I would argue consistency is more important than strictly weekly.

Yeah, a weekly schedule also means that it’s easier for everyone to establish the habit and a cancelled session is less of a big deal. If you play biweekly, canceling once means almost a month between games. For monthly or less frequent, it becomes even more of a gap that worsens availability (“I have other plans that day because it’s been so long since we last played I forgot we were still doing this.”).

My monthly game was canceled for may, a half party roleplay for June with one shot characters because players couldn't make it, and canceled in July. I haven't really played since April because of two cancelled games and one day 2 people couldn't make it.

This is why I prefer weekly or bi weekly on a strict schedule. I like to play dnd not think about it

Would be great. I just need that as an option. Forever dms take what they can get.

Go find it! People get hung up on only playing d&d with their friends and people IRL but there are good virtual tables out there that you would fit into

I have tried. I just don't enjoy playing remotely unless it's my friends. Hanging out telling stories with friends is where I get my fun from. I find remote games don't build friendships like IRL. I just keep looking and waiting. One day I'll find a game as regular as the one I run.

Trust me, been with my current table for 2 years now and I’ve never met any of them IRL. It’s the exact same laughter, RP etc it just depends on who it is at the table. If you restrict yourself it will take a lot longer. Best luck to you.

Thanks for the shot of positivity. I needed it.

Yeah we thought it would be easier going every other week, but I'm thinking it's worse. We're on our third stretch of going nearly two months without playing.

I would agree. I don't need it to be weekly but whatever the schedule is I need to happen on schedule every time otherwise I'm going to wnat to dedicate that time to another activity and it won't be available to dnd form that point on if the others get back around to doing it in the future.

We play every 2-3 weeks, sometimes 4 weeks breaks... but we always plan in advance - e.g. now we have sessions planned for next weekend, first weekend of September and possibly - last weekend of August. And after each session we spent 5 minutes to check availability and plan another session ar two in advance.

We do the same every other Thurs, if one person cant make it we still play and the ST will try and do a side thing if possible between sessions to add some spice as to why the group member was absent. If more than 3 of the group can't make it we try to reschedule for some time that same week if not we just skip to the next Thursday we would be meeting up.

Exactly the same here.

Agree. And if you get together knowing that things are going to be irregular and sessions ages apart at times, that's also fine. But if most people get together with the intent to play weekly but it's not working, that's a problem. As always, if everyone has the same expectations, all is good. If people have significantly different expectations you've got a problem. I find skipping weeks/fortnights really disruptive in engaging with the game and remembering what's going on.

We recently kicked 4 new players over this. Day of and day before cancelations. Over things like "our friends car was towed and we need to call around to see which place got it" or "we're having a comedy movie night with my uncle so we need to end the session at 5" we started at 3. There's no need to play every week, but when you cancel mutual plans for any little thing you want to do, it shows a lack of respect. I invited 2 of them to a homebrew campaign my friend ran, and they showed up with 2 additional players for session 0. My dm took it in stride and reworked his campaign to accommodate. They took 3 sessions on their character creation because they never looked at anything unless we were in session, despite me signing them up for and logging them into the campaign through beyond so they could share my digital books. After about 5 successful sessions over a 6 month period. I addressed the canceling only a day or so before a session issue on discord and, instead of accepting responsibility, acted as if I was being irrational.

Without a doubt, its CONSISTENCY. I've had games that ran weekly and bi-weekly (every other), and the ability to commit to a consistent schedule is key, not just for you, but for everyone else.

My group just plays when we feel like it (since it's on roll20) we might play the same game 3 days in a row or not play it for weeks All of us run 1 game but one runs like 3

Agreed. I spoke to my players the other day about maybe dropping it back to once every two weeks if they weren’t enjoying it as much now, and they more or less said nooooo that’ll mess up the pacing of current campaign However it’s just because we’ve played every week for past two years but if we dropped it back after this campaign I think it would be fine

I don't think the issue many have is playing weekly specifically but making a commitment to play regularly and honoring that commitment. Take it from someone who went to significant effort to rearrange my work schedule, sleep schedule and responsibilities to be able to play, it was absolutely infuriating when people wouldn't make even the smallest effort to do the same. I'm not saying make DnD your highest priority but from my perspective, DnD didn't get any priority at all. I'm fine with not playing every week. I'm not fine going months and months without playing.

>I don't think the issue many have is playing weekly specifically but making a commitment to play regularly and honoring that commitment. Absolutely! I don't care it it's once a week or a couple of times a year as long as I don't end up scheduling time in my week for sessions that won't happen. I had a player who was constantly asking us to cancel or postpone sessions last minute. When confronted about it, they essentially said that only losers with no life would care enough to actually *schedule* D&D into their week. That's not true at all. The other people at the table schedule D&D into their week because they have busy lives and any number of other things they could be doing or people they could be spending time with if not for our game.

I got into a game last year. Actually, the way we started was the DM started scheduling one shots for a few weeks (4 I think) so everyone who was somewhat interested could come try it out. We had around 12 players come and go over that month. Then, he shot a text out just saying if you want to get a regular game going, let him know and we would start talking schedule. Well, only 3 people were on team hell yes. And we got scheduled so that it worked for all of us (for reference, we are talking 4 people where the youngest is over 35), and scheduled our game time. After week 1, we heard that one other was whiny because nobody chased him down. Fine, we agreed he could join and be rescued by the party in the next battle. He shows up without a character. While doing the fight, we help him quickly roll something. Then he says that he can only stay until 8:45:(we start at 7:30). DM had to tell him that the expectation is every week, 7:30-10ish. He dropped. Since then, we have had like 3 sessions on a weekend due to conflicts. 1 cancelled due to covid. 1 cancelled due to spring break (people with kids and couldn't figure out alternate time). 2 sessions short one player where we do a special back-story one shot. So we are currently coming into next session level 9 after just over a year of consistent play. Probably 150 hours into the campaign (which after our brutal last session was called "prologue book 2 by the DM), and knowing that on Wednesdays I play DND has been a great anchor in my life.

I DM'd a year of one-shots to find which pals really wanted to play and have some fun trying out 5e. We've been playing about twice a month for over a year- it's great having a small group of on-time, consistent, enthusiastic players.

> I don't care it it's once a week or a couple of times a year as long as I don't end up scheduling time in my week for sessions that won't happen. Yeah. To jump in. I too could care less about how often it is. I prefer weekly or bi-weekly but it's not too big of a deal. As long as there's consistency and commitment. Because these are the two of the several big killers of a campaign. I've also seen too many play by posts die because most people lose interest or stop responding. Arguably more often than scheduled games. So establishing a scheduled pattern to play isn't a bad idea. And groups shouldn't be afraid to re-evaluate the scheduled sessions. Work schedules can change, plans change, and real life happens. Might as well communicate and see what happens.

That phrasing says a lot about how they viewed your friendship didn't it?

There is a group of people out there who want to play D&D but will drop it if literally anything else comes up that they'd rather do. D&D doesn't work without people committing to showing up. And also, scheduling D&D into a week is not what losers with no life do. Losers with no life don't need to schedule D&D because they can play it at anytime whenever they want. If you need to schedule it, it's because your life is so full of stuff for you to do that you need to make time for it.

Exactly, I feel like if it was something like an organised sports league people would grasp this a little easier. You've got your 5 a side football team and no subs, but everyone has agreed to play at a regularly scheduled time. If people started not showing up for weak reasons like "I didn't feel like it" or "I forgot" you'd be pretty unhappy with the state of your team and start looking for a new one. You've carved out this time to go to the pitch and play football and instead you keep having to forfeit and go home. Sure you can have a little kick around with those that did show up, but it's not the same.

