Fortitude Saves at the Table, or, The Dangers of Alcohol

I recently had another session of my live Beyond the Crystal Cave game.  It went...not so well.

Two of the players had started drinking before the game began.  I'm certainly not looking to enforce Prohibition at my games, largely because I wouldn't want to help establish a Mafia presence at the table.  In fact, a little social lubricant can be great for the players to open up a little and not be too shy to roleplay around each other or in front of me.  But, please, please, PLEASE drink responsibly.  It is the height of boorishness to get so sloshed at a game (or any social event) that you fall asleep in the middle of the action.

The game I'm running has a backstory that the players learned about through rp interaction with leprechauns, pixies, nymphs and the like.  This requires a little bit of clear-thinking for them to be able to piece together a chain of events.  There's a heavy focus on story, role-playing, and even some politics.  All of these things are less than ideal circumstances for inebriation.

Combat was not safe either.  One of our intoxicated players is new to 4e, so even under the best of circumstances, her turns tend to be slow.  Add wine to the mix, and suddenly every turn is her looking at her character sheet and saying 'what can I do? I want to do a....'ranged basic attack'.'  She's playing a sentinel druid with an 11 dexterity and no ranged weapons at hand.  And this is when I can get her attention at all, normally after a series of "Alyiah...its your turn.  Alyiah...its your turn" chanted like a bizarre ritual.

Eventually, she passed out and then her husband left to use the bathroom and never came back (also passing out).  That left me with two players and a half-finished campaign session.  As this wasn't the first time a game ended this way with these particular players, we decided that three of us would simply stop inviting them to the game.

I'll make a new campaign and run that for the players that can hold their liquor, as well as the new players they bring to fill out the party.  Hopefully, we can all drink responsibly and have a game that looks like this:

Instead of this: