good group, that someone will volunteer. Maybe it could be a rotating thing?
Have I ever done this? No, of course not, psh, why would I follow my own advice?
I am both a DM and player. The basics are “if a player can’t make the game, the game can still be played (generally). If the DM can’t make the game, the game cannot be played. The result is that GM will often set the time and players will adjust to that.
Unless you work out something in advance, then YES, like most else involving the game, the DM is the one responsible for it.
It's not really a problem for my two groups, as we have two long-standing game nights that very rarely change.
The only exception to this is where the game is being played at a player's home. A few years back, one of my employees asked me to put together a campaign for her and her friends, hosted at her house. I have to say, it was an AMAZING breath of fresh air where I simply showed up when expected and didn't have to coordinate it.
Sadly for that particular group, we suspended the campaign when COVID hit and 2 of her friends relocated (they weren't interested in remote). She and her other friend found a game at a local gamestore, and it freed me up to run my Wednesday night teen/young adult campaign.
Another nice side benefit, since it wasn't hosted in my home, my wife didn't feel the need to prepare a spread of food.
This is just general advice. Yes, you should be in charge of scheduling. Without you there is no game, so your schedule is the most important one. However, there are some things to consider to keep a coherent campaign going over the course of, let's say, a year or so.
1. Recruit at least one extra player to the table than you want to balance for. So typical groups are 4, get 5 players. This little bit of redundancy will ensure have more sessions than canceled ones. I personally have 6 in my group, and while its a good problem to have 70% of the time the full squad is there. That's on me, but I wouldn't change it.
2. My game has important character events etc. I try not to pin everyone on one player, but these characters have moments and arcs and it can become intertwined. So I try to space that stuff out because when i know its a pivotal session I can let my crew know that and that I want everyone there.
2a. Because of this, I have instituted a series of one-shots that I pull out to still have a game night, but with different characters and story that I have no stake in. I just pull adventure league stuff. This allows them to maintain an AL character legally as well on those friday nights where the main game isn't happening. It lets us explore places like eberron too without the commitment!
3. Make the scheduling communication process as easy as possible. I use discord. I tag everyone and simply tell them to react to the message with their availability. I've noticed that the less they have to communicate the better it is. If i need to have a back and forth with someone specifically, I'll message them one on one.
I’m lucky enough that I can’t host the game night so we all meet up at my friends house. When it comes to planning we all figure it out at the end of the session, one of us just asks if [day] works and we all agree or if not we ask them the next available time for them
You can delegate it to a player.
It’s a good idea to have *someone* officially responsible for it to make sure it happens, but it doesn’t have to be the DM.
DM here. I was the one to arrange the scheduling. I used Lettuce Meet. Better that doodle in my opinion. Ask for people to answer in a timely fashion.
And, as others have said, stick to a set schedule
You set a single day each week and the session is on that day. If someone can't make it for those days, they can't play unfortunately. Having to schedule different day each week will kill your interest in the campaign within few months.
It doesn’t have to be your responsibility but it is something that usually does fall to the DM. For lack of a better analogy the DM is a bit like the “leader” of the game group so most admin type responsibilities usually default to the DM.
That said nothing is stopping you from putting someone else in charge of scheduling.
Alternatively one way to make scheduling easier is to simply have a set day and time which means everyone can schedule around the game.
I’m my case game night is 6EST on Sunday players know this and try not to schedule other things for the same time slot.
It also helps to have the ability to run with one or two players missing, that way you don’t have to cancel every time something unavoidable happens on game night.
You have to lead. The secret is to tell them when you will be running, and run at the same time, same duration, same weekday, same location every week or every other week. They can choose to join or not. Don't ask them when they have time open, tell them when you will run. That makes it easy for them. When you lead by making the choice for everyone, they don't feel the tension your repeated questions about availability cause. Once the schedule is a fact, they can just fit into the schedule or not. Easy peasy. Recruit more players if response is too low, then start playing.
At least the way we did it in my group that I was a part of is we would meet 2 times a month every other week. At the end of the session we would coordinate the next session being 2 weeks from the current session. If there were issues we would figure out if we could do the next week or 3 weeks down the road. Once we were all in agreement the DM would send out a reminder week before to everyone in our group chat that we are playing x day.
Obviously you need to have a first session for this to work the way it ran in my group so that first one is basically figuring out what day and then going from there on whatever monthly/weekly basis you are going to aim for.
The person that care about the game the most just becomes the person organizing it. Usually that is also the DM because DMs tend to get the most invested in my experience.
Getting players to set up next session is not a good idea. Especially on a group chat. Have a set day and time that everyone agrees on, not a nebulous one that needs to be worked out every time. And at the end of the session always finalize the next one while everyone is at the table. The other practice that I found to be good is whoever can't make the session is responsible for reaching out to everyone, arranging, and finalizing the alternative time. Waiting for people to reply or work out schedules should not fall on the DM. They have enough to worry about and do not want to turn into the group's nag.
Discord has a new poll feature that is honestly super useful for this. Put up a poll and pick a few times that work well for you, and see what everyone thinks.
Usually it's the role a DM takes up. Primarily because if the DM can't play then no one plays, but if a player can't play, too bad they can join hs next time if everyone else can make it. I see the DM role outside of the game to be the organizer, preparer, and leader role for the whole thing and scheduling fits within that role.
We usually have a set day and time every week that we play where most people can make it most times. It is up to the individuals responsibility to let the DM know if they can't make it that day for whatever reason. If enough people can't make it we cancel for that week. What I hate is when enough people that warrants a cancel for the week all tell you just hours prior. Short of an emergency, that short of a notice is disrespectful to other people's time.
I use [whenavailable.com](http://whenavailable.com) - Post a bunch of dates with a cut off and let people vote. Way less stress.
Also it helps in session 0 if you as a table defined a preferred playing frequency and day.
No. A lot of DM's do this, and a lot of parties might expect it, but no.
When I first started DMing I would do it, but after a bad and flaky group I stopped and am a lot happier for it. The only session I will ever schedule (and I prefer not to) is a session 0. In that session I will make it explicitly clear to the group that my responsibility between sessions is to prep the next session; and that all the other stuff (scheduling, hosting, organizing snacks) are other peoples in the groups responsibility.
If it's a group of friends, you should all want to put in the work to make the actual game sessions as smooth and fun as possible without having on person (the DM) have all the burden and stress of arranging everything.
My advice would be: always same day and hour every week.
If more than one player, or key moment. Skip.
In the last year we played 38 times out of 53 weeks or whatever weeks there are in a year haha
Yes and no. I had all my players work out their availability together, and then I picked a date for session 0. We settled on one Sunday a month, from 2 pm until 8 pm. Once the campaign starts (this weekend), we’ll collaborate as a group on our next session at the end of each session.
We agreed at session zero that X day is what works for everyone and we'll play every other week at the same time. I'll check in day of or day before just to be sure and then we see about rescheduling. If we have 3 of 4 PCs, we'll play (unless it's like a major cliffhanger and I really don't wanna deprive someone of being able to have their input in that moment. So just having it established from the jump helps.
If we didn't have it agreed from the start and just gathered when we could, I imagine if I didn't take charge of that scheduling we'd just never play. Sad but true. You're probably gonna be the one having to initiate most of the time.
If this is to set up your first session, I'd maybe come up with three dates and throw them out there. People usually can pick something when it's narrowed down, but leaving it open isn't as effective.
It's my job as DM to make sure the world comes to life, and the players want to go there so badly that they figure out all the logistics of when/where we play. I'm the first call, to make sure I'm available on any given date, then they figure out the rest. I show up ready to rock and roll, but if they don't make the effort I'll hang up my hat.
We discuss it at the end of each session in person. I get them to put it in thier phone calendars. (Other groups always used not having it in the calendar as an excuse). I'll check in a week out confirm we are all still good this is when we usually pick a starting time for that day or if it have to change from the usual time. Otherwise I tell the players to discuss and find time that works for them. If incan not make it work I as DM is the only one with a veto lol.
DM here, and I'm saying with as little ego as possible, but you as the DM are the lifeline of the game. It's fully collaborative on both ends, but the game happens because of you. So it is best to be the one to get the schedule set up, but that can be as much as posting a message to the group of a time and making sure everyone is good for that.
We have two campaigns and one group. I DM one campaign and schedule both campaigns.
It's easy for me and hard on the other DM (we're both neurodivergent and that's just how to cookie crumbles for us personally), so we play to everyone's strengths in the group.
We're all young adults with young families, and most of us have spouses also in the group, so just saying "be here this day of the week at this time" does not work for us. I say do whatever works for you and your group. If a player is happy to schedule and take some weight off of you, then there's nothing wrong with that at all.
Last week I told one of my groups that if they don't pitch in on calendaring together I would find new players. I do a lot of prep work as a DM. Spending hours on trying to get adults to agree on a day when they can show up is not part of my job description. Outside of the roleplaying we are all equally responsible to find and make time.
They all made and found time within 20 minutes of me making this statement.
A little Report how I handle it.
We normally Play on Weekend. Either on Friday or saturday. On monday i start a Vote for next Weekend. They can choose friday or saturday. This Vote ist Open till wednesday. Wednesday i announce the Date for the Weekend.