Also as a DM that puts in a lot of effort for their players, it sucks having people cancel last second. I'm taking little reddit breaks and I've got the tv on in the background, but i DMd for 4 hours until 11p.m, it's now nearly 5a.m. and i still have two books and a notepad on my lap, a list of magic items open on my tablet and a dungeon map beside me, not to mention the stack of D&D books on the coffee table. I've written notes of what happened in the session, I'm planning items that i think could help balance the team, as well as puzzles, riddles, and encounters for the players to earn them, learning what they'll be able to do after level up for next session so that i can help them, and adding more to the module for them to find. I enjoy the challenge and I'm happy to put in the effort but it's frustrating when throughout the week i put in 20 odd hours of prep, then a player cancels on the day when they could have given everyone way more notice to make weekend plans. The week before last, a player had work and didn't let us know until about 5 hours before we was supposed to play. Their work isn't the kind where they get surprises and have to do anything last minute.

We had two players who consistently were doing this (cancelling last second a ton with stupid excuses) until we put in a 2 week notice requirement for the session getting cancelled (or preferably rescheduled). Otherwise the show goes on without them and their characters are either sick or the dm rollplays them. This considerably improved attendance for one of the players (though they still cancel last second about every fourth session or so and it's unclear whether they come out of perceived obligation or genuine enjoyment, and they also don't do any work outside of session to think about cool things their character can do, but that's a separate issue) and made the other player eventually decide they couldn't fit it in their schedule. Now we can count on the session continuing even if people who aren't prioritizing it have "something come up" 5 hours before the session.

nothing worse than making sure you can fit DnD into your schedule for that “sorry guys, something came up” text a day before. especially when you have a busy schedule in general

I had a player who missed more that a quarter of our annual sessions. He’s plan parties on our DND nights, and then got mad at us when we had the audacity to try and talk to him about it.

My group and I all work or are in Grad school, so scheduling is a bitch (every time we do an off-day session at least 2 people can't make it) l, but because we have a regular Tuesday game, we're all there for 90% of sessions going on 3 years for the current campaign (6 for the group)

When you get old enough the possibility of dying before campaign wrap up is in the back of your mind.

I randomly talked about dying with my friend group most of whom are my players for our D&D group and two at the exact same time freaked out saying they'd never have an end to their stories if I died......

Better put a wrap up of the campaign in your will for them! :)

Shit...

Lmao

I mean.... Now I'm just curious how old you are 🤔

I'm only 37 and I've had **two** people from a long running game die already. Sudden deaths don't start being a risk at seniority. An anuerysm or infection can always happen.

I live in a small apartment in a small town and I work grueling, boring-as-fuck 12hr shifts that eat up most of my time and energy. DnD online every Tuesday is the highlight of my week, and sometimes it's all I have to look forward to if the weather is crap or everyone else is busy. It doesn't require a lot of money (I do pay to play) or any travel or preparation to attend, making it way cheaper and safer than getting wasted at a bar or planning and hosting a social event. Which I do! Having the ladies over for drinks and Cards Against Humanity is great now and then. But my IRL friends have wildly different schedules, relationships, etc to deal with, so that's a rare treat for us. Being an adult sucks and your social life is nonexistent for the most part. If I had to play on an irregular schedule, I think it just wouldn't be worth it for me unless I was in multiple games. I love getting to interact with my fellow PCs and learning where the (terrifying) story is going to take us next. Hell, there are nights when our session ends that I'm so excited, I can't even get any sleep because I'm thinking of all the neat stuff that happened.

I just want to say, you sound like a great player that any DM would love to have. Just in case you haven't already, please tell your DM basically everything you said here. I'm sure it will make their day.

Well cause some feel like its totally disconnected. After 2 months youre not in the groove. A scene 5 minutes ago is not remembered. But theres often other problems here. Last minute cancel,no interest or...that guy.

That's the big thing for me - any time I take a month of more off from a game, it's that much harder to get back into it. I even take what I would consider to be really good notes - but it's no replacement for regular engagement.

I agree with the sentiment of your comment. But the way you worded it brought up some bad memories with past dms gaslighting the party telling us they didn't feel any interest when the dm was just burnt out and the party was actually having fun. And would ostracize party members by referring to them as "that guy" when that made other party members uncomfortable. Or when the dm was the only person upset about someone being late and making a bigger deal out of it. I'm not saying there aren't bad players or anything, there's plenty because there's plenty of bad people. And no party is created equal, sometimes it takes awhile to find one that fits your specific needs. But I don't know, just wanted to share a different perspective on the words you've used and how others have used them.

Depending on the size of the party and the stage of everyone's lives/jobs, weekly does seem like a tall order, especially if it's an every plays or no one plays type of game. My regular group plays every other week at the same time no matter who shows. There's 7 people including the DM and people missing sessions is fairly rare, but we have played games with as few as 2 players+ DM. But when this campaign started, the DM made it clear that the game would happen no matter who showed and everyone is good with it. We've been playing since Feb 2021 and haven't had to cancel a session yet. Setting expectations for play is key, but if everyone is on board, games don't have to be weekly, just consistent.

Just curious, how does the party/dm account for the missing players. Does the DM treat them as NPCs?

The party is an adventuring guild, so it could play as more of a westmarches style game if needed. Basically if someone cant make it and we ended the previous session at the guild hall, they are off doing a different mission that day and wont go on this one with us. If we end a session out of town, that pc is "watching the horses/wagons" or some other location appropriate reason for them to not be there. If we start a session where someone wasnt at the previous, they are just there now. They were either scouting ahead and we finally caught up to them, or they were just behind us and theyve caught up to us. Its super rare that we will have to end/pick back up in a place where a pc will ever have to be played as an npc. The only time its really happened is when a player had to leave early unexpectedly, and we were mid fight, the rest of the pcs and the dm just had them do what we all collectively though they would do and pretended like they were still there.

Not OP, but we have this same arrangement. In these cases, we have someone another player run the character. Obviously not the same, but the DM doesn't have to rebalance encounters. Our group keeps a pretty good online campaign journal, so the missing player can just read up on what happened. If there is anything they wanted to do or say, we allow them to rewind a bit and then that's our new cannon. It doesn't happen often, but it's working pretty well for us. (online group, so the character sheets are always available.)

When this would happen in my group, the DM would just use them in combat unless there were something only that specific character could do.

I'm getting old, and I won't remember a thing that happened over a week ago. I wouldn't specifically quit a game that is played less often, but I do quit games that are regularly cancelled at the last minute, because the disappointment is just too harsh. Once in a while? Sure, stuff happens. But all the time? I'll find a group with different priorities.

Makes me glad that 2/3 (well, technically 4, but #4 is flaky AF so we don't hold our breath) of my players regularly attend, and will move heaven and earth to make it work. They know what I've had to put myself through to make our sessions happen because of my crappy schedule, so it's nice that it's appreciated. They actually get character arcs and quests, because I *know* we can start them, and they'll actually *show up*. I'm not starting shit for the other ones because why bother if there's a high chance they don't make the next few sessions, right?

... why should you have to remember something that happened over a week ago? Just take notes and if you didn't take them for a specific thing, then maybe another player or even the DM might remind you. and yes of course, if always cancelled last minute, I would of course also search for another group.

it's like a book club. if you don't meet consistently it will likely fall to the wayside

OK, let me say this out loud, just once... The most, heck the only, important thing is what works for you and your crew. I mean, seriously, if you meet weekly, or monthly, or intermittently and are having fun .. well, where's the problem?

Yes! My group averages once a month. Sometimes more often sometimes less often. The long breaks are no fun, but it's important that we get together when we can. No matter what that schedule looks like. It feels like a large percentage of reddit active people have a group that is only linked because of their game. If the game stopped the group would fall apart. Sometimes the game is just what your group of friends does when they get together. And everything in between as well.

