Flakes

How do you get players who aren't flakes? Today was supposed to be the second session of my campaign, but three of the five players ghosted. The last campaign I ran had seven players ghost, it was constantly on life support with me recruiting new players until it finally died. What the fuck is wrong with people? How can I get players who are actually willing to commit to something?

Try running a less shitty campaign.

Play with people you know in real life who you have ways of getting in touch with.

There are no consequences to social interaction on the internet, therefore people flake on social obligations all the time.

>There are no consequences to social interaction on the internet, therefore people flake on social obligations all the time.
This goes double for text-only games, where the mental effort required to play is much higher and other players are just words on a screen and not even voices. Also, sick digits.

I'd state it more diplomatically, but yes, making sure you don't utterly bore your players is very important to keeping them around.

Players vanishing without even telling you is a good sign that they're not having fun.

But user, I don't know any people in real life.

It's also a sign that they have shit social skills. Don't lump everything on OP to let them justify that.

I figured this would be the first thing someone said, but I really don't think my campaigns are shitty. I do try to be a good GM, and the one player that has consistently shown up to both campaigns says that I am.

Are you sure they don't just find OP particularly unpleasant to talk to reasonably about anything? He hasn't presented any of their side of the story, or indeed any information about his own behavior that might incriminate him. This indicates that there's more he isn't saying, because saying it might lose him some of our sympathy.

I haven't presented their side of the story because I don't know it. If I was doing something wrong, I would've appreciated the players telling me so that I could improve. Instead they just stop showing up and never say why.

That doesn't matter. I've always issued a message when I was leaving a campaign and hated when other players didn't. If OP is leaving out the players mentioning they aren't coming back and labeling them as flakes, that's different though.

Think about your first session like the pilot of a TV show. Make sure to try and get every player a little bit of the spotlight, let them feel like they’re integral to the game you’re starting. Give ‘em a glimpse of what lies ahead without it being an infodump.

And maybe try and make the starting session ‘dynamic’. A bar fight, a low-level raid on the town, ANYTHING to keep it from feeling like the first day of school. Y’know, when you gotta stand up front and go “Hi my name is user and I like games and ponies and shit”. Bond them from the getgo.

But sometimes people just flake out. You can’t keep everyone interested. Don’t take it personally, OP.

Seeing the threads about shitty GMs that people put up with makes me wonder if that's really an issue.

Make short campaigns for about 4 levels, then screen out the ones who stay. Start over after that with the ones who stay and screen again. Repeat this until the flakes are gone.

Wait, to add to that, just run it even if you have one or two players. Prep the encounters in a way that you can take some creatures away and still leave it balanced, or tell them that some fights are better left unfought and that running is always an option. I've played with a group of just two players and it's pretty comfy.

>defending shit DMs

I have tried on multiple occasions to play with online games on Veeky Forums and to a man every one of you fuckers are completely trash. I haven't ghosted any of you but a couple of years later and with some deep reflection, if I was stupid enough to game with one of you now and you were inevitably boring, retarded and bad, I'd bail in a heartbeat with no warning.

>These guys are shits so I can be, too
Thanks for making online games a better place, faglord.

>making excuses for yourself

Become a better DM. I already said I haven't bothered with you fucks for years. Stop latching onto any excuse you can find in my post to ignore the fact you are a shit DM and become a better DM.

Keep running games and find new players.

...

Why does that remotely matter?

Play with friends who'll fear damaging their relationship by flaking too often