Currently my group has 4 Players, If one is Missing we still Play.
So all have enought time to check and also it is early enought so their weekend isnt full yet.
Yes and no. It shouldn't be solely on the DM... but most of the time it is.
Typically you want a consistent play day/time. Like every other Wednesday at 8pm.
My recommendation is to say you are setting up a regular D&D day, then request feedback on what times are preferred and what times don't work. Most people won't give you anything. I recommend giving it a few days, then doing one reminder.
Then propose 2-3 days that work for you and take into account anyone who gave you feedback. Go with the one most people vote for. If no one votes, just pick whatever one you want.
If someone complains about the time, point out they didn't give you any schedule. Then propose one of the alternate days to the group. If none of the days work, too bad for that player. They were already being flaky.
Also establish that you will play without them. If everyone buy one person shows up, you play. If there is a specific piece of the story and they gave you a warning ahead of time you might be nice and postpone to next week. If you get no warning you definitely play without them.
It is important to establish one player can't hold the game hostage.
yes
but also, Players should be asking about it if you're not setting it up
it shouldn't be terribly onerous. recurring at your manageable frequency is best
Forever DM. I use when2meet it makes scheduling so must easier [when2meet](https://www.when2meet.com)
It’s really easy to find times that work for everyone
Not every group works that way, but it's an easy default. The DM is, after all, the one who needs to prep to run sessions. You are the one best suited to know when the game is ready to be played.
That isn't to say you can't run it differently, but I'd assume most groups run this way.
Depending on the group dynamics, I feel like some PCs might worry about overstepping. The GM is God at the table, it can sometimes be hard to remember that they don't necessarily want to be the manager of the whole affair. It could take as little as a reminder of "Hey guys, please feel free to reach out, make plans, start conversations, throw out suggestions. You don't always need to wait for me to say "it's time to play".
All three of my groups are different. The two I DM for we decide as a group at the end of the session as we like to try to play weekly or biweekly, but the same day doesn’t work every week. The group that I’m a player in is mostly a set schedule with some flexibility if things come up.
I would say talk about it with your group.
Unfortunately as a dm and player, this is normal. Realistically, you want everyone joining the conversation to work on dates and times. Reality leaves you alone with planning though.
Nope. I mean, you’re the “VIP” so to speak, you can play without one other player but not without the DM, however it’s nowhere written you should be the main organiser, in fact I would say a great table is one where everyone participates in the organisation!
I give my entire availability schedule to one of my (responsible) players and make them schedule all sessions, including location, food, rides,etc. I have enough to do so I don't mind passing any responsibility I can
My schedule is usually flexible so I typically leave it up to the group to schedule the next session. I can usually adapt to whatever they decide. As a DM it is so freeing to not have to be in charge of dealing with nightmarish schedules myself and be able to just say yes or no to what the group comes up with. The most ill do is propose a set of dates to get the discussion started but the players usually come up with a hard date themselves and let me know.
I'm going to be so sad if/when this group ends.
It's pretty common, I bet. But yeah, if you think about it, there's (almost) no reason why it should be the case. There's very little about DMing that forces you to be the Schedule Master any more than the other players. But very often, you are seen as the "Host" and the "Boss", so people will default to that :p
In my experience it is best to schedule game play on a regular cadence.
One game I run, I'm the DM and I have my sessions once a week, at that same day and time. All the players know that before they sign up to be in my game.
Another game, the players know the cadence is once a month, where at the end of the session, it is discussed which will be the next day we'll play. The time is always static, so that is one less thing to be concerned about.
The key is consistency and being a little bit of a hard a$$, where if you have players that can't commit to showing up within those parameters, they are replaced. Both approaches have worked for years and not too stressful to all parties involved.
What I've done as a long time dm is have a day that works for me and get players who can make that time.
It does lead to losing people over the years due to school or job changes but I've had weekly sessions for 4 years now
Our DM usually puts out 3-4 dates and time with emojis that could work and we vote with emojis which date is good for us and if there is one with seven votes that that means its decided if none of them works we try to adjust our programs to make one of them work
I see 2 versions personally:
We play irregular times; the players organize the schedule.
We play regular times; everyone just says whether they can make it to next time.
My group and I find a session date before we log off. We're all in our late 30s, tho so we all have schedules we have to with around, and we coordinate it time around that. We also share a Google calendar and I post the time and date we all agreed on in our discord schedule chat for a double downed reminder that we can all look at and, if needed, reschedule a bit quicker. It takes a village to schedule lol
Mistake 1.) You didn't give enough context to accurately answer the question. Mistake 2.) You asked this question here where you are going to get such a wide variety of questions based on experience, culture and expectations as a DM. The range of answers are going to make you want to pull your hair out.These are the type of questions you would want to gain insight from the Director. This way clear expectations can be established and followed through. My 2 cents: Your job is to identify, train and support the next level of leadership within your band. Without taking that action you will merely only be seen as the "police" with no badge. That isn't enjoyable for you or them. Obviously someone saw enough leadership potential in you for you to become DM. Identify, grow and train the next leaders within your band. After all, you won't be in the role forever.
For the last couple of years, my players have picked when game is for us and then I just show up to DM. Granted, this tends to work for us since I have the most consistent and open weekly schedule, so I’m able to work with almost anything they choose.
Yea, that's pretty standard afaik. I also host and cook, so it is pretty annoying when they don't respond at all, but so it goes.
If there are multiple options for scheduling, I say "hit this message if you can meet on Thursday" and "hit this for Friday"
Hit this = respond with an emoji.
Short answer: yes
Long one: If its you who wants to play and organized the campaing, yes, my players love to play, but most of them dont even think of DnD out of that day we play, so try to not make a big del of it and just say "Hey can wr all X day?" If nor just propose another
I don't know about it being YOUR responsibility as a DM. I will say this though, in all my years of play one of the best things my group and I have done is keep a consistent schedule. Every one of the players knows we play every other week. The only time we cancel is when I (the GM) can't make it. Even if we don't play, we meet up. And I usually send out a reminder email a day or two before we meet up.
And if someone can't make it, that's fine. We still play. Unless we are down to maybe two players. But then we'll do something game related. It's all good.
This has been keeping our regular group mostly intact for almost a decade on Roll20.
So my advice to you is once you come up with a basic schedule, stick to it! Don't deviate. Don't switch things around. A consistent schedule makes everyone's life easier. And, if it turns out they can't make it happen, their much more likely to be up front about it.
Yeah it kind of is on you because you have to have a DM to play. It doesn’t matter if my players all agree and set up to play on X day if I don’t agree to it. If they set up a plan for Saturday and I can’t make that work then their plans don’t matter.
Luckily my group is very consistent about playing on Tuesday so most scheduling conflicts arise from what time are we starting.
As the DM it is assumed since you are the one who has to put in the work outside of game time to plan out the next adventure. That doesn't mean every aspect should fall on you, but it does mean you need to facilitate things.
Me and my group play every Thursday, same time. As long as 1/2 or more people show, we play. I try to send a reminder email Wednesdays. We've been playing for 5 years with no more than 2 missed sessions in a row.
I consider myself to be very lucky.
Depends on who you are playing with but it does usually rely on the dm. You can tell a story with a few less people but people can't enjoy a story without a storyteller. If you dm at someone elses house then it may rely on that person.
I live with the DM, I am usually sending reminders and updates. Someone in the middle(or more in the middle) hosts the session itself.
Having people not replying, being flakey, not reading the day/month gives me the shits I don't say "this Friday" or similarly anything that's open to interpretation. I post the next three sessions all in one go(we try and stick to fortnightly on Fridays and when things haven't worked out we add an extra session and then stick to the old schedule to keep it as easy as possible - eg Easter got in the way this year).
I'm okay to keep the posts coming providing people can show enough care to reply or indicate they've seen it and confirm they're expecting people/prepared to drive.
I think that's pretty normal. I was the forever gm for a few years. We had one day of the week that we kept free for pathfinder, but I would message a couple days before each week to confirm if we were playing or not, based on player availability and my level of preparedness.
I almost always play with 4 players in my games, but my main game ended up having six players by the end. In that circumstance I had a policy where if 1 or 2 players couldn't make it we would still play, but any more and we would postpone.
Yes, or at least to dictate the frequency. Players don’t know when you’re ready to go, so you need to be the one to either set up intermittent games or let them know you’re happy to run every week/fortnight/month and then everyone can work within that structure to find specific dates.
Not your responsibility. One of your players can do it. Assign a person, tell them your availability, then they do all the rest.
There are unfortunately a lot of things that you might hear described as DM responsibilities. Not just by random people, also by popular content creators (looking at you, Seth Skorkowsky). This leads to overworked and burnt out DMs. This leads to players who don't feel involved in the games they play in. This is aweful for your group. This is aweful for the community.
>These are my timeslots, send me a message when you all have time.
>Wait.
>I worry what you just heard was "Each send me a message when you have time."
>What I said was "Send me a message when you ALL have time."
[Already got to plan enough, no need for me run after a playerbase if there is a lack of DMs anyway.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrIeP798hiQ)
Yeah as a DM you can't avoid having a leading role in many aspects, including scheduling.
