Look.
We’ve all been there.
You’re tired. Work was a drag. You already hung out with friends today. You don’t have much social energy left in the tank.
And the last thing you want to do right now is commit to a 3 to 4 hour session of D&D.
- See also:
Sure, you still love the game, and yeah, you like the friends you play with — but today just doesn’t work. Maybe something came up, maybe a friend invited you over, maybe you’d rather just sit back and watch TV for the rest of the day.
Hey, that’s fine. We’ve all been there.
But do not ghost your D&D group.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to just pretend that you forgot that the session was planned for today. All you need to do is turn off your notifications — they’ll get the idea that you’re not showing up in like, five minutes, tops.
Well, no. Not really.
For those of you who haven’t ever been on the DM’s side of the screen when waiting for players to show up to the table (or Discord, now that we’re all playing online), it can be a nerve-wracking experience.
You’re worried that the rest of the players are getting bored waiting around. You’re worried about starting without the missing player because what if they show up 10 minutes in and you have to redo the recap? You’re worried that maybe something horrible has happened to them because they’re not answering your texts or calls and it’s 2021 so who doesn’t have their phone with them at all times???
Plus, there’s the whole issue of rebalancing an entire session to account for one less PC, which can’t be done until you’re sure that that player isn’t actually going to show up.
So please, please, please do not ghost your D&D groups. Yes, they might be a little disappointed if you cancel last minute, but that’s far better than not cancelling at all.
We’re all choosing to spend our free time playing D&D, so no one is going to hang, draw, and quarter you for deciding that it’s just not in the cards that day.
But not communicating the change in plans at all does steal precious free time from the others at the table, and that should very well be a criminal offence (in my eyes, at least).
Not to mention the problems that arise when you’re not the only player whose bailing on that session.
DMs need to know attendance numbers to decide if they can even run the damn game, after all.
So send that “sorry, can’t make it tonight” text. Make that slightly difficult phone call. Send a speedy messenger pigeon. But at least make sure that the DM knows that you’re not going to make it.
Because the only thing worse than a player bailing on a session last minute is a player bailing and ghosting their group entirely, and doing that enough times may very well put you into the problem player category.
And that’s not a place that anyone wants to be.
But that’s just my two coppers.
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