You post the poll. Two people answer within the hour, one answers three days later, and two never answer at all. You chase, the date slips a week, and next month it happens again.
A GM on the D&D Beyond forums called scheduling the bane of our existence. Their group was a mix of students and people in full-time jobs. Scheduling in the group chat felt like pulling teeth, a fixed day each month fell apart after two months, and some players never filled in a shared calendar. The tool is rarely the problem.
Why polls stall
Ask fewer questions
Offer three to five options, not a whole month. Start from the times your group can usually make, such as your regular slot and one backup, instead of asking "when is everyone free?" An open question asks each player to do the scheduling for you. A short list only asks them for a yes or a no.
Keep it close, too. Players in that D&D Beyond thread explained why they left the calendar blank: they did not know their plans a month ahead. Two or three weeks out is far easier to answer honestly.
Put the whole question in one message: the options, the session length, and the deadline. Anything a player has to scroll up to find is a reason to answer later.
Set a deadline and a default
Lead with the deadline:
Answer by Wednesday night, and I will lock the date on Thursday morning.
Decide once, before it ever comes up, what happens to anyone who has not answered by then. Two defaults that work:
- The regular slot stands unless someone says otherwise by the deadline.
- The best date for whoever answered wins, as long as enough of you can make it.
Then lock it on time. Silence becomes a decision instead of a delay: players who miss the deadline still get the date, they just do not get a vote. Following through the first time is what makes the next deadline believable.
Chase one to one
When the deadline is close, message the people who have not answered, one at a time and by name. "Can you make Thursday or Saturday? I'm locking it tomorrow" gets a reply far more often than a third "@everyone please vote".
There is research behind this. In a 2002 experiment, Greg Barron and Eldad Yechiam found that an email request sent to one person drew more responses than the same request sent to several people at once, and the replies were more helpful and longer too. They tested email, not group chats, but the shape is the same: one message, many readers, nobody singled out.
Book the next one at the table
The easiest poll is the one you never send. In a 2022 EN World poll of 83 voters, 72% played on a set schedule, such as every Saturday or the third Friday of the month. Another 13% agreed the next date at the end of each session.
If your table cannot hold a fixed slot, settle the next date in person at the end of each session, as one reply in the D&D Beyond thread suggested, instead of by message afterwards. It takes five minutes while everyone is still there.
Where Roll Call fits
Roll Call is built around this problem. The GM sets the campaign's days, times and quorum up front. Each round, Roll Call asks players about the times that fit, with their usual availability already filled in, and they answer each one with I'm in, If need be or Can't make it.
The chasing is done one to one. A player who owes answers when a round opens is asked straight away, then reminded at noon in their own time zone, up to 3 times, on whatever channels they have turned on. In a linked Discord channel, Roll Call also posts who it is still waiting on, and the GM can run /rollcall nudge to remind everyone the round is waiting on, again on their own channels, and by Discord message if they have linked Discord and left those notifications on.
The GM does not have to wait for the stragglers: any time that reaches quorum can be confirmed. With auto-scheduling on and a minimum number of players as the quorum, Roll Call stops waiting after 4 days and books the best time for each session from the answers it has, as long as one reaches quorum. Players who connect a calendar and turn on Auto-RSVP have Roll Call answer the poll for them.