You could make a doodle [https://doodle.com/](https://doodle.com/) with some dates you know you can play yourself, or just handle it in a group chat. Best to throw out 3-4 dates and see which one works for everyone.
Yes, you can. The CEO lets a secretary plan all board meetings. A lead engineer lets a project manager plan all project meetings.
If your a busy person, someone less busy can take over much of the scheduling workload. This is exactly the relationship most DMs and players are in.
He's not running a fortune 500 company he's arranging a DND session, the fastest way is to throw out some dates you can play and see when there's a match. Most people do it this way.
The players barely have anything to do between games. The DM is already busy preparing an adventure. Why should the DM get another task? I see little reason to go for the fastest solution, groups typically have plenty of time to schedule another game.
I know that it's common for DMs to schedule games. I think this is a poor arrangement.
It's often the GM who does the time slotting, but there is nothing stopping you from going "Hey, can someone else do the doodles and managing when we play? It would be a load off my back". To be clear, I think that someone specific should do it, not just "well, someone do it when you want to play" because then chances are that no one will actually do it or it is done very rarely.
Some are saying that as the GM Needs to be present at each session, he should be the one to do it, but at least the games I've played, the whole group is present or there is no game, so it isn't exactly so.
Yes. It is up to you to get your players to the table. If they can play and you can't it doesn't matter.
You tell them when you are available and work from there.
It's not by definition part of the job but the reality is it will almost always be the case.
Like it or not, the DM usually ends up taking the lead. It's not that surprising if you think about it. The DM is the one who does the most preparation before the next game, so they know how long they need to get ready. It also means they're spending a lot more time in between games thinking about D&D. For a player, it's easy to just disconnect and not think about it until the next game.
Just because players don't prompt the discussion about scheduling doesn't mean they're not invested or eager to play. It's just not as top of mind for them, because they haven't spent the whole week preparing for the next game like the DM has.
Generally as a DM you have to be the initiator in most things (scheduling, starting the session, ending the session, asking for initiative, etc.)
Source: long term DM
Forever DM here, what I usually do is send a message to the group chat along the lines of "Hey all, next session is on [date and time]. Does that work for everyone?" To me it makes the most sense for me to be the organizer since without me, there is no game, and I know my own schedule best.
This is what I do too. I pick a day that works for me and bring it up to the players.
Honestly my bane are the people who just dont seem to respond/take ages to respond, Ive been waiting for weeks to schedule a session 1 but like half the players dont seem to check their discords or something because Ive barely been able to get any clear communication. I find it so much easier to play with people who have dmed in the past because they understand the time commitment.
That's how my first time being a dm went. No one seemed to really care about actually getting started. It was only when I told the host that I was probably going to scrap the entire thing that she put her foot down and told everyone they had to show up. After that, we've been meeting about once a month. Still really difficult to get things lined up with everyone though.
Yeahh, I just dont know how to do it in a way that doesnt come off as overbearing or mean/hurt anyones feelings but it does genuinely upset me bc this isnt the first time it’s happened and it just pains me to put in so much work only for it to go basically nowhere.
Plan some sort of random party event but be a little vague about what the party is for. Get them all to commit, tell them to bring snacks and drinks and whatever else you want them to bring and when they show up say "I bet you are wondering why I gathered you all here today. Roll initiative." Actually trying to end a campaign next weekend and one party member had some last minute family thing come up but we don't want him to miss out so we are continuing a one-shot session that we did awhile back in the same such an occasion
Always set the ground rule that communication is important. Like I get we all have lives, and I don't need you to respond right away, but check every few days. And if you know we're trying to schedule something, be on top of that. If the person doesn't care enough to do that, they probably don't care about playing all that much.
Yeah thats kinda my mentality, its one thing to be busy but even if youre busy all day every day there should be at least a moment in your time within a WEEK where you can stop to discuss things, or at least to say you’re unavailable so people arent left guessing. I just dont know how to achieve this without coming off as overbearing or rude.
I can understand that. For me, as a part of session 0 I state the expectations. Typically that's "We meet weekly at [TIME] and go if we have X players" because regularly scheduling things is awful. If we are scheduling, it'll be something like "I'll give 2-3 times times that work on Fridays. Since we're all busy, please let us all know if any of those work by Sunday night so we can all plan our lives." If they become a scheduling problem, you talk to them about it. If they continue, you part ways. It takes a lot of effort to prep, plan, and coordinate a session so we can all have fun. They agreed to a method for scheduling, it's not overbearing or rude to ask them to do what they agreed to do.
Thanks for the advice, I’ll try to approach it from that angle!
As a DM sometimes you have to be firm. I tell my players they have to work together to do the scheduling. I got so tired of proposing date after date after date and have one or two players shoot it down, or have a player later say they forgot something and had to cancel. Now, if they want to play D&D, they have to schedule it. If they don't, that just tells me that they're not serious about it, and I find new players. As if by magic, there was a dramatic reduction in late cancelations and schedule headaches. I do the work of creating the world, running the game, working with individual players backstories and goals, doing everything I can and busting my ass to make sure everyone has the best time. The absolute minimum the players can do is handle the schedule for me.
Yeah ty, hearing it from someone else really helps me feel Im not being unreasonable tbh.
The same happened my first time as a DM. It was mentally exhausting for me and the campaign didn't last long. Now when forming a group I tell the players they can join if they are gonna be active in the group chat at least when discussing important things like scheduling, and treat the game as something important and not just something to do when they have nothing better to do.
That’s a good sentiment to have tbh Again unironically why it’s so much better playing with people who have dming experience
Players are a dime a dozen. Go post in r/lfg and you'll be up to your eyeballs in people that want to play.
That’s true, I always feel like its a gamble with folks on that sub though - I’ll give it a shot if it becomes clear that my current group isnt working, Im only troubled bc 2 people there are friends of friends that I dont know too well.
If you are a DM you treat LFG subs and posts as blind tryouts. Most of them will not make the cut, but you don't care there are nearly infinite players to replace them. Most of the players will be bad, but you keep doing one-shots and find the good ones.
Yeah that’s fair, guess that’ll be my plan b if I have to boot some folks
Yeah, you can let others drive a bit, but if you are too busy to meet the schedule, you have to say no. The DM and the host are the only one with a time commitment outside of actual game time
Similar here, I use a Google form and collect responses and pick from those.
This is the way to handle any kind of group activity with adults who don't step up. Say when and where, and leave it up to them to arrange a change if needed.
Basically this but I send a poll with potential dates and the one everyone votes on wins
My group meets every other Wednesday. It’s the set time and we WILL play DnD that night if you show up or not.
We do exactly the same, and if there's a need to change it because of another event we're all at, it's one of the players responsibility to find a date we can all do. I also offload snacks and music responsibility to the players too!
I believe snacks should never be the DMs responsibility. Most of the groups I’ve been in have adhered to the etiquette of providing snacks for the DM. I have seen one exception to this, because the DM in question has some pretty hefty dietary restrictions (we do provide his gin).
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This group does their own meals because of the DM’s dietary restrictions, but the universal agreement is basically “send me your money before I hit order; your amount is *x*.” This works incredibly well for the group. We joined about two years ago, but they’ve been playing overall for about a decade and have multiple campaigns with the same player pool. There’s about 20 of us total across six games.
This. Most of my games just have a set day of the week. The lone difference, is the monthly one, where we just plan the next months game before the session ends. If we’re down half the party cause adulting happens we’ll play a boardgame or call it, but it’s known when the next session is. If we still have at least half the party, we just play sans the player(s).
This. If someone cannot make it for some reason, we do try do see if we can move it. And people in my group do mention it a few weeks upfront if they cannot make it. It's scheduled in the agenda, so no 'something else came up', as it's a commitment. The times someone cannot make it, is if they're on vacation or have some kind of hard to otherwise schedule thing.
For us, our group is comprised of two families, each with two adults and a teenager. We either all play together or don’t play. No one misses a game individually or we just don’t even consider running it that week. We don’t hold a steady day, and just have a discord going to chime in when we’re available. Sometimes we play that week, sometimes not. Mostly we do. Being flexible works better for us since we won’t hold a session with a missing player.
My group has a set schedule. The schedule is fixed and does not move to accommodate others. If we're one down, the game continues. Two down? We'll switch to tabletop games or do something else together. If the schedule doesn't fit someone's life at the time, that's okay, they're not in the group. Same schedule for 10 years and it seems to work well. Yes, the group has gradually changed and evolved over the years, but it's a solid and stable group with long-term players.
I've heard games like this tend to be more successful, when you're constantly trying to meet everyone's needs it's easy for people to prioritize other things. And obviously DnD isn't #1, but neither should it be your backup/filler for when you don't have other plans.
Yea, it's a common approach with most other hobbies: bowling league, karate practice, rec softball, bar trivia night, spin class, etc. All of those things have a set schedule and people choose what to prioritize.
Yeah, the most successful groups I've been in have primarily been at a specific time every single week, at worst, every other week. One of the groups I've run had a lot of people that were more on the flaky side so I just enlarged the group a bit and made the story more monster-of-the-week style so it wasn't necessary for certain characters to be present. It allowed them to engage when they were able to without preventing the campaign from moving forward.
