Best posting frequency?

[Oakie]

In your experience – and all other things being equal – what do you find is the best posting frequency for good player engagement? Weekly? Daily? Other?

I'm thinking about posting my first game as DM, though I've been playing on the site for a few years. I've played weekly, biweekly, and daily games myself and have my own preference, but I want to hear from you about your experience.

Thank you much!

[bananabadger]

Oakie! It is exciting that you might soon DM a game!

Having had the pleasure of playing with you in at least two long-running games, I'm guessing your own answer is "depends on the players and the GM."

But for the sake of conversation, and because I believe it, I'll answer with a solid "daily."

Let's address the criticism of daily games immediately--they expect too much of the GM, they cause people to burn out, they don't allow for creative and thoughtful posts. Well, maybe. But I think these negatives are a danger or any game, not just daily. People will burn out or make simple posts on twice weekly or once weekly games if they don't have the motivation. I don't think it is the frequency as much as it is the enthusiasm and commitment that determines a game's best chances of surviving and thriving.

And once-weekly games tend to kill off the excitement and buzz, particularly with combat, for example, where 30 seconds of fighting could last two months in real life.

That's not the case with daily posting games. Combat takes a week perhaps. Having a daily rhythm creates and sustains momentum and enthusiasm, and there are several examples of daily-post games on this site that are magnificent adventures with well-constructed posts day in and day out.

I know everyone does not have the luxury to make a 5-minute post each day. But I also know it is possible to find 6 committed players who do. And when you can, you have the best gaming posting frequency on the site.

[HotsuSama]

I'm coming in to bat for 2/week being the ideal. It's less pressure than daily check-ins, keeps the game moving and allows time for discussion between post cycles. Although in my experience they tend to stretch out to weekly over time, which might be fine but it depends how much you want to keep to a set turnaround, and how much you're willing to push for it.

[SpatulaOdoom]

It does vary. Sometimes I want to take a couple of days to craft a perfect and/or long winded post. Sometimes I'm feeling a little writer's block. Sometimes it just flows. And just due to scheduling keeping me busy all day long two days of the week, unless it's a very brief/mechanical post I'm just not posting on those days.
My sweet spot is about 2-3 posts per week.

[Admin Dirk]

daily.

because if you say daily, you might get 3 times a week. If you say 2/week, you might get once a week, probably once every 2 weeks. If you say weekly, you might get once a month.

And, the longer between posts, the harder it is to "get back into character" for many people (myself especially).

[Retry]

I've been doing the 1/wk frequency for almost four years now and its exactly as Dirk says it will go. Sometimes its me, sometimes its someone else - regardless, something will slow the frequency down. You can sometimes actively see the interest start to dim as x/y/z has delayed the game and new shinier ads are popping up in the GSP board. {Now, of course, this isn't always true. Yet I have seen it happen more than I'd like to admit. Plus, there is always the chance that I'm the problem so there is that. Take what you would from this is what I'm trying to say haha disclaimer}

Having read what the other (far more skilled GMs imo) have suggested, I am definitely shifting my frequency with any future games!

[Gaijin]

The games I'm currently in are officially 1/week and 2/week, respectively.

The former seems to have stalled, as much due to the holidays as anything else.
The latter is beating that pace, with good quality posts.

I'd say 3/week would be my ideal for deep lore games, just to have a bit of breathing room for researching the setting. If the game is a more "classic" adventure or a hack-and-slash, then I could probably handle daily, since the RP would be more off the cuff.

[ruffdove]

Two posts per week is a manageable rate that keeps the game moving and interest high. How you get there is up to you (see Dirk's post). I typically advertise a 1/week posting rate but note that I will post more frequently to keep up with players as I am able. I also state that I expect 2-3 days between posts (or better) in combat.

Bottom line is that no declared posting rate survives first contact with the players, and what you end up getting depends almost entirely on the quality of the game you're running. If your game is fun and engaging, you'll find players are checking it every day and likely posting pretty quickly once the ball is in their court. If things are getting stale or bogging down, that's when players drift off and start posting 1/week or less. I'm sure there are a (very) few players who literally do not have time in their lives to post more than once every two weeks or whatever, and of course we all go through brief periods when it is tough to find time to post, but most players' posting rate depends on how engaged they are with the game, not outside factors.

Run a high-quality game and the posting rate will be whatever you want it to be.

[psuedenim]

Biased opinion here but here goes.

