Which table concerns do you consider the most significant?

[Wolfpack48]

Conflicts in player personalities, play styles and real-life intrusions would be my top three, too.
I have also picked "Other" since I was not sure where to put GM burnout.
And finally, I have picked disinterest in the system. It's less of a problem these days, but it has been in a number of groups when I was younger.

System fatigue could probably serve as GM burnout too.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Picking only ten was harder than it really should have been.

Many of them are likely to come in pairs or clusters, so it's really less than ten. For ex, "Dispute over GM/referee existence" is pretty likely to also involve some or all of "Dispute over narrative direction/control" "Dispute over player agency" and "Dispute over GM rulings/authority" unless the first is meant to be uncertainty about whether your GM is a human being or a clever AI in an online game.

I wound up using all ten, but didn't need any more - and it would have been nine if "Player Distractions" hadn't made a late entry into the race, because that got checked immediately.

 

[MNblockhead]

For scheduling I have found that with adults, the easiest thing to do is pick a consistent day, time and location and just stick to it. Nothing fails as hard as "when are we playing next?" Yes, you lose Fred if he can't make Wednesdays and that is the best day for everyone else, but them's the breaks, Fred.

Real life intrusions aren't worth worrying about. They are inevitable and take precedence. You just have to roll with them.

The opposite is true with my group. There is no way I can commit to the same day of the week/month and same time, and I'm the DM. Work and family obligations make keeping to a routine schedule very difficult for me and some of my players. When I put out my call for players a decade ago, I stated that I would run an 8 hour game one saturday each month. Intially, I also organized my campaign so that we'd wrap things up each session in a manner where if someone couldn't make it the next session the rest of us could still play. And so we could accomodate drop-ins from friends who could only play occasionly and couldn't / didn't want to commit to an entire campaign.

We've been playing together for 10 years, nearly half of that on one campaign. Luckily, we rarely have trouble finding a Saturday that everyone is available. I think the "when can we play next" approach works better with fewer, but longer sessions. At least that's been my experience.

 

[MNblockhead]

Most of the things on the list are not things that I've had issues with, or are things I feel I can work around fairly easily. So I only chose three:

Conflict due to player personalities/behaviors
Conflict due to player psychological/medical issues
Conflict in playstyles/preferences

As a DM, I pitch an idea for a campaign and we discuss options as a group. If a player has an issue with rules or something in the campaign, I try to be flexible and find a way to address it that doesn't detract from my fun or the fun of the other players. But there is only so much I can do if there are wildly different playstyle preference among a group. Which is why pitching campaign ideas and coming to a consensus as a group is so important. If you have everyone's buy-in and everyone is on the same page on what kind of game and campaign will be played, it solves many of the other issues listed.

Issues related to player personality and behavior and ruin a game for everyone. I find this one particularly significant, because the solution may require booting the player whose personality and behavior is creating problems for the group.

I have not had issuess with player psychological or medical issues, but I think it would be a tough problem. Sometimes people will just have to drop out because of medical issues and their just might not be anything you can do with it. With psychological issues, it would be tough, because you want to be understanding and accommodating but you also have to think about the well-being of other players. And, this may sound heartless, but I'm not a psychiatrist or counsellor and I don't want to spend what little downtime I have pretending to be one.

 

[Li Shenron]

Well I was looking for an option "none of the above" because I normally have zero problems at the table, the only problem I have is the excessive time I still spend (probably without reason) as a DM to prepare before the game.

But since I wanted my vote to affect the statistics, I votes "personal issues" because at least last time one of the players' kid wanted to go home and caused our game to be cut shortly, and that's it.

I am especially amused by seeing that "personality conflict" and "playstyle conflict" are topping the chart. I associate both these problems pretty much with very opinionated players i.e. people who spend too much time talking about the game online, endlessly theorycrafting or imagining playing the game and finding issues before they actually happen, and then eventually bring their strong opinions at table causing detriment to other people's fun. This makes me once again happy that I choose not to play with anyone who is an opinionated gamer.

 

[Lanefan]

System fatigue could probably serve as GM burnout too.

I'd say those can be quite different things.

"System fatigue" happens when the system can no longer handle what it's being asked to do (the usual example being when play progresses beyond the character/power levels the system was designed to handle). Another variant is when, after playing a system for a while, its flaws become annoying enough that a reboot with either a new or kitbashed/repaired system is needed.

As DM I've hit both of these in the past and yet not felt burned out (I've hit that too).

 

[Wolfpack48]

I'd say those can be quite different things.

"System fatigue" happens when the system can no longer handle what it's being asked to do (the usual example being when play progresses beyond the character/power levels the system was designed to handle). Another variant is when, after playing a system for a while, its flaws become annoying enough that a reboot with either a new or kitbashed/repaired system is needed.

As DM I've hit both of these in the past and yet not felt burned out (I've hit that too).

I went ahead and added it to the poll -- feel free to recast votes!

 

[Reynard]

I am especially amused by seeing that "personality conflict" and "playstyle conflict" are topping the chart. I associate both these problems pretty much with very opinionated players i.e. people who spend too much time talking about the game online, endlessly theorycrafting or imagining playing the game and finding issues before they actually happen, and then eventually bring their strong opinions at table causing detriment to other people's fun. This makes me once again happy that I choose not to play with anyone who is an opinionated gamer.

What a strange take. So you think people preferring to play with those with whom they get along and those who share playstyle preferences are signs of whatever "very opinionated player" means?

I think gaming is supposed to be fun, and playing with people you don't like, engaged in aspects of play you find tedious, sounds decidedly un-fun.

 

[Bagpuss]

Surprised this one "Outside/real world/personal issues/conflicts carried into the game" is so high, don't you folks play with friends?

 

[Wolfpack48]

Surprised this one "Outside/real world/personal issues/conflicts carried into the game" is so high, don't you folks play with friends?

Oh, my friends have LOTS of personal issues!