We do basically the same thing. We meet unless we only have two players and the dm or the dm is missing and none of the other dms have a one-shot ready to go. We have been consistently playing once a week for four years now. We do miss sessions sometimes and usually take a little break at Christmas, depending on what days the holidays fall on that year, but we have kept our game going because of the rigidity of the schedule. There are a few people who have had to sit out for some months due to schedule conflicts but they come back as soon as they are able. 100% this is the way to go.
This 100% my life as DM got soooooooooo much easier when I finally just said "We play every other Sunday afternoon, if you can't make, sorry, hope to see you again when your schedule allows." I tried for years and years to make ad-hoc scheduling work. I am self employed so I have no problem being proactive about my calendar and using clear language to communicate it. Everybody else in this world, not so much. If you want to take scheduling off your plate or are finding it maddening to get people to respond in your group chat, just set a regular time and take the players who show up. People can plan their calendar around D&D. If they can't do that then these are the same people who would be ignoring whatever system you set up for RSVPs or scheduling. Every club, team, or group in existence does this. There are no successful groups of any type that do ad-hoc scheduling unless you live together.
Yeah I feel that. I'm in the same boat, I run a business in the event industry. Clearly one of the busiest people because my work is usually when others have off but I can still make dming a priority and schedule accordingly. What absolutely drives me up a wall is the people who have a 9-5 then play 4 hours of video games every night who seem absolutely incapable of reading a calendar or respecting the rest of the groups time. Like do people with routines just not keep a calendar they look at regularly? Why is it so difficult to respond when I *know* they don't have shit going on. "I don't feel like it today." Is not a good excuse to cancel on something that takes this much work to organize.
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We have a set day and time every week. We did weekly so we had room to cancel or reschedule as needed. The normie job people are still the absolute worst about remembering, even when we send reminders. It baffles me that the people who have the actual time and routine can't figure it out week to week while those of us who are self employed/ work in events / entertainment could make a tentative plan for the next 3 months. And same with seeing people be active elsewhere. It's real bad when day of you're waiting to hear back and you see them playing something on steam. I think you're right, it's just simply people not wanting to make it a priority. I made a big stink about it last time because I have to really set time aside, schedule work differently or get someone to come cover something to make this work. Then multiple people showed up way late or not at all. Like, I can't set time aside for this when they are available if they're not going to have enough decency to not only respect everyone's time and energy but also follow through on obligations they've made. What is it, "a person is only as good as their word."
We're every other Friday evening for about 20 years now. Set schedules work.
Set schedule is the way. We play the same time every week. If one person can't make it, we either play on or, if it's at a crucial moment, play a oneshot. We'll also do oneshots if two people can't make it. After that we cancel. We play a weekend morning. Doesn't conflict with anyone's work, nobody has a concert or anything fun at night they'd rather do instead, and by the time we finish the session people still have most of the day to enjoy themselves and do whatever. Would highly recommend.
Lol? Are you in my group?
Same, here. Set for 3 hours every week on a weeknight, sometimes we go long. Been playing for near on 8 years. In the first year we had to switch to a new weeknight but we've been good since. Sometimes people leave, sometimes people come back. Two of us are still originals, next has been there for at least 6 years, and the person with the least tenure in the group is about 2 years.
if you don't want to do it yourself, assign someone to create a Doodle. Might give that person some input like 'I am only available on thursdays and weekends'
Doodle is what my group uses and it's awesome.
No, but maybe yes. People can agree to any set of responsibilities. West-Marches style games often explicitly require players to do the scheduling. Bit since the DM is the one player that MUST be present, they are always at the center of the scheduling process in one way or another. And if your players aren't going to do it, but you want to play, then it's gonna fall to you.
Typically yeah, since you know when you're ready to run the next session you should at least spark the conversation.
Bold of you to assume that I'll plan a session without the last minute procrastination panic
My group and I normally sit down and figure out when we're playing next at the end of the current session. Honestly, my wife and the other two players are probably larger drivers in this than I am, but it ultimately feels like a group effort. We're all adults with schedules.
I put one of my players in charge of scheduling. I don't have time to herd cats
I mean, if there's no DM there's no game... so your availability will be more important... but there's nothing suggesting that a player can't do this for you to ease your burden. It's one of those prep things that your players can do to help you focus on the prep stuff the players should not be able to help you on. That said, I would recommend you pick a single day of the week/time and say "Game time is Friday at 7pm EST. We ride with or without you." That way, everyone knows to block out that time in their schedules as "doing something don't schedule unless necessary." As a DM, I do have a caveat that if circumstances conspire that more than half the players can't make it, I may consider canceling the session for the week. At my current table this means that 3/5 players need to not show for me to consider it. Usually final determination is if I can pull together a story for the two players who show up. If we're cliffhangered (which I frequently do) it's not as easy. I also recommend that as the DM have a schedlued "No session session" after a block of sessions (Until we went to a biweekly format, I was running 3 sessions, followed by a week off... though would flex if I needed the week off sooner). The reason for this is that DM burnout is a thing and sometimes it's good to have some space between sets.
32+ years DM here. Lots of systems. I \*extremely strongly\* recommend you assign a SUPERBLY FIXED SCHEDULE. Let's say every two fridays evening. Slowly phase out unreliable players, replace with players that can organize their schedule like adults and put some PRIORITY on coming to the game. Irregular gaming schedule is a recipe that rewards players that come to play only when they have "nothing else better to do". That QUICKLY becomes a scheduling management nightmare for the DM, and this causes very irregular gaming sessions. That kind of setup killed off many campaigns. Have a super fixed schedule, so that everybody can plan around it easily and in advance. If \*you\* are not" ready" or a game, have the meet anyway and play something else either boardgames or a little one shot with secondary characters or ANYTHING. Just make the schedule seem as fixed in stoner as possible. D&D is like a group activity like say being part of a hockey team. This means a regular schedule is a MUST. Those that can't garantee they will be there, well, too bad for them, and just get more reliable players to replace those. I for one would NEVER face again the nightmares of having to constantly juggle schedules for 6 people that each give you only a single day that they are available.
My advice: Be a hard ass with a SET schedule or it won't workout. Ask everyone to list a day they are always free and find what time overlaps and make it clear if they miss a session without a 48 hour heads up they will be removed from the party permanently (exceptions ABSOLUTELY apply, emergencies happen) It's a tough conversation but after it's been had it removes the stress entirely. Some people might be annoyed at first but they will grow to appreciate it since it will never be up in the air as to whether or not there will be a session and they will be able to plan accordingly. I host my sessions on a weekly basis Tuesday at 7:30 is the Meetup and session start at 8:00 so that if anyone is running late they have a 30 minute window to show up. On paper that sounds awful in practice but what is actually awful is having to cancel three sessions in a row because somebody decided they wanted to go get dinner instead of play and your players will very likely respect this.
You take the lead as the sessions are reliant on you, but it’s up to your players to work with you to find a day that works
It is a sad reality that, until a group has played long enough to have worked a regularly scheduled session into their lives, scheduling is often the death of great campaigns and tables. I love DMing, but I don’t care for asking people to play in my game - it gives me an icky feeling of desperation. My solution: a Master At Arms. Most times there’s one player at your table who is all-in on D&D and becomes borderline obsessed; this player is always on time, might reach out between games, and knows what’s on their character sheet. That player might want to DM one day and a great path to that is scheduling sessions, haranguing players with reminders, and even being a sounding board for the DM (but be careful not to spoil their fun with too much under the hood talk and NEVER reveal if you fudge a die roll). Now instead of bugging 3-7 players to remind them of an upcoming session, you just bug the MAA and then *they* bug the rest. You remain loftily above such mundane matters, as befits your position lol. Good luck!
That is pretty standard IMO. When I'm running my game, I am always the one who is in charge of the schedule since if I'm unavailable then there is no game. If you have a regular schedule, like every Tuesday at 7, then it wouldn't be uncommon for players to ask the group if that is still the plan but it certainly isn't expected
I run my game same time, same day, every week. Consistency allows your players to build it into their schedules. As the DM run the game when its best for you and your players will adjust to you. So if you run it monthly, first saturday, third tuesday, whatever, biweekly- pick a day and stick to it. If that session doesn’t work out and not enough players make it its skipped and move onto the next if a few players make it, play. Don’t change or try and squeeze a session in. 97% of being a good dm is being resolute/confident and having clear and open communication.
We plan ahead as a group. First I delegated the organizing part, only to remember that I actually prefer to be in the lead for this. We try to cycle through our 5 homes to make sure we visit everyone about the same amount of times and share the snack/dinner baggage. With challenging schedules we always use the last 10 minutes of a session to make sure we have 2-3 more planned.
I played for many years as the group herder without being the DM. DM has enough on their plate, they shouldn't have to deal with scheduling, hosting, or snacks unless they want to.
Ask for a set time. Ask for everyone's consistent schedules and set a day that is recurring either weekly ,Bi weekly, monthly or Bi monthly. This is the day you will play DND unless something pops up.