Twice a week as I know I can easily manage that (right now, past not a predictor of future)

It gives me flexibility in joining several games and being able to learn new systems. Anything higher and I think there is a big increase in the expectations and demands on the GM AND the players to be highly engaged and fully participant in creating the story and the world. This makes me shy away from games requesting that, partly due to commitment, partly due to a lack of confidence in my writing and knowledge of the game/system (I see plenty of amazing posts and having not played for a long time my game lore can be poor to bad).

I dont think joining during Covid helped but I've been in a few games that failed to launched and joined as a replacement in others - where is this going, well group consistency but this is a problem for any group of gamers here or at a table.

Is posting rate a good metric anyway - what are you looking for? How about a paragraph per day or 300 words a week would that get you to where you want to be? Do you want inter-character action, could you ask for reference/questions to one or two other players per post. More posts != (More quality AND/OR More quantity)

Do you want to start putting in min RPXP requirements as a quality control filter?

</end of trying not to be a rant >

[Oakie]

I'm just trying to figure out how many posts a week I want to commit to and ask my players to commit to. I've played daily games, and they've rocked, but that's also a lot to take on. Yet like many in this thread have commented, games that try for once a week or fewer seem to lose steam. (But not always! I'm in a couple good ones now that post every couple weeks or so.)There are many other factors that make engagement good, of course, but just trying to answer the one question for myself.

Originally Posted by psuedenim

Is posting rate a good metric anyway - what are you looking for? How about a paragraph per day or 300 words a week would that get you to where you want to be? Do you want inter-character action, could you ask for reference/questions to one or two other players per post. More posts != (More quality AND/OR More quantity)

Do you want to start putting in min RPXP requirements as a quality control filter?

</end of trying not to be a rant >

[psuedenim]

Completely agree - still new here myself and figuring out the ebbs and flows. Its interesting to see how what I thought were long time committed members bow out due to real life and then you get a new member that never gets past that welcome post.

[jj_wolven]

I have played in some games that were at least 1 post per day. But I also run a game that is scaled to posts per week or posts per month.

It is just something that you have to determine what you can do, and if you find yourself lagging notify the GM.

-me

[zevonian]

Ask for 4 a week. Specify a day of the week that you don't post OOC or IC, and don't expect a post from players. Maybe mention the time zone you're in within your game ad. If, after two months of play, you've still got the majority of your original players and you're averaging 3 posts a week...be very happy with that.

[Mindsiege]

I agree with the sentiment that some others have put forth before me: The engagement of the players does only minimally correlate to the game's post rate. Some have posed in this thread that player engagement is a measure of the GM's skill, which is something that I would generally disagree with, even though it may help. Ultimately, if you want engagement from your players, you will have to find committed players. Some players don't know how committed they will be once they apply to a game, which may be due to overestimating their ability to commit or because they have some expectations from the game that the GM doesn't deliver on. Personally, I believe that it's much more commonly the first of those two reasons rather than the second. Sticking with something that takes effort simply isn't for everybody and it's up to everybody to make a game fun, not just the GM.

So to give my personal answer to your question, don't worry about what post rate will give you the most player engagement. Instead, I think you should decide on your post rate based on your own schedule and how quickly you want to deliver new updates, and then you should simply find those players that will mesh with your style of GMing. Either you'll figure out who you believe can stay committed and engaged with your game through an application process or you just rely on those players that you have a successful history of playing with. Everything else is really just luck of the draw. (How much effort you put into your game to make it fun and successful is certainly important as well, but that also applies to how much dedication and effort your players will put in, and neither of those really changes with the post rate per se.)

[lostcheerio]

Something to consider: If you can start strong and maintain a fast pace for a while, you can weather a little slowing after establishing some plot. In my Rime of the Frostmaiden game, I did a DM post every other day for over a year. Now the story is really firing on a lot of cylinders, and I sometimes need a bit more time to think or pull together threads, or a player does. But because we got so deep into the plot and opened up so much of the story during our hard-charging first year, it feels ok to go a week between DM posts now. The same thing with the one shot that's now coming to a conclusion. I did a firm twice/week post on a Thurs/Sun schedule for months, and now here at the end we're tying everything together and the story can sustain a little stretching. So, the scope of your game is also something to consider. Can you say you're going to do a fast schedule for a year, and then loosen a bit? Or can you say you're going to do a fast schedule for a year because then the game will conclude?