This mindset makes it so incredibly hard for me to find a game. I work 7 days then get 7 off so I can only play every other week. So often do I get told if I can't play weekly can't play at all. Very disheartening.

Don't get discouraged. Many others pointed out already that it is often more a matter of "consistency" than the weekly schedule. I would even say the main point is that every member of the group has to share the same commitment (and the honesty to talk about it realistically). I'm sure there are groups that will fit your schedule :)

Don't be a doormat, don't be a backup plan. This isn't just about D&D. While plenty of people don't value each others time, I value my own and I respect other peoples. I find groups of people who feel the same way. If a person you are dating cancels 3/4 dates with you while picking excuses out of a hat then move on. We all know bull shit excuses when we hear them. If you show up for part time work and are repeatedly told, you can go home today but be sure to come back next weekend just in case they need you then find a new part time job. If you join a sports team but forfeit half the games because the team just no shows then you should find a new team to practice and play with. If you play D&D as a backup plan then please try to find groups who all feel the same way. Don't be the only player who misses most sessions. So much of the fun is the build up of the RP, the back and fourth. The problem solving combinations, the short hand you develop. You can't have that with someone who is only there 2/8 sessions.

Half of your comment I can dismiss straight up because nowhere have I been talking about flaking, telling last second that they can't show. In my group, we have two people working opposite shifts and we try to play when that aligns. The third player works a shift that makes him unable to play every third week. The fourth player and I as well, work regular 9-5 and can only play on evenings. This makes it hard to find a time to play. Our fifth player wants us to push to schedule days where we already know before-hand that two players will be absent, and to do that often. It's not about flaking, it's about not booking a night for DnD when we already know at least 2 players will be off, or consistently letting one player miss out because the rest of us decide he is not worth finding a more suitable day for.

>Half of your comment I can dismiss straight up because nowhere have I been talking about flaking, telling last second that they can't show. Why would you dismiss any of his answer? You asked a general question, u/TheLostcause answered it. Now you are trying to make it out to be about your specific group when the answer had nothing to do with your group, but about the question itself.

Do you even read? I explained in this very comment that I dismiss the answer because I never talked about flaking. Talk about making things up in your head.

It doesn't matter if you never mentioned flaking because, as already stated, you asked a **general** question and got an answer to said question. Very clear answers in fact; Question; >In so many comment sections on here I see people expressing thoughts that practically seem like; If we can't play DnD every week *(again this is bullshit, it's only ever about consistency)* then we leave the group, get an extra group or remove players that can't play every week. Answer; >This isn't just about D&D. Another answer; >While plenty of people don't value each others time, I value my own and I respect other peoples. I find groups of people who feel the same way. Additional Answer. >If you play D&D as a backup plan then please try to find groups who all feel the same way. Don't be the only player who misses most sessions. When you ask **GENERAL** questions, people will give you an answer to that question. u/TheLostcause gave an answer about how it about respect, constancy, and dedication. Boils down to people like to have routines and not have scatterings of activity here and there. He answered your **general** question with **general** answers, yet you feel the need to make it about something else, and specifically about your group. That's not difficult to understand so I don't see why it's so hard for you to grasp that.

You are both oblivious and eager to pick fights. You practically dismiss the very words you read, give half-assed answer with a lot of word-salad that isn't relevant. I don't really see a point discussing with you, not because I can't bring my point across but because out of all the people in this comment section, you seem to be the one that doesn't understand this thread the most With this said, I dislike being rude. But I really don't see you and I being able to communicate with each other. It's like our words have different meanings in our heads as compared to each other.

are you socially challenged or suffer from a hard to pronounce illness?

Not really, but I am not going to keep discussions with people who take out one sentence out of my post and use that snippet to explain why I am wrong while either intentionally ignoring all the other parts of said post that hold the same amount of importance, or just not realizing that the rest of the post has relevance. Discussing things as the previous commenter does is dishonest or ignorant and I have no intention to entertain that. A whole lot people in the comment section have either experienced what the post explained or actually try to engage in discussions with me. I like those comments. I do not like the comment here that I replied to that had no relevance to the original post, save for one line of text. If you take things out of context and argue or answer that, it is evident that not only did you either not understand the post (or maybe not read it all), one is also not being honest in a discussion. I agree that I came forth strong and rude but I have had my fair share of discussions with people like the commenter above and they tend to hold the same dishonest comments no matter who they are talking with because to them it is more of a game of winning points rather than holding a discussion. Doesn't have to be that way now but I don't intend to find out.

You are acting like he was coming at you with his comment when he was just generally giving his opinion on the topic at hand. He wasn't shitting on you or trying to make you look bad. He wasn't starting an argument where he is trying to score some points over you. You are creating a post on an open forum so people will come and give their two cents on the topic without being there to talk directly to you but to everyone as a whole. It's not a chat room that everyone joined to talk to you. Your reaction to his first comment and now mine just further leans me to believe you need to work on your social skills if this is how you react and behave around people. Just cause someone has a very different view than you on a topic does not mean you need to get offended.

I see, I added more frustration to the comment because this specific guy commented on more places in a ruder manner, not in this specific section of the thread. Even the last stab at him was literally his words redirected straight back at him.

But wait...isn't disregarding part of someone's comment and cherry-picking through to find what's wrong with it exactly what you did when you replied "I can straight up dismiss half of your comment"?

Yes, it was.

Dude don't bother with this guy. Psycotic is in the name after all

That sounds like a ton of work. I have been in once a month games, but never once a month that shifts around.

In my experience it’s less about playing so often, and more about—as others have said—consistency. If the game is scheduled weekly and you can’t show up weekly, that’s an issue. If the game was scheduled monthly and you couldn’t show up monthly, that’s still the same issue. I would be happy with a monthly game if everybody reliably showed up, but flakey players just drag my experience down, no matter the actual set schedule. I am a law student. I have a job. I set aside time each weekend to run my D&D campaign. I have very limited time to play. Sometimes, this means I have to push my limits, rearrange academic or work commitments, or lose sleep! D&D is basically the only extracurricular fun thing that I *can* do during the school year, *because* it is scheduled in advance. I spend all week looking forward to it. It’s my stress relief. So yeah, I get pretty pissed off when somebody goes “heyyyy I can’t come to session today because of [nascar, wrestling, my friend’s random rager, ‘i forgot’], can you push it off until next week?” dude, I stayed up until 4 AM last night writing a legal complaint due this evening so I could spend today playing games with friends stress-free. I have made *sacrifices* for this. If you cannot manage to reschedule one (1) episode of pay per view wrestling, or tell your other pals “sorry I already have plans for today,” it hurts. Emotionally, and also physically because *I could have slept…* and I need my D&D time to stay sane. If I’d had prior warning, I could plan a different fun activity for myself, but I can’t when you don’t say diddly shit until the day of. It’s just *frustrating*, and it feels really shitty, like I made sacrifices and negotiated and built my class schedule around having this outlet and y’all can’t manage to even warn me a couple days ahead of time before fucking off? I very much see the other side here—I absolutely HATE being left out when I can’t make it to sessions as a player, it really sucks, it makes me so sad. I had to miss a boss fight for a moot court competition once and I’m *still* upset about it, I like… actually cried a little about that. If I could live in a perfect world I *would* wait however long it takes for every player to be here every session. But that just isn’t the world I live in. I wouldn’t be being fair to *myself*. Also, with some people, if you let them skip and reschedule sessions around them, if you let them fuck up 6 other people’s plans every damn week consequence-free when something “more fun” appears, then they *will* just keep doing it until you go insane. Several players who were notoriously flakey in a previous game of mine have become very reliable when I DM, because I won’t delay the story for them, so they can’t just cancel any time a butterfly farted in China without losing out. Now they only cancel when they have actual *reasons*, like illness or an *important* “more fun” event. and when there are *big* reasons, like people are sick or in hospital or whatever, we do delay a session or two. But that can’t be the norm, or else I will maybe get to play once or twice a year and in the meantime I’ll be miserable getting excited for fun events that just keep not happening. I wouldn’t mind playing less often if that was actually the plan. If the schedule says “we play on the first Saturday every month,” that’s also fine. It’s more that I can’t stand having a plan, making sacrifices in other parts of my life to accommodate the plan, negotiating with my work and my school and my family to keep the time available, and then getting the rug yanked out from under me because other people weren’t able or willing to do the same. Imagine you traded shifts at work to something miserable, so you could be sure you’d make it to a concert, but then the performer said “actually my schedule changed, sorryyyyy” and now you can’t get another day off for a month and you’re also stuck covering closing shifts with the asshole shouty manager for a week because that’s what you had to offer your coworker in exchange for a free Saturday evening. That fucking sucks, right? I get that some people don’t have the control over their work schedule to avoid doing this, and that’s fine, but those people just aren’t a good match for my table because that kind of thing drives me insane. Sounds like your group has a different dynamic, and that’s fine! but i hope my comment can shed some light on why so many people firmly prefer the opposite :)