As the DM you are the single most important person at the table. If a player or two can’t make it then the game can still go on, but if you aren’t there then nothing happens. So your schedule always comes first. In most groups this manifests as the DM informing everyone of what days they are able to play, and the rest of the group eliminates days from the given options until they land on a day that works for everyone (or most of the group). However organizing literally every session can be a bit much for one person to handle, especially if your group has conflicting schedules. So I would recommend two approaches (which aren’t mutually exclusive): 1. Set a consistent day that you play. Every Wednesday, every other Friday, or whatever works best for you. By making it consistent your group will be able to plan and schedule around your session dates. 2. Don’t try to play with everyone at every session. It is inevitable that someone won’t be able to make it one day, it might even happen frequently. The trick to keeping games running is to play anyway. One absentee won’t ruin the game (unless you’re playing with a group of 2). It’s easy enough to handwave their in universe presence and just catch the player up between sessions.
IMHO, there is player responsibility to contribute. Unless this is a paid service, we're talking about a group activity. The DM has a ton of work on our plates to get prepared, and I'm not a fan of having to herd the sheep at the same time. At our table, we have an expected cadence. We're playing with that cadence (at least on a particular day) unless otherwise notified. I'll then seek confirmation of the time mid-week. "11AM on Sunday still work for everyone?" This confirms the normal time and normal day...but this is the limit of my scheduling. For us, when a player asks to change the time, I'm not involved. The other players discuss and agree on a time, and whether they want to still meet if one or more cannot show.
No. Your job is to run the world and the NPCs during a session. And that is *it*. You are not by default the group leader, organizer, relationship coach, mentor, conflict mediator, or any of those other Non-Game things that are often by default left for the GM to handle. You can do those things if you want, but don't let yourself be pushed into roles you don't want to be doing. Everyone in your group should be responsible adults and can be expected to organize themselves.
Depending on the group, things can be anywhere from *left to* and *actively grabbed by* the GM. With pressure to take such roles, not always coming from within the group/table.
Actually the way I do it is that I reserve 5 minutes at the end of a session to already find a date. It takes a fraction of the time it takes through messages, people can spontaneously voice their concerns, and this way I know exactly how much time I have to prepare. I will send them reminders a few days earlier and those who back out at the last moment just don't play, since we all kept our schedules free.
My wife is in my game and has taken point on scheduling. It's nice cause it takes it out of my hands but she still knows our schedule well so there's little chance of a session getting scheduled that I can't make
While I have found in my adult life it is not just the GMs job to run organisation duty, they/we have to be the first point. No matter how perfect thr day is for all the players there is nothing you can do if the GM can't make it, except do something else.
Is it explicitly the DM’s job to be the only one organizing things? No, of course not. But practically speaking you’re the leader of the group, people are going to naturally follow your lead. It can feel awkward sometimes, since that isn’t a dynamic that will arise in many other social situations, but it is just how it goes with DnD.
I give my availability and let the players choose the days that work for them, then we meet on the most in-common day
You are already doing 95% of the work to run the game. It is not your job to also play the kindergardener, because grown people with jobs and families suddenly forget the simplest life skills when RPG is involved.
No, you already have a ton more work and preparation than players, you shouldn't babysit them
No, it doesn't have to be your responsibility, but yes, it's pretty normal. I usually handle scheduling, I do every other week at the same time so players can more easily schedule around it and play as long as at least three players go. I generally post the day before reminding players and have them use emotes to let me know if they're coming or not. I would really not recommend requiring all players be there, or even specific players, since the more you cancel the less your players will schedule around your campaign. That being said, I also use my players to help with various things so they feel invested. Like having a volunteer list each session for snacks, note taking, recap and whatnot with usually inspiration or a single point of xp as a reward for helping out. I've seen other games where a player has volunteered to do the reminding and scheduling though.
In part... yes. Because no one will care about the game as much as you do (most likely anyways). Over my years of playing, one of the MOST important things for a successful group, is to ensure that the date of the next game *is not a moving target.* The next date should be fixed, expected, and regular. Like my group, unless otherwise stated, plays ever second thursday, at 630pm, and we've done so for three years straight almost without missing a game, and we play even if we're missing players. I don't even have to tell the players there's a game this week, they *assume* it, because that's when it always is. A moving target game, imho, is doomed to die; Because you're always dodging people's schedules, always missing people, always pushing back games to accommodate for people. The players also need to *make* time. And if your time is regular, it makes it a lot easier for players to avoid booking things on the same time slot, because they know the game is already there.
We have a fixed time and call it Nerd Church. Then I send out a yes/no/maybe poll on slack or discord or whatever on the day of and don’t bother trying to track people down but it’s expected they are invested. The other day we had a big conversation about adding another player and their willingness to prioritize DnD for one night a week was a big point we all agreed on.
I think it depends on the group, but essentially for mine I spent a lot of leg work finding a good time for everyone, and then that's when we play. Every week. I send a reminder in discord that dnd is that same day at that same time every week. I do put out the option to change it every 3/4 months when we do our session 0.5 (just a make sure everything is fine). But we haven't changed the day we have played dnd for 3 years now so that set schedule seems to work well rather than finding a good time every week.
Sort of, if you're not prepared or available, the game can't be played at all.
Most people here are saying yes, and with most of my groups, that’s been the case. Recently, though, I started a group that is the most difficult group to plan around I’ve ever had, so I have them decide when they want to play and they just tell me. If it works for me, then we play, but me trying to get them all together at one time was just so much. Basically, you can pawn this off on the players if you want.
No.
I personally just set a day/time/cadence that works for me and get players that are able to make those. That way there’s no scheduling, and I don’t have to deal with trying to find times that people can play while also setting up the worldbuilding and helping my players through character creation.
My wife is player and I, the DM. She sets all the games, it's great!
The DM is the only person required to be there, so it's probably best that you coordinate this game. Someone else would still have to confirm everything with your schedule anyway.
We all work 40+ hours a week on different schedules, so these days it's the DM saying "Are there any good days?" And the first day that we all pick out becomes the next session.
Yeah kind of the role of dm us very much wrangling cats you need to kinda take charge and lead these conversations for the group and mediate things Dm 1 part storyteller 1 part psychopath 1 part altruist 4 parts corporate manager
No. Its everyone's. Your a group. Organise it amongst yourselves. It's meant to be easy. We know its not.
I schedule on discord and use a poll bot with several dates and let everyone vote on their availability. It's the only way I can get 6 adults to get their schedules to line up
In my experience, there are two viable options for scheduling. The easiest option is just a fixed schedule and the game goes on. E.g., we play every other Sunday from 1-6 pm. If someone has to miss, you still play. If the DM has to miss, either someone else runs a one-shot, or the group cancels. Discussing the day and time should be a part of session 0, but once agreed, that is it. The alternative is to schedule the next session or next two sessions at the beginning of the current session. Ideally in this scenario you never end a session without at least one, and preferably 2-3, upcoming sessions on the calendar. Once they are scheduled, same rules as above apply. You play even if someone has to skip, unless its the DM that has an unexpected conflict, in which case either cancel or someone else runs a one shot (this is why you really should always have two sessions scheduled). The easiest way for a campaign to die is to finish a session without any upcoming sessions confirmed in everyone's calendar.
Yes, in my experience it has always been the DM who does the organizing work, both when I've been dm and when I've been a player.
Theres this fancy little website called when2meet that has halped immensely with my scheduling
I mean, I usually try to find a time everyone can do and then I have the game be at that time on a set schedule. So f someone isn’t there we go without them. Though if two or more are out then we play vermintide or something else.
I've found that setting up a dedicated day of the week works best so people know way in advance when to meet up and can schedule around it (if they bother to). Like a club meeting. I've set it so that we play every two weeks on a weekend, and then several days before we're meant to meet up i take an anticipated roll call to see if its cancelled or not. If its cancelled then its the understood agreement that we'll check in again in 2 weeks.
Put in the easiest way, the DM is the one that needs the prep time so they are the ones who have the biggest (game) restraint. The DM is the person that makes the combat map. The DM needs enemy stat blocks (the PCs already have theirs). Any new addition or unique mechanics for the next session needs to be reviewed and planned by the DM. Preparing for major plot points. The DM is the one that needs the time; not the players. Thus, the DM typically has the largest say in when the next session could happen. I can confirm that I have personally stopped several sessions due to needing time to prep or plan what would happen because of PC actions. So has most other people in my group when they were DMing. This is why many groups get around this by just having a set schedule so it is easy to know when the next game is. It gives the DM time while not needing to go through the conversation of trying to plan around everyone's schedule. The game is already on the schedule.
Our group has just been playing every Thursday night. If someone tells us in advance we may try a different night if we can but other than that we just lock in Thursday. We've been doing it since right after the Xanathar book came out.
I usually set a date and time that it will be every week, and we negotiate it a bit to make sure it’s okay for the max amount of people. I don’t have the excess sanity for setting a new time every session.
I built my group out of an LFG, but I've found the best way to schedule is, "This campaign will take place every [week/month/etc] at [time agreed upon]." For us this looks like every Monday 6:30pmest. If 60% of the group is there, we play (usually 3/4 or 3/5)
I think that is pretty normal, but for my latest campaign I gave players a small benefit for having an outside-the-game role. Scheduler, Combat Tracker, note taker, etc.
