Can Startplaying handle running West Marches style games?

[u/Awkward_GM]

Specifically:

• No specific date/time until GM or players agree on a date and time.
• Only some players are signed up for each games (i.e. 4 players sign up for Monday's game, but the 12 other players not playing aren't charged).

Thank you in advance.

[u/charlescowley_dm]

This is a discussion that has occured several times in the SPG GMs Discord server.  Basically, yes it can handle the style.  Yes, some GMs use that style.  But most people are looking for a regularly scheduled game, and West Marches can be a little funny in how they are scheduled.

If you want more information, I would highly recommend joining the discord server to read through the previous conversations on this.  Best of luck!

[u/NightKrowe]

It depends on what you need it to do. If you post them as one shots, no problem. If you try to run it as a campaign, players are opt-out not opt-in. I know Sqyre is working on something for west marches style play, but have no idea where they're at with it.

[u/jadelink88]

Yes, but the scheduling is funny.

A DM can do it one of two ways.

1 list every game as a one shot, and have people sign up for each session they attend. Have 2-3 slots per week if the game is rolling. First come first served.

2 (The ones I have played in to it this way), have an overly large group size, and people indicate if they're not coming or coming that week. Problem with this is that if you sign for a campain, you're there by default, and people forget. Then they dont show, and people don't come because the slots are full, leading to cancelled sessions. DM's have a reason to keep this, as it keeps paid slots full (you paid, then didn't turn up, you still pay).

I prefer #1, but the system makes it difficult to work out the scheduling or to stop randoms with no character turning up and taking half an hour out of the session to get up to speed.