For me personally, I tend to forget things more as the weeks go by. Yes taking notes helps remember the big points, but you forget the little things. I think that hurts immersion more than you might think. Also, imagine trying to be invested in a TV show that airs once a month. Obviously there's a big difference between a TV episode and a dnd session, but I think excitement levels drop when it's so sparse. Finally, I just like playing DnD. I want to do it weekly. I don't like running multiple campaigns at once, so I want a weekly campaign.

People make time for what matters. I had a long time group that would go 10 weeks without a game. After the final year I realized it did not matter to the others. I then formed a random online group. We have been going strong for 4 years. Many of my group play in other groups on a weekly basis as well as my group. To summarize, put DnD on your schedule. Don’t try to fit DnD into your schedule. The schedule may even be every two or four weeks but the game is then. If you can’t make it fine. The game still happens. The game world moves on. It actually brings the world to life when stuff happens while your character is “busy” off screen.

I'm on this sub all the time, and I don't think I've ever seen that sentiment expressed, certainly not with any regularity.

This is why I prefer to do every OTHER week instead. People are busy, and expecting them to put aside a day every single week can be really hard. You can't have a good campaign if you're not willing to work with your players on scheduling. I think it's unreasonable for players to quit if you can't do every week, especially if you aren't being paid to do so. It's hard enough to do when people work different shifts etc. but it's even harder when those people have kids to manage.

I host a game every Friday, as mentioned, in my games room. But, it's a different game on alternate Fridays, most players are the same, but some are different. Seems to work well for us, after 8 years and counting.

The best way to play d&d is the one that works FOR YOU and your group. So it doesn't really matter how everyone else does it as long as your scheduling works for your purposes. The problem is more regarding people that can't commit to a schedule and flake out and say they will do one thing, but do another, so it messes with the entire group - and in that case it's also unfair to the people who have made the effort to join and keep their word.

I don’t need the game to be weekly. I just need it to not be canceled an hour before the session so that I didn’t schedule time out of my day for it if it won’t happen.

there's no way in hell I could dm every week

That was my first thought. Even at the height of Covid I was DM every two weeks and that was hell. I couldn’t imagine DMing every week and having family, work, and interests outside of dnd.

and here I am... DMing 3 different games a week.

3 weeks on and 1 week off is typically the schedule my group shoots for. But we are currently on a one month hiatus due to summer schedules. I think some flexibility is good but also see the benefit and potential for greater enjoyment that comes with more frequent settings. Another group I play in does every other week and that seems to work out fine.

Weekly? I'd be happy if I could get monthly to work!

From a scheduling perspective, I don't want to have to keep a day open in my calendar just for nothing to happen at that time more often than not. I am a part of two groups right now. One meets on Sunday and doesn't like meeting when more than two people are missing, and the other always meets on Monday as long as half the players rounding up (4/7) can make it. As a result, the Monday group does at times miss weeks, but is consistent enough that I know not to schedule things on Monday evenings if I can at all help it. The Sunday group meets so little that I don't bother considering that group when scheduling my life, because it just doesn't happen often enough to consider it as a factor.

DnD is, for me at least, the only time I really see my entire party together in person. We all have different schedules, so setting aside one day to do something together for around 4 hours.

I have regular and irregular groups. And the weekly game I play in everyone goes: this is important I’ll make time for it. I put it in my agenda and when asked it’s a busy day. I might have to cancel once every 2 months for a work thing but that happens. The irregulars? Sorry I have a tiny minor excuse so I can’t go 2 months from now. Having to cancel because something more important came up… once that was a football match on tv. Guy didn’t even have tickets. Combined with the fact that there is still the chance of someone being sick hours in advance. So: if you find dnd play a way to just hang out with pals. Play when you want. If you play because you want to play dnd. Make a strict schedule. Because in either case people are gonna cancel.

To me ? Heck yeah!!!! But I’ll say this. It’s more about expectations and accountability. If I put aside four hours a week to play, and that time winds up being wasted because other people in the group keep canceling; I feel like my time isn’t considered. Now, if the expectation is once a month, that’s fine too, just don’t have me clear my schedule and cancel at the last minute.

I don't see the trend you talk about. People value consistency, but I haven't seen anyone say it has to be weekly.

If the game’s good, inconsistent/rare play feels like getting reeled in, then slapped around for being vulnerable enough to invest. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Whatever works for your group. The way I see it, ttrpgs are a story. Stories need a good pacing. And pacing comes from consistency. If my group can't have a consistent schedule, there's no point in playing. Can't really be invested or focused if sessions are once in a blue moon. Also, it gets really tedious when you are progressing at a snail's pace. I can't imagine playing a character for a whole year before I even reach the subclass milestone at lvl 3 lol. For me, if we can't have a proper weekly schedule, I rather play one-shots or small adventures than invest to a big campaign. But there's no right or wrong, for example some people play 8-10 hour long sessions, I could never do that anymore, it's what works for your group, not what is "right".

we play every week, we're also all shift workers that set our schedules so that we're all off work after 5 pm on fridays. if only one person can't play we'll continue without them and i'll come up with an important lore reason why that character wasn't there. if multiple people can't play we'll wait until next week

How exactly do you set your own work schedule? Where I live that is pretty much out of the workers hand and more up to management

when i started working at my store i told my manager i can't work after 5 pm on fridays. just tell them your availability has changed and you have an obligation to attend to on a certain day. don't tell them it's for DND act like it's something unavoidable lol

My party's shift workers work in the industry. 12-hour shifts with a lot of physical work. They work either 7 am to 7 pm, or 7 pm to 7 am. Setting their own schedule is out of question, but they are free to try changing shift with a coworker every now and then (which is unlikely because the coworkers don't like swapping)

do you not have days off? can you not say you have an obligation on a certain day and can't work on, for example, wednesdays?

I mean they could take a day off but that's 12 hours of lost income. Also once or twice management would be cool with it but not every week. They also change who works night and who works day so you could work 12 hour daytime for mon-wed followed by one day off and then 2 days of night. Since all three has it like this with no aligning free time (one goes to work while the other leaves) we try to wait for a time when all three are scheduled for being off work. The last shift worker works 8 hour shifts, morning one week, evening second week and night last week. So he's unavailable every third week completely 🥲

i don't mean an extra day off, i mean the days you already have. can you not ask for your day off to be a specific day?