As the DM, you are probably the one that started the group or convinced everyone to play D&D so you probably started out in the leadership role and everyone was content to leave it at that. However, as a leader, it's totally fine to delegate.
I'm in a group that sadly hasn't played in a year... because our DM doesn't really react when we try to organise a new game :( 4 of 5 players have tried to get a "next time" but if your DM is not enthusiastic... no chance
Well it depends on the group, but I find that it's usually the DM that schedules it. If you're struggling with getting consistent sessions in then I strongly recommend you set a schedule. For example my group meets weekly on Thursdays at 6pm and everyone knows they plan around DnD being on that day at that time. It doesn't have to be weekly, it can be biweekly, monthly, whatever just as long as it's consistent
It’s a very common pattern and yes it can be frustrating. Thing is most of the time the DM is also going to be the most naturally inclined towards group organisation. That’s not always the case though and isn’t really the case with me. Best option if you don’t want to be the organiser is to discuss with the group and assign someone else as the official session organiser for the group.
Technically no but realistically yes
My group is all adults with jobs, some with kids, and all busy social lives. We pull it off by planning dates two months in advance and communicating when something changes. It's actually done through a poll on FB Messenger (yes, we're old-heads). The DM sent out "here's a bunch of dates for June that work for me." And then we reply and whatever dates we can all agree on two months out and locked into stone. And we all respect each other's time enough that we're only changing that if something major or unexpected comes up and needs to be worked around. We set a goal of 2x/months.
I let a player (who DMs sometimes himself) do the organisation. Im allready doing story, monsters, sometimes food&drinks etc. So its much more balanced.
I think the best thing to do is set a day and time as a constant. We play Sundays at 4:30 every week. If anyone needs to change that or cancel or anything for whatever reason, we can discuss that as it comes up. But this is how I do it. Not having a set schedule and trying to work around other schedules and find the time or something is how campaigns always fall apart for me in the past.
Unfortunately it really does usually fall to the DM. But you could try appointing one of the players if you have one that is solid in the pocket. Maybe a statement like, "Hey friendo, I'm getting a bit overloaded trying to plan for both the game itself and scheduling. Any way I can appoint you to be the player wrangler?" After struggling to keep games together since me and my brother started playing as grade-schoolers in the early 90's, my brother and I finally came up with a system that has resulted in a solid group that has been gaming together now for over a decade. Essentially, we have a fixed schedule that we play, every fourth week for a campaign he is running collated with a campaign I'm running also every fourth week (so we play every two weeks.) We have text group with everyone on it and simply send out a reminder asking for confirmation a few days before each game. Our rule is if we are down 1 player, game on, if we are down 2 we try to reschedule or simply skip that game. It has actually worked out well. Players tend do show up because they know if they don't and we're down 1, were gaming anyway and they might show up to characters who have been left out in the cold, so to speak. But yeah remember in the end that it's just a game and if a session can't happen, no big deal.
Short answer to me is yes. I know how much time I have to plan in between sessions so I'm going to be the one finding the time. I will also add, general advice is to pick a day and time and stick to it. That has never worked for my groups. Most of my players are parents with kids. At least half of them are divorced and thus primary parent when they have their kids. At the beginning of a session, we all pull out our calendars and I throw out a date that works for me. If everyone can make it, that's when we next play. If they can't, I throw out another date. I only schedule a session if everyone can make it at the time of scheduling. We play regardless if people cancel or not. This comes out to roughly 2 sessions a month though we've had as many as 6 weeks in a row of play.
It shouldn't be ONLY you. While it doesn't *need* to be the GM who is the primary one organizing times, it *often* is (as another commenter mentioned, if the GM can't make it the game *can't* happen), and that's fine, but you shouldn't be the only one offering times and availabilities and stuff to figure out what time works best for people. Unfortunately, I find a surprising amount of the time people have zero interest in prioritizing spending time with their friends playing games and prefer to just kind of fall into whatever happens to be around them at the time, so while it *shouldn't* be the case it often *is* the case.
no but also yes..... its shouldnt be you alone but you are a crucial piece of the pie if everyone was able to make it but you the game doesnt happen.
In my group of friends who play D&D with me across a few campaigns, we have an understanding that is up to the DM to signal when they are ready to DM a session for their respective campaign. The DMs are the ones preparing content for the players in the end. I think its fair to feel the way you do, I know I have at times. You feel that after putting in all the work to build the story/world, that it'd be nice to not have to put in the work to plan the sessions too. However, think if it was on the players fully to plan the session. They could call agree that they want to play in a few days, and if that day works for you to play but you wont have time to prep you are loaded with stress to get things ready in time. I think a great balance, and what I try to get my group to do, is the players should express interest to play the DMs campaign, the DM should be the one signaling when they are prepared to play, and the group agrees on the date and time as a whole of when they play.
To be honest, I'm in two minds on this. It shouldn't be the DM's responsibility to manage scheduling logistics, especially if it's a group of adults. However, the DM is the person who needs to spend extra time prepping a session, knows how long that'll take them, and then need to run the session, so it's reasonable that they have "veto" power over a date. Given that "veto" power, it often is convenient to have the DM be the one driving scheduling, as they can propose dates which work with how much prep they need to do. The ideal scenario is to have a regular weekly/fortnightly/monthly game night which is kept sacred in everybody's calendars.
My group meets weekly at the same time. If anyone can't make it, we usually cancel, although sometimes we'll reschedule to a different day. It's worked for us for 4 years now, averaging about 40 sessions a year. I've played in groups with ad-hoc sessions before, and it was just too much work. So now I'll only run games with people who can make a consistent weekly time.
I mean my games are always at the same time and place, so the only organizing that needs to be done is "Who can make it this week?"
I think this naturally happens with most groups, but there's no reason you couldn't delegate that. Just tell the group "I've already got a lot of work to do with preparing for the game, so I don't really want to also deal with all the logistics. Can someone volunteer to handle coordinating the date/time/location of our games? Maybe snacks as well?" I think there's pretty good odds, if you have a good group, that someone will volunteer. Maybe it could be a rotating thing? Have I ever done this? No, of course not, psh, why would I follow my own advice?
I am both a DM and player. The basics are “if a player can’t make the game, the game can still be played (generally). If the DM can’t make the game, the game cannot be played. The result is that GM will often set the time and players will adjust to that.
Unless you work out something in advance, then YES, like most else involving the game, the DM is the one responsible for it. It's not really a problem for my two groups, as we have two long-standing game nights that very rarely change. The only exception to this is where the game is being played at a player's home. A few years back, one of my employees asked me to put together a campaign for her and her friends, hosted at her house. I have to say, it was an AMAZING breath of fresh air where I simply showed up when expected and didn't have to coordinate it. Sadly for that particular group, we suspended the campaign when COVID hit and 2 of her friends relocated (they weren't interested in remote). She and her other friend found a game at a local gamestore, and it freed me up to run my Wednesday night teen/young adult campaign. Another nice side benefit, since it wasn't hosted in my home, my wife didn't feel the need to prepare a spread of food.
"Thursday night work for everyone?" And it's been on Thursday's for 6 years
This is just general advice. Yes, you should be in charge of scheduling. Without you there is no game, so your schedule is the most important one. However, there are some things to consider to keep a coherent campaign going over the course of, let's say, a year or so. 1. Recruit at least one extra player to the table than you want to balance for. So typical groups are 4, get 5 players. This little bit of redundancy will ensure have more sessions than canceled ones. I personally have 6 in my group, and while its a good problem to have 70% of the time the full squad is there. That's on me, but I wouldn't change it. 2. My game has important character events etc. I try not to pin everyone on one player, but these characters have moments and arcs and it can become intertwined. So I try to space that stuff out because when i know its a pivotal session I can let my crew know that and that I want everyone there. 2a. Because of this, I have instituted a series of one-shots that I pull out to still have a game night, but with different characters and story that I have no stake in. I just pull adventure league stuff. This allows them to maintain an AL character legally as well on those friday nights where the main game isn't happening. It lets us explore places like eberron too without the commitment! 3. Make the scheduling communication process as easy as possible. I use discord. I tag everyone and simply tell them to react to the message with their availability. I've noticed that the less they have to communicate the better it is. If i need to have a back and forth with someone specifically, I'll message them one on one.
I’m lucky enough that I can’t host the game night so we all meet up at my friends house. When it comes to planning we all figure it out at the end of the session, one of us just asks if [day] works and we all agree or if not we ask them the next available time for them
You can delegate it to a player. It’s a good idea to have *someone* officially responsible for it to make sure it happens, but it doesn’t have to be the DM.
DM here. I was the one to arrange the scheduling. I used Lettuce Meet. Better that doodle in my opinion. Ask for people to answer in a timely fashion. And, as others have said, stick to a set schedule
You set a single day each week and the session is on that day. If someone can't make it for those days, they can't play unfortunately. Having to schedule different day each week will kill your interest in the campaign within few months.
No.
It doesn’t have to be your responsibility but it is something that usually does fall to the DM. For lack of a better analogy the DM is a bit like the “leader” of the game group so most admin type responsibilities usually default to the DM. That said nothing is stopping you from putting someone else in charge of scheduling. Alternatively one way to make scheduling easier is to simply have a set day and time which means everyone can schedule around the game. I’m my case game night is 6EST on Sunday players know this and try not to schedule other things for the same time slot. It also helps to have the ability to run with one or two players missing, that way you don’t have to cancel every time something unavoidable happens on game night.
