Online Roleplaying Woes

I have been playing over at Roleplay Online for a while now. So far, the longest running campaign started in May 2004, but that has been an anomaly. Many of the games fizzle before they even start. Characters get made and before even the first in-character post is made, the GM bails, most often without a word. If we're lucky, the GM officially deletes the game so you know it is truly over. I have made countless characters for countless campaigns and none of ever reached a conclusion. (The D&D game that has been going one for nearly two years is still progressing forward, but it is a long-term campaign.) I sign up for more games than I want to just because I know most will be canceled.

The GMs are not always to blame. Players drop out for real life (RL) reasons or just because they are flakey. The good ones tell you and apologize for having to quit; shit happens. The bad ones just never post again, leaving the game in an awkward limbo until the GM finally decides to move the game along. This does not count the players who either have terrible, annoying characters or who behave in terribly annoying ways. Those are sometimes worse because you wish they would just leave instead of making you want to leave.

The primary reason I do not run an online game is because I do not know the players. I tried my hand a Play-by-Email (PBeM) game that never truly took off. There were serious momentum issues that I would correct in my next attempt. But that was with players I knew and had played with before. Running a game for bunch of anonymous strangers does not sound appealing to me. At a convention, I know the game is only going to last several hours; an online campaign can last for months or years. Given how certain character/player types simply annoy the hell out of me, I don't think I can put up with it.