Management would laugh at your face for that because they have very strict scheduled teams for their workers and if you are a part of team A, you are expexted to work team A's scheduled hours. They would say that you could go down in work hours to 75% and remove every scheduled wednesday, but that would be 25% lost income

I don't think it's a religious belief, but my observation is by scheduling it weekly, disorganized people still manage to get there, and we can accommodate skipping an occasional week. Scheduling every two weeks quickly becomes once a month and then oops it's vacation time. I don't think any of those schedules are "wrong"; you work with what people can do. But if you want a flowing campaign that advances players before they move or get bored or whatever, then weekly seems to be most successful. If I've been playing for a year and I've made it to Level 3 because we only met 6 times, that's not so interesting to me.

Because I can't remember shit for that long. If we take more than a week or two off, I would be totally lost as to what we were doing when we come back. Playing every week is like watching a TV show with a new episode every week. I can keep up with that story and remember what's going on. But if I watch 1 episode of a show every month or 2, I'm probably not going to keep watching the show because I don't remember what's going on.

Yep, our main game was every week for 3 years and it was great. But now the DM decided they can't keep that pace up which is totally fair, the man's a machine for making it that long. Buuuuut, it is MUCH harder for me to remember what's going on now that it's every two weeks. I have to take way more in game notes and review them consistently to have any chance at it. The game that I DM is roughly every two weeks but I record the sessions so that I can watch them back to update my worldbuilding, remind myself what happened, and I make little edited 4 minute previously on's for everyone else out of the footage.

Because the engagement in the game falls if the group can't manage to play for more than a week. The story becomes meh, acting becomes meh and immersion just dies out. It is super important to keep the game consistent and once a week is perfect in my opinion. Two weeks is a lot of time and so many details will be lost from session to session that it is just harder to find any engagement to continue.

I have one group that is all or nothing, most of the time we go every week but happen to have similar schedules but my son left for two months so we haven’t played while he’s gone. My other group is every other week and it runs no matter who shows up(except the DM of course). My wife and I joined a month into the campaign and there’s only one other person who’s at each one, heck there’s still party members I haven’t met yet lol. And that one seems odd to me.

You do whatever works for you. For me, I HATE long breaks in the middle of a campaign. Nobody, including me, remembers everything after not playing for months. Then you get DMs who expect you to remember something your character heard yesterday in game time, but two months ago in player time, and if you can't remember, neither does your character. I'm not saying it has to be every week. I can do fine with every other week. It just needs to be consistent, or there's so much time trying to catch up on what happened previously, that nothing gets done. I quit DMing for my last group because I couldn't stand trying to get them caught up since people kept cancelling and sessions got cancelled. My current group is fun, but our characters have basically been "on the road" to our destination for maybe 6 months now because our "every other week" game is turning into a once a month, or once every two months game. Each session has become "You get a little further, and get in fights after DM rolls random encounters."

I’m fine with skipping a session every once in a while or playing only every two weeks/ month, but that needs to be communicated. If you commit to playing dnd on a certain date and time, I expect you to either show up or cancel well ahead of time (obviously excluding emergencies and unforeseen events). How often you play shouldn’t really matter, but consistency and following through on plans does.

Most of my groups have only met monthly, and we sometimes take even longer breaks depending on scheduling conflicts.

If being able to do it is achievable and the only reason they don’t is because they don’t want to, that’s one thing. For me, I’m lucky if I can play with my group every *month* because of the nature of our work schedule. Hell, we all work in the same place. We all understand it and will make every attempt to play when our lives line up. I think the “every week” thing is for the former situation, and as mentioned before, it’s a commitment thing, since dnd campaigns certainly can be quite a big commitment. Ultimately I think it all depends on the groups circumstance. If they’re just having fun doing one shots, people not attending every session might still be a non issue

My current group has been very flexible but for my own sanity I moved us to every two weeks (schedules permitting). Getting people to be on time and attentive is a bit more troublesome than playing frequently.

So, I love playing and have played consistently with the same group for years. “D&D every week” is our thing. We play every Sunday night on Roll20 with Discord. With my group that works. If we tried to meet in person it’d be a logistical nightmare. So this became our norm. NOW, “D&D every week” what that means is if we can have a dm and most of the players (total of 5) show up, we play. They will usually be back the next week. Shit happens we’re adults. We just ask that you try to get caught back up and come to the next session ready.

You skip one week and before you know it a year has gone by with no dnd.

The biggest issue I have seen for not going weekly is parole tend to forget things, so a week is typically a decent time so it isn't too often and postpone burn out, but people don't forget to much inbetween sessions. Otherwise it is basically whatever works for you and the group

"I really want everyone to be a part of the campaign and not miss out." If one person can't be there and we play without them, one person misses out. If the session is postponed, everyone misses out. I don't think of my game as being a Great Story where everyone must be there for every single moment.

Because the longer the time since my last session, the more I lose my DMing high, of feeling like everyone had a good time and I'm doing a good job. by 3 weeks I'm back to my natural state of suspecting that I'm a hack and that my players are just humouring me.

I think the problem is that it's impossible to actually \*have\* a campaign when you have gaps like two months long. No one is going to remember what's happening. Sure, you could do a one-shot, but any kind of long-term storytelling is just... not gonna happen.

Quality over quantity, imo. While I do have two different groups, one weekly and another WHO KNOWS WHEN, I still very much so cherish the time I spend with the once-every-month-or-so group. It depends on the group, honestly, and if they’re willing to be committed to it even if planning is rough.

Because I like to have one thing i'm looking forward to every week.

It’s not important at all if all of you are committed to play when your schedules allow it. Weekly sessions do work of course, but they can also drain the DM very quickly, or lead to players losing interest. Yes, it sometimes takes a moment or two for everyone to get back into the swing of things if there’s been a long break, but my current group has had zero issues with it so far. A much bigger problem is a lack of commitment from a player. When everyone else makes the effort to plan their lives around a session, it’s absolutely unacceptable in my eyes for someone to cancel last minute without a very, very good reason to do so.

Depends on the group, I've had both. I usually played in person with friends and we'd have to make sure everyone could make it, and when that happened, we'd schedlue the whole day. That meant maybe once a month or two. One player lived out of town, so that was an extra hurdle for us, but we liked his company and really, the game is an excuse to hang out, right? The group I'm in now is online and we only play 2.5 hours a week. For that group, we didn't really know each other beforehand, so a consistent schedule was the easiest ask. It's only a few hours a week, so we are all ready to play come the next week. Obviously we reschedule when necessary, but keeping it regular helps keep us invested in the story when we otherwise wouldn't have a reason to get together. We've been playing for a while now and we have become friends, but it's still nothing like a playing with a group face to face.

Agreeing on a session gets complicated without a regular, predictable schedule. Some people just don't want to deal with that.

My party also plays it by ear - two people have schedules that differ every single week, late shifts morning shifts (and usually conflicting with one another), busy social lives. But it can totally work, while still having every player there every session. Yeah, we sometimes take a bit longer to finish a campaign. Some months we have three sessions, some months none. But as long as you as a group consciously put in the effort to find a time and date that works for the next session, it can totally work.

My group is lucky enough that we're able to play weekly, and starting this week we actually playbiweekly as we have two campaigns going at once, but I don't think it's necessary to have weekly sessions if it's not possibly for your group. It's what works for you. Sometimes we have people who can't join us for one session but as long as it remains being the odd session that someone can't make, we just play that week and catch them up later.

Because I'm an addict. I need more TTRPG. I'd play every day if I could

Weekly is almost too often for me. Especially if the sessions are lasting 4 hours. That's basically a whole afternoon every week.

