Tell them their own seperate start time 30 minutes before the others?
this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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We do that for my inlaws. Our wedding invitations had one start time for my family, and another start time an hour earlier for my in-laws. Everyone showed up at the same time.
I do this with my son. He is always late.
Sit them down like an adult and tell them that wasting 20-30 mins of 5 of your closest friends time every week isn't a good quality.
Give their character a disease where they take damage every 10 minutes the player is absent without notice
Give them an in-game condition that causes them to go catatonic periodically, and now the other players have to deal with the dead weight player character until the player shows up.
Why would you make your other friends suffer because of one asshole? That one guy showed up late? Sorry, we've already started, and the party left you as you didn't show signs of life. Roll a new character in the meantime.
My grandmother would tell each of her grown adult children a different time to show up in order to get everyone there on time.
Funny story: because I was always late, my old group started giving me earlier times to show up. Because these times aligned better with my trains and subways, I started showing up on time. Except they'd lied to me going my being late would actually make me arrive at the same time as everyone else. But now I was half an hour early and they were unprepared.
If you can't align your trains and subways with your agreed upon time, you still need to take the earlier train and be there 30 minutes earlier. That's just how it works. You take the transport that gets you there before the time, not what gets you there closer to but after the time.
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No, they’re correct. People need to be more respectful of others, especially when it comes to things with hard start times like D&D, a concert, etc.
Depends on the friend group, honestly. I can see scenarios where people aren't ready to have guests half an hour earlier than expected.
Though, this is why communication is important; if you ask the host if 30 minutes early is preferable to 15 minutes late, you'll get the answer that works for them.
Depends on the culture.
You're right that it does, but it should not.
That's just your cultural preference shining through.
Disrespecting other people's time is a shitty cultural trait. And I say that as someone from a country where everyone leaves home at the time they should be arriving.
I can repeat the same refrain as above, but instead I'll say that if the wide cultural impulse is to keep times loose, then there is no disrespect of peoples time. Casual starts and stops for an event that everyone understand are very respectful, as they grant everyone full autonomy.
You may not enjoy a loose time table, but that dosent make the trait "shitty." It makes it something you dont like is all.
That works for an informal dinner between friends, it doesn't work for something where everyone needs to be present. There's nothing that pisses me off more than having something important to do, and having people arrive randomly on a 40 minute span after the scheduled time.
Give out all the best loot in the first 20 minutes. You beat a boss at the end of a session? "Alright, we'll go over the loot beginning of next session"
Only tell that player that the game starts at 6pm instead of 7pm, everyone else tell that it starts at 7pm. If they are half an hour "late" they will finally be the one waiting for the others to finally show up.
Give them an earlier time. If they find out that they're given an earlier time and get salty about it, they have bigger problems.
Make their PC cursed with a broken Blink spell. They random pop into and out of existence. DC 12 for staying in this plane.
Just start the game on time without them? They can hop in when they arrive.