This is my first rodeo and what was supposed to be just a one shot of the Edge of the Empire's beginner's box turned into a full blown ongoing adventure series.

I'm really enjoying being Game Mistress. I love watching my players grow and interact with the universe around them that we build together. What I'm finding I enjoy even more is the cameo appearances by other people we know.

Coworkers, spouses, friends from out of town. We are now averaging a cameo every other session. Some have even returned and upgraded from cameo to recurring characters!

I keep the focus on the protagonists and don't go toOOo much into cameo intro stories but having these people drop in and have fun.

The Regulars

Zet'Nuri

Santos

Callia

Qerzer

The Cameos

Rakine

Cassiopeia

G.A.R.B.O.L.

Ingrid

Is that something you have happening in your campaign?

I dunno about cameos, it's going to be more like Mission Impossible. We have game nite 1 and game nite 2.0. Not everyone can make both, some can, those that can't have groveled sufficiently that myself and the D&D DM are going to swap the two nights back and forth a bit, but not always. So, sorta, I guess.

I dunno about cameos, it's going to be more like Mission Impossible. We have game nite 1 and game nite 2.0. Not everyone can make both, some can, those that can't have groveled sufficiently that myself and the D&D DM are going to swap the two nights back and forth a bit, but not always. So, sorta, I guess.

I was part of a short-lived DnD 4th E campaign that had a similar setup - about 10 players across two groups that met. Both parties impacted the overall world but didn't really come into contact after the pilot episode. I think it surprised the GM how many people showed up and were into it, so he had to split the party.

We are going to have a maximum of 7 players if everyone showed up, and that just wont happen with our crew. 6 will likely be the high water mark, with 5 the most pretty likely on 2.0 most of the time.

Pretty loyal following though, been more or less weekly for over a year now for most, and almost 2 years for three of us.

That's fantastic. I hadn't realized it was unusual among my players to only play once a month like we do. The trappings of life make difficult to schedule more time.

That's fantastic. I hadn't realized it was unusual among my players to only play once a month like we do. The trappings of life make difficult to schedule more time.

Some of the folks at my table say they can't face life without game nite....a little hyperbolic I'm thinking but a nice compliment none the less.

One of the guys is a true game nite champ. Works for a major online payment service that shall not be named. Flew in from an out of town biz trip one Friday nite, landed at 2130 hours and was in his chair at my house 20 minutes later. That's a special forces level gamer imo.....

I've done it before, but it's a challenge. If you're going to be doing cameos, it's important to make sure sessions begin and end in places where it's logical for another PC to join and depart. When I was running things, I wasn't as diligent about that as I should have been and it caused issues with the campaign and stress on the players. Episodic is the order of the day for cameos.

We have had players that are … less regular … than the rest. Those characters have continued to exist in the background, and if the player in question didn’t show up for a game in the middle of a story, then they were usually being sick in their cabin on the ship, or something.

We have not had any proper cameos, where a player comes in to do a particular story arc, and then bows out. At least, not yet anyway.

Personally, I would make the distinction between cameos and irregular players. They’re not the same thing. One has a story purpose, and the other does not.

I've tried to work out bringing back players who have moved away for short cameos, but it hasn't worked out just yet. It may still happen, digitally.