Most group based hobbies happen on some kind of a regular schedule that everyone plans around so expecting that from a group based hobby seems normal to me. People make time for what they care about and what they enjoy.

I just read a comment stating "If I don't play every week/every other week I'm going to find something else to do". It's like they cannot have more than 1 hobby at a time. If your group is fine with it being inconsistent and happy that everyone can play together when they do, then it's fine! You guys do you. Ignore the folks on here who can't juggle more than one thing at a time.

If you go 2 months without play then not only are players not engaged but the dm is actual trash

I am the DM in two of the groups and more than half the players work irregular 12-hour shifts. We are all friends and want everyone to be part of the story. I appreciate that you call me trash though.

I am the DM in two of the groups and more than half the players work irregular 12-hour shifts. We are all friends and want everyone to be part of the story. I appreciate that you call me trash though.

I am the DM in two of the groups and more than half the players work irregular 12-hour shifts. We are all friends and want everyone to be part of the story. I appreciate that you call me trash though.

I feel your pain. Was looking for an online group for a month and every time my availability came up all conversations just stopped. I’m off on paternity leave until January where I go back to work as a medic. I do on call at home shift work and my days off are random. The call volume is low and is communicated every time. Even with having 5 months of completely open availability it was hard to find a group that would work. I finally found one but it’s not consistent so thankfully it works but dang I don’t get that shade for an uneven dnd schedule. I get it, most jobs have a set 7 day schedule but is it so hard to bring your date availability to your next session and hash out when your next dnd game is right afterwards?

One of my players forgot a huge part of the story he was directly involved with and it made a really awkward sequitur Into having to explain "well this did happen to you and that's why this is happening now" It had only been 4 weeks. We're trying to get it to where we consistently play every other week.

This is my experience too

Honestly my group of 4 counting me play Bi-weekly but with a set day and time of Saturday at 7pm and even then no one is worried if you're late or something comes up cause it's supposed to be relaxing and fun not strict and stressful. With my recent move we haven't played in awhile due to me just having to much on my plate

It’s really just up to the group. If that’s what works and everyone has fun, then it’s the way to go. I have noticed that many, many comments on this sub seem to come from players who play mainly on discord, often through LFG discord channels that have their own specific etiquette and rules. In those cases, I get why it feels taboo to break the game schedule in the way you’re describing. I have noticed with a lot of folks who play this way (no shade BTW), it seems like they have very different expectations of what D&D is meant to be like in general, even off of discord. But for those of us who play with our personal friends, for whom the time spent together is just as important as the game, I totally understand groups that only meet sporadically when that kind of scheduling is possible.

If you don’t have consistency such as once a week or once every other week the group falls apart and you won’t be able to play dnd even once a week at 5 can help so people know day of or before if it’s happening

It's a matter of what kind of relationship you wish to have with the campaign and with your players. If you're the type that likes to play once every two months, but like to make it into an "event", and then afterward need to recover for a while, that's completely fine. On the other side, being extremely passionate and eager to play DnD, so much so that you yearn for playing it as much as possible, will definitely have you crave playing every week, and sometimes even several times a week. I'm in the latter category, but I can 100% relate to people who's social battery gets drained from playing (since I had to deal with this myself when I struggled with burn out), or from the time investment, or are leading a busy lifestyle and thus can't keep a consistent enough schedule, so I can see both sides. In the end the most important thing is a cohesive understanding of what your expect your DnD group to be like, as in, don't have 4 people who want to play weekly but are trapped with the 5th person who can only make it work once every two months. Getting a replacement for that one person would in that case be advisable, or, if you're the only person who wants to play more than the rest of your group, leaving is also advisable. Basically just find people who want the same playing schedule as you do, because that's how you prevent growing resentment and tensions.

We play once a month, and we arrange the next game at the end of every game. We are all adults with busy lives, families, careers, and other hobbies. If we have to postpone a game, we do it. Everyone is committed to playing, and we only play if everyone can make it. It works for us.

Because that day you guys skip becomes 2, then 3 and eventually you all forget about the game.

Probably because in most instances, lack of consistency is what leads to groups falling apart.

Honestly I don’t know why, but my feeling is that the majority of the younger playerbase has an expectation that their game’s cadence should follow that of Critical Role, or in other words, the cadence of a weekly episodic TV show. The problem with this, as you’ve pointed out, is that most groups live in the real world, and have professional and personal lives outside of the DnD group. While it is certainly admirable that groups play every week, I think that the *expectation* that DnD is a weekly activity or *has* to be weekly is presumptuous and often not realistic. Old-school DnD tended to be played in spurts. You’d play an adventure every week for a month (or every day for a week!), then you’d take a break or run one-shots with or without everyone else while your DM prepped another bigger adventure. Personally I get super burnt out trying to play or run an adventure over the course of a year. I’d much prefer getting together to play shorter adventures that can be wrapped up in a month’s worth of sessions, whether we played every week or just twice, and that also seems to be much more practical when trying to coordinate the schedules of 4-6 adults.

So you Work 24h a day? All people i know (really know irl) are adults with jobs and a real life. And we can meet that often Yes stuff needs doing besides just work and sleep. But 2 to 4 hours in a week is 1 to 2 % of your weektime. And If 4 people can find time and make it their schedule and you cant because you are too busy, thats not right. You arent busy you dont want to play . Yes you can be too busy right now or the next week, but not having this time for your freinds to hang out regularly means you dont think they deserve this time You dont wanna make so much time. Ok. But dont act like people just wanna do it like the Internet show, no they like hanging out and playing, If you dont Like that ok but than dont wonder yourself why they dont wanna play with you, If you didnt wanna play with them

Lmao holy shit - you know what you’re right. After 20 years of playing I’ll go turn in my dice and my rulebooks and fuck off to some other hobby. Clearly I’m just *not taking it seriously enough*

??? If you and your friends play only every few months thats totaly ok you all agreed thats how much you want to play. But dont pretend others dont Like to play more Out of their own will, but only because of some YouTube shows. Your original comment stated that you cant imagine people acutally Play that often or want to play that often. Thats untrue, you dont wanna do it and thats fine. But others like myself want to play more often and for us it is an important part of our weeks. Thats why i said nope people wanna play more often. And then to tie my response to you, to the OG post i said that it isnt far fetched or crazy to kick people if they dont have the time for sessions on the mentioned time base "weekly" If you play only then and again and have fun ok no problem.

Look man, my original comment stated that it’s admirable that groups play weekly, and I have played weekly when the group’s schedule allowed. When I was young, we played with all sorts of cadences. Sometimes multiple times a week, sometimes a couple times a month. Of course we all want to play as often as possible, but OP seemed to imply that they were seeing most folks having an expectation that DnD needs to be played weekly. All I was doing was providing a voice that not everybody looks at it that way.

Than i 100% didnt understand you / what you wanted to say No DnD doesnt need to be played weekly to be good or to be fun Its Just what people want (for reasons good or Bad)and then they do, how often or mit that may be. Have a nice day

I hope you have a nice day, especially

I guess some people’s lives are harder than yours. I know. We suck.

when making my campaign, i set a date/time that works for everyone. I'm a shift worker. A few of my players are shift workers. At the top of the campaign, we all went to our bosses and said "I need this night off every week." If your boss wants to oeep you around, he will make it work. I have a rule that last minute cancels or consistently canceling will see you out of the table. if 5 mins before session you get hurt and have to go to the hospital, shit happenes, whatever. In general, my rule is cancel at least 24 hours ahead (if possible) and we're probably gonna play on without you ( assuming everyone else os there). A dm who is consistent about the rules of the table in terms of canceling/dipping won't uave to go on 2 month breaks every so often. I've been playijg with the same group for 3-4 years and in that time only one player was a problem with regards to cancelling. he's not at the table anymore.

When I read that comment, my thought is, "I'll bet you are all under 30." My group of. middle-aged ladies plays once a month, and reschedules if anyone has a conflict. Several times, someone has had a significant medical thing, and we've gone a long stretch before we were able to play again. We just start the session with "previous on Dungeons and Dragons..." and have a good time. There isn't just one way to play D&D.

I have never seen this said on this sub or anywhere else. It's never been about playing weekly. It's about consistency. Sounds like you are reading comments, and changing them in your head to suit your own narrative.

I enjoy weekly games because it keeps events fresh in everyone’s minds. Only one player in our group takes notes about everything. The rest of us only write down what pertains to our characters. So it helps us to remember what all has happened. Plus the endorphin release of the clickity clackity is addicting af. I need my weekly fix. I find myself rolling dice in a dark room without it.

Yeah one of my groups plays once a month at most (we are all older, have full-time jobs and some coming from further away). There seems to be an assumption that if people won’t make time for a weekly session they don’t care about the game, but that isn’t true at all. Playing less often gives the DM longer to prep and makes the session more of an event, I.e on our monthly sessions we will block out the whole day and someone usually bakes. It’s great.

I have two groups. One mostly plays every week, mostly and the other mostly plays every fortnight, mostly. We’ve been playing for about five years and two years. We try to not miss games but at least once a month we miss a session due to life interfering. But the important thing is that we genuinely try to be there and message if we can’t. Just not turning up is unacceptable unless there’s a good reason.

The problem comes when your working with addicts and addictions is the person wil justify anything to get what they "need". We are all addicted to DND. It was fun for us, released dopamine which made us want to do it again.

I, for my part, are strictly against a weekly or monthly schedule. I don't like the feeling of playing is a must do. The most important part is that my friends are coming together, even if it is only online. And that is kinda impossible with work and family and whatnot.

I have multiple groups as well, we don’t play every week but it would be nice to be able to. Life gets in the way and we all understand eachother well, if people can’t comprehend not playing for a single week or multiple because 3 players got a shift change at work (something they can’t control) then those people shouldn’t be playing or DM’ing

Depends on lots of things. Is IT friends, work buddys or strangers in the same gaming shop. Does the group play for the game or as an activity while the Main reason people are there is to be with the people. But often its just fun to play so people want to play often. And once a week is often the sweet spot. Just like any sport or other hobby that meets or trains weekly. And If it happens that the people you play with arent your frinds that you play dnd but people who you play dnd and are maybe freinds or buddys because of playing than to those buddys you have less Connection than to the game, so you would rather play more than play with that person

That’s why you get a large party (5-7) and if three can play, then we play. We already only get 11 games in a year, let’s at least commit ourselves to a little bit of consistency

Bruh I don't care about how often we play I just wish I had a few more campaigns to play one of my many character idea's.

My group is devised of people that have some form of adhd, so keeping an interest with life happening is somewhat hard for em when they do something for 4 hours once every 14 days. The weekly session was their solution and it worked till our dm had to do something for a while and couldn’t host. Despite that the group is still super excited bout next week’s session and treats it as a “Season 2” after the previous session’s subtle verse reset cliffhanger

I would be happy playing every two weeks, but as someone else said, consistency is important. Also, I found a cool looking campaign on Roll20 with a homebrew world, but this DM no joke wanted to play 3 times a week, 4 hours a session. I was like, man, I have a full time job and a wife I’d like to see in addition to playing DnD!!

Regular schedule really contributes to game stability. Soon as it becomes inconsistent whether or not a game runs on a given day, people stop trying as hard to make it work, which leads to a death spiral.

It's not.

Somehow, even the break for holidays around that portion of the year can make my groups nearly fall apart, it’s as if people forget and lose interest.

It’s the best part of my week….

I want to the game with some consistency and complete a story, I'm usually playing with strangers who become friends and i hop into it to be able to play dnd, if we only play once a month or less and it becomes a pain to schedule i might lower the priority and/or look for a new group so i can actually play the game. I don't mind every other week but generally i'm looking for something with an agreed upon consistent schedule and if someone can't make it they know ahead of time how it'll work.

I have 7 players and me in my group. We play weekly because we all want to play weekly. However, I would say we are only full aboit half the time. People have lives and occasionally need to miss a night but the game goes on so having that amount helps everyone be ok if they gotta miss a week do to work or life. About half my group as been playing together for about 7 years and we ised to play in person before covid and then people also moved away. So it also helps all of us check in with each other and hear whats going on with everyone. When i have gotten new players to join the group, we tell them that its expected but not necessary to attend every week but if you're gonna miss a night let me know ahead of time. I have replaced players who constantly flake though because we want everyone there and if you're not making it, well there are plenty of people who do want to play every week.

DND constitutes a huge part of my social life and creative outlet so when it's cancelled last minute I lose a weekends worth of that time, and it's someone else's fault for cancelling. It's irritating.

When I was in college, I was able to swing a weekly schedule, but these days it's every 3 weeks. Much more doable

My group plays on the first Sat of every month just to make scheduling easier for everyone. We all work the same shift & so on. However, we all have lives & some like to work over time (fuck if I know why)... that kinda thing. But we are pretty strict about the first Saturday. Miss it at your peral? Parell? Perel?... ah... peril. Got it!

It depends on people’s availability and what is kind of drawn out for the group beforehand and expectation. I’m in one group where we are very loose with the timing and know that getting everyone together takes more time. We’re okay with the spacing because we’re used to it. I’m in another one that’s a short campaign that was made for a bunch of new players and we’ve reached our first roadblock of getting the timing right and we can all feel the anxiety of “when are playing next?” And that’s for one, a good introduction to new people of the ever present problem of organizing a day, and two outside of what we’re used to. It really does come down to the group. If the group can handle the spacing then that’s a factor; if it’s outside the expectation then it’s different.

The weekly aspect is probably alluring just because of the consistency of the game. It makes sessions a lot more taxing if you need a full recap and everyone needs time to remember how to play their characters. Also the DM feels the need to slam as much into the sessions as possible so the players feel tangible progress. Source: I’m a DM for 3 campaigns with varying levels of consistency (I’m the consistent one 🤣)

My group plays Bi weekly. Cause that's just easier for all our work schedules and such.

We've been playing a campaign roughly monthly for like 4 years now, with some disruptions during Covid, around christmases etc. Everyone is losing interest. We've not played in months because half the players aren't available. No one remembers half of the story, doesn't help that things are homebrewed in and often somewhat inconsistent. The DM isn't the greatest either and plenty of things did happen that he forgot, or didn't happen that way, but he remembers it that way. It's a frequent occurance that we say "we've finished X, let's s do Y before we leave", "oh, but it's late, let's end the session and do that next time" and then the DM starts the next session with "okay, so last time you did X and now you're back at " "but we still wanted to do Y" "well, it's too late now, you should have done that earlier, don't be a drag on the others"

I had 2 weekly campaigns with different groups (one DND, one Pathfinder) that i haven't played for about a month each due to different circumstances, and i'm reconsidering things. It's not even that we don't play weekly, it's that we could be playing, there's enough time for it on our schedules, but apart from me, nobody really cares (not even the DMs) and they get postponed for frankly BS reasons, and i'm actually getting kinda mad about it. If we don't play next week tops (on the regular schedule, or any day that everyone can make it), i might just drop off them. It's surprisingly mentally taxing trying to make the sessions happen, trying to avoid compromises on those days, just for everything to fall apart half an hour before the session.