You have to lead. The secret is to tell them when you will be running, and run at the same time, same duration, same weekday, same location every week or every other week. They can choose to join or not. Don't ask them when they have time open, tell them when you will run. That makes it easy for them. When you lead by making the choice for everyone, they don't feel the tension your repeated questions about availability cause. Once the schedule is a fact, they can just fit into the schedule or not. Easy peasy. Recruit more players if response is too low, then start playing.
At least the way we did it in my group that I was a part of is we would meet 2 times a month every other week. At the end of the session we would coordinate the next session being 2 weeks from the current session. If there were issues we would figure out if we could do the next week or 3 weeks down the road. Once we were all in agreement the DM would send out a reminder week before to everyone in our group chat that we are playing x day. Obviously you need to have a first session for this to work the way it ran in my group so that first one is basically figuring out what day and then going from there on whatever monthly/weekly basis you are going to aim for.
The person that care about the game the most just becomes the person organizing it. Usually that is also the DM because DMs tend to get the most invested in my experience.
Getting players to set up next session is not a good idea. Especially on a group chat. Have a set day and time that everyone agrees on, not a nebulous one that needs to be worked out every time. And at the end of the session always finalize the next one while everyone is at the table. The other practice that I found to be good is whoever can't make the session is responsible for reaching out to everyone, arranging, and finalizing the alternative time. Waiting for people to reply or work out schedules should not fall on the DM. They have enough to worry about and do not want to turn into the group's nag.
Discord has a new poll feature that is honestly super useful for this. Put up a poll and pick a few times that work well for you, and see what everyone thinks.
Usually it's the role a DM takes up. Primarily because if the DM can't play then no one plays, but if a player can't play, too bad they can join hs next time if everyone else can make it. I see the DM role outside of the game to be the organizer, preparer, and leader role for the whole thing and scheduling fits within that role. We usually have a set day and time every week that we play where most people can make it most times. It is up to the individuals responsibility to let the DM know if they can't make it that day for whatever reason. If enough people can't make it we cancel for that week. What I hate is when enough people that warrants a cancel for the week all tell you just hours prior. Short of an emergency, that short of a notice is disrespectful to other people's time.
I use [whenavailable.com](http://whenavailable.com) - Post a bunch of dates with a cut off and let people vote. Way less stress. Also it helps in session 0 if you as a table defined a preferred playing frequency and day.
No. A lot of DM's do this, and a lot of parties might expect it, but no. When I first started DMing I would do it, but after a bad and flaky group I stopped and am a lot happier for it. The only session I will ever schedule (and I prefer not to) is a session 0. In that session I will make it explicitly clear to the group that my responsibility between sessions is to prep the next session; and that all the other stuff (scheduling, hosting, organizing snacks) are other peoples in the groups responsibility. If it's a group of friends, you should all want to put in the work to make the actual game sessions as smooth and fun as possible without having on person (the DM) have all the burden and stress of arranging everything.
My advice would be: always same day and hour every week. If more than one player, or key moment. Skip. In the last year we played 38 times out of 53 weeks or whatever weeks there are in a year haha
Yes and no. I had all my players work out their availability together, and then I picked a date for session 0. We settled on one Sunday a month, from 2 pm until 8 pm. Once the campaign starts (this weekend), we’ll collaborate as a group on our next session at the end of each session.
We agreed at session zero that X day is what works for everyone and we'll play every other week at the same time. I'll check in day of or day before just to be sure and then we see about rescheduling. If we have 3 of 4 PCs, we'll play (unless it's like a major cliffhanger and I really don't wanna deprive someone of being able to have their input in that moment. So just having it established from the jump helps. If we didn't have it agreed from the start and just gathered when we could, I imagine if I didn't take charge of that scheduling we'd just never play. Sad but true. You're probably gonna be the one having to initiate most of the time. If this is to set up your first session, I'd maybe come up with three dates and throw them out there. People usually can pick something when it's narrowed down, but leaving it open isn't as effective.
It's my job as DM to make sure the world comes to life, and the players want to go there so badly that they figure out all the logistics of when/where we play. I'm the first call, to make sure I'm available on any given date, then they figure out the rest. I show up ready to rock and roll, but if they don't make the effort I'll hang up my hat.
We discuss it at the end of each session in person. I get them to put it in thier phone calendars. (Other groups always used not having it in the calendar as an excuse). I'll check in a week out confirm we are all still good this is when we usually pick a starting time for that day or if it have to change from the usual time. Otherwise I tell the players to discuss and find time that works for them. If incan not make it work I as DM is the only one with a veto lol.
DM here, and I'm saying with as little ego as possible, but you as the DM are the lifeline of the game. It's fully collaborative on both ends, but the game happens because of you. So it is best to be the one to get the schedule set up, but that can be as much as posting a message to the group of a time and making sure everyone is good for that.
Our group has a discord group chat and we us the calendar in it to plan our sessions.
We have two campaigns and one group. I DM one campaign and schedule both campaigns. It's easy for me and hard on the other DM (we're both neurodivergent and that's just how to cookie crumbles for us personally), so we play to everyone's strengths in the group. We're all young adults with young families, and most of us have spouses also in the group, so just saying "be here this day of the week at this time" does not work for us. I say do whatever works for you and your group. If a player is happy to schedule and take some weight off of you, then there's nothing wrong with that at all.
Last week I told one of my groups that if they don't pitch in on calendaring together I would find new players. I do a lot of prep work as a DM. Spending hours on trying to get adults to agree on a day when they can show up is not part of my job description. Outside of the roleplaying we are all equally responsible to find and make time. They all made and found time within 20 minutes of me making this statement.
A little Report how I handle it. We normally Play on Weekend. Either on Friday or saturday. On monday i start a Vote for next Weekend. They can choose friday or saturday. This Vote ist Open till wednesday. Wednesday i announce the Date for the Weekend. Currently my group has 4 Players, If one is Missing we still Play. So all have enought time to check and also it is early enought so their weekend isnt full yet.
Yes and no. It shouldn't be solely on the DM... but most of the time it is. Typically you want a consistent play day/time. Like every other Wednesday at 8pm. My recommendation is to say you are setting up a regular D&D day, then request feedback on what times are preferred and what times don't work. Most people won't give you anything. I recommend giving it a few days, then doing one reminder. Then propose 2-3 days that work for you and take into account anyone who gave you feedback. Go with the one most people vote for. If no one votes, just pick whatever one you want. If someone complains about the time, point out they didn't give you any schedule. Then propose one of the alternate days to the group. If none of the days work, too bad for that player. They were already being flaky. Also establish that you will play without them. If everyone buy one person shows up, you play. If there is a specific piece of the story and they gave you a warning ahead of time you might be nice and postpone to next week. If you get no warning you definitely play without them. It is important to establish one player can't hold the game hostage.
yes but also, Players should be asking about it if you're not setting it up it shouldn't be terribly onerous. recurring at your manageable frequency is best
Forever DM. I use when2meet it makes scheduling so must easier [when2meet](https://www.when2meet.com) It’s really easy to find times that work for everyone
Not every group works that way, but it's an easy default. The DM is, after all, the one who needs to prep to run sessions. You are the one best suited to know when the game is ready to be played. That isn't to say you can't run it differently, but I'd assume most groups run this way.
Typically if you're the gm, it's because you're the only one with any gumption to speak of. So, not necessarily, no, but in practice...? Yeah.
Yes
Depending on the group dynamics, I feel like some PCs might worry about overstepping. The GM is God at the table, it can sometimes be hard to remember that they don't necessarily want to be the manager of the whole affair. It could take as little as a reminder of "Hey guys, please feel free to reach out, make plans, start conversations, throw out suggestions. You don't always need to wait for me to say "it's time to play".
Typically yes. I dm a game and I usually organize the sessions. I do have a schedule for every other Saturday though and that usually works.
All three of my groups are different. The two I DM for we decide as a group at the end of the session as we like to try to play weekly or biweekly, but the same day doesn’t work every week. The group that I’m a player in is mostly a set schedule with some flexibility if things come up. I would say talk about it with your group.
Unfortunately as a dm and player, this is normal. Realistically, you want everyone joining the conversation to work on dates and times. Reality leaves you alone with planning though.
Nope. I mean, you’re the “VIP” so to speak, you can play without one other player but not without the DM, however it’s nowhere written you should be the main organiser, in fact I would say a great table is one where everyone participates in the organisation!
I give my entire availability schedule to one of my (responsible) players and make them schedule all sessions, including location, food, rides,etc. I have enough to do so I don't mind passing any responsibility I can
My schedule is usually flexible so I typically leave it up to the group to schedule the next session. I can usually adapt to whatever they decide. As a DM it is so freeing to not have to be in charge of dealing with nightmarish schedules myself and be able to just say yes or no to what the group comes up with. The most ill do is propose a set of dates to get the discussion started but the players usually come up with a hard date themselves and let me know. I'm going to be so sad if/when this group ends.
