Players are actually a fairly agreeable lot. If they understand why things are happening the way they are, or if they can predict it, they are normally fairly accommodating. They’ll step up and help out if they can. If they trust that you are trying your best and the situation is out of your control, if a crisis develops, they’ll help out or accept a long lull.
And if it turns out the game isn’t what they enjoy, so long as they’ve enough experience to know what they enjoy, then if that’s communicated accurately beforehand they’ll most likely understand why they didn’t enjoy it without getting angry. Then they’ll either drop out beforehand or dislike the experience but acknowledge that maybe, considering they hate romantic comedies, and despise romantic roleplay, perhaps that romantic comedy LARP might not have been a good fit.
Yes, you’ll get exceptions and you’ll remember those. It’s hard not to. But *MOST* people really do take it with good grace, and most of the exceptions just grumble a bit and move on.
Therefore it’s in all of our best interests to communicate as much as we can, as best we can, without overloading the players. Some stuff will be lost in the grind, some emails unread, but even that has its saving graces as most folks will acknowledge you made a good effort to communicate and they won’t fault you for it. The anger drifts away.
So now we’ve gone over the many reasons why it’s worth it to communicate, what are some of the things folks need to know? Well, anything related to their basic needs or which goes against cultural norms.