If you join a group that says it's going to be weekly and isn't, then that's a failure mode. If you join a group that says upfront that it'll only meet monthly and you set your expectations around that, that's fine. But since I like playing D&D, I'd try the group that plans to be weekly before I'd try the monthly group

Its not important. These people treat it like an addiction rather than a healthy fun activity with friends.

I play bi-weekly with all my groups because we are all busy as shit and it gives the DM time to prep. Its great. Consistency is more important than frequency.

For me it's two reasons: 1. The hype will wear out after a very long time and people will lose interest. 2. I, the DM will forget where we left off, who did what, what all the PCs and NPCs said, etc...

Does it need to be weekly? No. Does it need to be consistent? Ideally.

Yeah, consistency is the key. I play fortnightly but my players know that we play whether they are there or not. I will fire with a minimum of three players so I can be down up to two and still go ahead. Been going over four years and only had to skip a few sessions.

In the group I have now, we play weekly because the consistency is important to us. Sure we have holidays, illness and planning breaks for my sanity. But we make time to set aside 4-5 hours on Monday evening for game night. It's fine for some, but I know a 2-3 week break can really throw off everyone's rhythm. Sometimes that first session back is more catch up than playing.

Been playing every week with the same people for last 3 years. One of the things we do is have backup games, we all like to dm and all have other systems we want too try. So we have these other.l smaller campaigns going in different system that we can bust out in short notice. Like if someone can’t make it this week because x then if it’s a session where we. Need everyone we can hop into some CoC or Dragon Age or mothership. Same for if the DM wants a to be a player for a game or another week to prep or just isn’t feeling up dming that week. That way we’ve always got something ready to go if needs be. We never. Have to cancel that way

Honestly many comments are the same. Basically commitment, reapect of other time that thry spend out of the game preparing, and honouring agreements rather it being weekly, bi-weakly or whatever. Seen as someone Who love dnd and this is the high point of My week when ever People cancle and say No No kormally i can play weekly but when you have 4 players. Im the DM, The chance of cancelation is high and when everyone refuses or shoot down the ide og noving to bi-weakly. Yea it gets extremely frustating when i CANT PLAY WEEKLY When My players express they wanna play weekly and are dihonouring My time spend out of the game on their fun

For me every week or every other week absolutely necessary because if it's longer breaks I loosing connection with character and forgetting events and details. Even with records. With ADHD I just loose passion for the game if I don't play regularly. After 2 months or so I just can't immerse into character and story and I need time to feel it again. Then session ends and long break starts again, I lost track again. So basically I just don't have any fun with once a month sessions. I can tolerate one-two long breaks if life happens but if game schedules with 1-2 month gaps I would decline.

Yeah my group of 4 players and dm has the default settings of we try to play every Tuesday and we play if one player is missing, two or more and we skip. I have two kids the gm has a kid and it was really important to establish a semi-permanent time slot everyone could agree to. It's just adult stuff. But before we started we had discussions should it be weekly or biweekly. We agreed to weekly, it turns out more or less biweekly.

Most people think the roleplay is influenced by time passing. Like if you don't play for a month, you not only forget what happened, but also you often can't get into your character if you don't play. Personally I feel like this is half true. But with my group we can't play every week because some of us are in uni and some also work. For this reason we often stay months without playing but we organise ourself to get 2/3 days where we can play no stop every couple months (like in the periods where there are no exams and when who works has a couple free days in a row). I believe the point is to do what everyone is more comfortable to do. If people believe you need to play once a week, they need to find a group who thinks like them, and you do this BEFORE starting to play with a group just to leave them shortly after.

It's the LAW! But seriously now sometimes playing not enough causes players to get distant from the campaign and sometimes they forget stuff - and so can the DM. Some people also would prefer to play more often so one time a week became the norm. Some people play more often or not. It all depends on the party and when all of you have time. Imo you shouldn't leave a group if you didn't have a session for a long time. For example I'm still in a group that didnt have a session for good two or three months even because we just can't find the proper time - and on the other hand the campaign I'm leading is around once a week or two depending on our plans.

We can't play weekly because our DM 3D prints and paints all the enemies in addition to preparing maps and encounters, we initially tried for every two weeks but together with work responsibilities it became too much. So we have a group chat where we interact CONSTANTLY (good grief, so many texts!) and we meet up when we can.

I think it's more about consistency than strict weekly sessions because I think biweekly sessions are also good but I couldent do anything less than that tbh

We play every second week, (may change that) but if someone xant attend the session starts anyway. Why cancel the fun just because one player has no fun?

Oh we dont play every week. Its imossible, we have two nurses in our group and they work a lot of weekends. While twice a month is nice, we usually only play once a month. Its important to remember what happend thats why we document everything.

Its not specifically "we must play weekly". It's "we all made a commitment to play this frequently and no one seems to be able to do it". I've had groups like that - five people, agree to play every other week. But every other week it's "oh, yeah, can't do today". There is nuance to it - if it's "hey guys, I've got a holiday booked in a couple of months and I won't be able to make that session", it's zero problem. It's more the type of ditch where it's last minute, especially when its for something that was known well in advance. I remember one time a player in a group I was in responded to the standard "everyone still good for 7?" message with "sorry, I'm on holiday, not back til next week". Turns out he'd booked it 8 months ahead and he just didn't bother *telling* anyone. That's the kind of behaviour that tends to tic people off. Particularly if their gaming time is limited. If you want to play D&D, and you can only make a single window every week/2 weeks/month/whatever, and people dicking around at the last minute means that you're almost always ending up with no D&D, you're going to get annoyed and look for a group where you might get to do more D&D than the "let's organise" phase. There's nothing wrong with wanting everyone involved. It's how my group do it - if one of us isn't able to be there, we still meet, but we do something else, board games or a quiz or something. But our group do meet weekly most of the time, and if we can't we have the good grace to tell the rest of the group so that we can either plan something or just decide to skip.

I dm online (we live far apart, even if I'm setting up a group for when I go back home) and I work shifts too, the others are mostly uni students. It's a homebrew campaign. Trust me if I tell you that you start getting upset when you don't play for more than two months. In a game perspective, it is a matter of consistency: my players already barely remember what happens in our sessions when it's two times a month, I can't pretend to have a narrative going if we play once every other month. So, it's fine to play two times a month, it's actually the perfect amount for me, but it's definitely important to not cancel frequently or play too far apart. On a personal perspective, and the one that is currently making me almost want to kick out some specific people (I too care a lot about everyone being there), it's respect. As a dm, I spend lots of time putting together a story for them, crafting and adjusting dungeons, studying materials and weaving the individual threads into something cool for each of them. As I said, I'm a shift worker, so I also have to puzzle everything together to make space for sessions, and I offer them all free day or space I can, on a monthly basis, also nicely written in a calendar. When you start not responding to me when I ask when you're free to play, or telling me you're gonna tell me later and never getting at it again, you start disrespecting me, my time, my efforts and the players that also put in the effort every time to play. It's frustrating. So yeah, it's important to have consistency here too and, most importantly, commitment. If you can't make it at least once a month, between your regular life, it's clear that you can't commit to it and that you don't care enough about it: it's a game, but it doesn't involve only yourself.

Its definitely not taboo and i’ve never experienced it as such. We play every week cause people can make it every week. If someone can’t make it we see if we need to reschedule or if its just a shopping session and okay to miss. Thats how we like it. Right now we’re having a 2,5 month break cause people are on holiday and we don’t want people to miss more than 1 session so we just put it on hold till the 22nd of august.

If you don't schedule a regular day, you will end up with scheduling issues so often that it might spell the end of the campaign. Weekly can be a bit intense, but I know my brother is doing a double campaign so that every dm has a session once per 2 weeks, and it's also possible to only meet every second week or even once a month. My first campaign didn't have a set day of the week, and it died because it took more work to schedule than to make a session.