Player contact sheet

To help manage your campaigns better and deal with last- minute real life issues that tend to come up, create a player contact sheet and put it in your GM binder, or keep
it on your computer with your other campaign files. Things to include on your contact sheet:

* Player name
* Day phone (and hours)
* Morning/Evening phone (and hours)
* Cell phone
* Day e-mail
* Alternate e-mail
* Typical available days
* Pick-up address/Directions

The range of phone numbers gives you the most flexibility for coordinating last-minute changes. When collecting these, ask for any acceptable use conditions (such as
contacting players at work only case of emergency).

E-mails are tricky because you don’t know how often players will check theirs and when they’ll be able to respond, so by getting a daytime e-mail you are again able to contact
players with greatest possible success.
Tracking alternate game days that players have available can make scheduling a lot easier and more efficient. If you can rule out a day, for example, that’s 1/7 of a rescheduling
decision made without making a single phone call.

Knowing players’ pick-up addresses and driving directions lets you pass those on without delay to drivers. This is especially important during last-minute commute changes.

All this might seem obvious, but if you don’t have a contact sheet prepped, consider stopping right now and whipping one up – even if it’s full of blanks. Get things filled out
before or during next session. As GM, you can use a player contact sheet to ensure sessions are as fully attended as possible with minimal starting delays.

Final point: ask what players’ privacy policies are. Some players want to keep their contact information (or certain pieces of it) private – even from fellow players, so gather this information and honour any requests.