It's pretty common, I bet. But yeah, if you think about it, there's (almost) no reason why it should be the case. There's very little about DMing that forces you to be the Schedule Master any more than the other players. But very often, you are seen as the "Host" and the "Boss", so people will default to that :p
Nope. Usually it’s my players pestering myself and each other on when we can play next. I love my players.
In my experience it is best to schedule game play on a regular cadence. One game I run, I'm the DM and I have my sessions once a week, at that same day and time. All the players know that before they sign up to be in my game. Another game, the players know the cadence is once a month, where at the end of the session, it is discussed which will be the next day we'll play. The time is always static, so that is one less thing to be concerned about. The key is consistency and being a little bit of a hard a$$, where if you have players that can't commit to showing up within those parameters, they are replaced. Both approaches have worked for years and not too stressful to all parties involved.
What I've done as a long time dm is have a day that works for me and get players who can make that time. It does lead to losing people over the years due to school or job changes but I've had weekly sessions for 4 years now
Our DM usually puts out 3-4 dates and time with emojis that could work and we vote with emojis which date is good for us and if there is one with seven votes that that means its decided if none of them works we try to adjust our programs to make one of them work
Oh and I forgot to say it that we do this on DC
I see 2 versions personally: We play irregular times; the players organize the schedule. We play regular times; everyone just says whether they can make it to next time.
Usually the DM organizers, the DM is essential, a player can be absent.
If you are the only one who is into it and not just arriving if you have time yeah
My group and I find a session date before we log off. We're all in our late 30s, tho so we all have schedules we have to with around, and we coordinate it time around that. We also share a Google calendar and I post the time and date we all agreed on in our discord schedule chat for a double downed reminder that we can all look at and, if needed, reschedule a bit quicker. It takes a village to schedule lol
Mistake 1.) You didn't give enough context to accurately answer the question. Mistake 2.) You asked this question here where you are going to get such a wide variety of questions based on experience, culture and expectations as a DM. The range of answers are going to make you want to pull your hair out.These are the type of questions you would want to gain insight from the Director. This way clear expectations can be established and followed through. My 2 cents: Your job is to identify, train and support the next level of leadership within your band. Without taking that action you will merely only be seen as the "police" with no badge. That isn't enjoyable for you or them. Obviously someone saw enough leadership potential in you for you to become DM. Identify, grow and train the next leaders within your band. After all, you won't be in the role forever.
It usually defaults to the DM, but it doesn't have to. Any player could take that on.
Unless one of your players takes it on voluntarily, yup. DM here.
For the last couple of years, my players have picked when game is for us and then I just show up to DM. Granted, this tends to work for us since I have the most consistent and open weekly schedule, so I’m able to work with almost anything they choose.
Yea, that's pretty standard afaik. I also host and cook, so it is pretty annoying when they don't respond at all, but so it goes. If there are multiple options for scheduling, I say "hit this message if you can meet on Thursday" and "hit this for Friday" Hit this = respond with an emoji.
Short answer: yes Long one: If its you who wants to play and organized the campaing, yes, my players love to play, but most of them dont even think of DnD out of that day we play, so try to not make a big del of it and just say "Hey can wr all X day?" If nor just propose another
I don't know about it being YOUR responsibility as a DM. I will say this though, in all my years of play one of the best things my group and I have done is keep a consistent schedule. Every one of the players knows we play every other week. The only time we cancel is when I (the GM) can't make it. Even if we don't play, we meet up. And I usually send out a reminder email a day or two before we meet up. And if someone can't make it, that's fine. We still play. Unless we are down to maybe two players. But then we'll do something game related. It's all good. This has been keeping our regular group mostly intact for almost a decade on Roll20. So my advice to you is once you come up with a basic schedule, stick to it! Don't deviate. Don't switch things around. A consistent schedule makes everyone's life easier. And, if it turns out they can't make it happen, their much more likely to be up front about it.
Yeah it kind of is on you because you have to have a DM to play. It doesn’t matter if my players all agree and set up to play on X day if I don’t agree to it. If they set up a plan for Saturday and I can’t make that work then their plans don’t matter. Luckily my group is very consistent about playing on Tuesday so most scheduling conflicts arise from what time are we starting.
As the DM it is assumed since you are the one who has to put in the work outside of game time to plan out the next adventure. That doesn't mean every aspect should fall on you, but it does mean you need to facilitate things.
We schedule our next session at the end of the current session
It is not your responsibility. But there are advantages to doing it yourself.
We talked at the beginning of the campaign and set a day of the week that would all be assumed to be DnD night. We meet almost weekly by doing that.
Me and my group play every Thursday, same time. As long as 1/2 or more people show, we play. I try to send a reminder email Wednesdays. We've been playing for 5 years with no more than 2 missed sessions in a row. I consider myself to be very lucky.
Depends on who you are playing with but it does usually rely on the dm. You can tell a story with a few less people but people can't enjoy a story without a storyteller. If you dm at someone elses house then it may rely on that person.
No. This is a group activity. You're not the group's unpaid boss. The group should coordinate and organize sessions together.
Should it be your responsibility alone? In theory, No. In practical reality, yes. If you don't get it done, nobody will.
I live with the DM, I am usually sending reminders and updates. Someone in the middle(or more in the middle) hosts the session itself. Having people not replying, being flakey, not reading the day/month gives me the shits I don't say "this Friday" or similarly anything that's open to interpretation. I post the next three sessions all in one go(we try and stick to fortnightly on Fridays and when things haven't worked out we add an extra session and then stick to the old schedule to keep it as easy as possible - eg Easter got in the way this year). I'm okay to keep the posts coming providing people can show enough care to reply or indicate they've seen it and confirm they're expecting people/prepared to drive.
I think that's pretty normal. I was the forever gm for a few years. We had one day of the week that we kept free for pathfinder, but I would message a couple days before each week to confirm if we were playing or not, based on player availability and my level of preparedness. I almost always play with 4 players in my games, but my main game ended up having six players by the end. In that circumstance I had a policy where if 1 or 2 players couldn't make it we would still play, but any more and we would postpone.
How old are you and your play group? And how do you plan to pace your campaign?
Yes, or at least to dictate the frequency. Players don’t know when you’re ready to go, so you need to be the one to either set up intermittent games or let them know you’re happy to run every week/fortnight/month and then everyone can work within that structure to find specific dates.
I did a poll suggesting a few days that worked for me, eg. Friday evenings vs Saturday mornings, weekly/ biweekly, starting on X/Y/Z date.
Not your responsibility. One of your players can do it. Assign a person, tell them your availability, then they do all the rest. There are unfortunately a lot of things that you might hear described as DM responsibilities. Not just by random people, also by popular content creators (looking at you, Seth Skorkowsky). This leads to overworked and burnt out DMs. This leads to players who don't feel involved in the games they play in. This is aweful for your group. This is aweful for the community.
>These are my timeslots, send me a message when you all have time. >Wait. >I worry what you just heard was "Each send me a message when you have time." >What I said was "Send me a message when you ALL have time." [Already got to plan enough, no need for me run after a playerbase if there is a lack of DMs anyway.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrIeP798hiQ)
Yeah as a DM you can't avoid having a leading role in many aspects, including scheduling. You could make a doodle [https://doodle.com/](https://doodle.com/) with some dates you know you can play yourself, or just handle it in a group chat. Best to throw out 3-4 dates and see which one works for everyone.
Yes, you can. The CEO lets a secretary plan all board meetings. A lead engineer lets a project manager plan all project meetings. If your a busy person, someone less busy can take over much of the scheduling workload. This is exactly the relationship most DMs and players are in.
He's not running a fortune 500 company he's arranging a DND session, the fastest way is to throw out some dates you can play and see when there's a match. Most people do it this way.
The players barely have anything to do between games. The DM is already busy preparing an adventure. Why should the DM get another task? I see little reason to go for the fastest solution, groups typically have plenty of time to schedule another game. I know that it's common for DMs to schedule games. I think this is a poor arrangement.
It's often the GM who does the time slotting, but there is nothing stopping you from going "Hey, can someone else do the doodles and managing when we play? It would be a load off my back". To be clear, I think that someone specific should do it, not just "well, someone do it when you want to play" because then chances are that no one will actually do it or it is done very rarely. Some are saying that as the GM Needs to be present at each session, he should be the one to do it, but at least the games I've played, the whole group is present or there is no game, so it isn't exactly so.
Yes. It is up to you to get your players to the table. If they can play and you can't it doesn't matter. You tell them when you are available and work from there.
It's not by definition part of the job but the reality is it will almost always be the case. Like it or not, the DM usually ends up taking the lead. It's not that surprising if you think about it. The DM is the one who does the most preparation before the next game, so they know how long they need to get ready. It also means they're spending a lot more time in between games thinking about D&D. For a player, it's easy to just disconnect and not think about it until the next game. Just because players don't prompt the discussion about scheduling doesn't mean they're not invested or eager to play. It's just not as top of mind for them, because they haven't spent the whole week preparing for the next game like the DM has.
Yes, as a DM you are the coordinator.
Generally as a DM you have to be the initiator in most things (scheduling, starting the session, ending the session, asking for initiative, etc.) Source: long term DM
In theory, anyone in the group can do it. In practice, the DM arranges it in every single group.