Re: How Many Times Do You Usually Have To Restart Games?
Even for a FTF game you need to allow for players to leave, and to add in new ones at some point, even more so with online.
As to who will stay, there's no good way to tell. You can, after you run a few games, build a base group to which you add a few new ones to keep it fresh - and again replace those who leave, because no matter how good, how steady, the players, anyone can have a RL crisis, and/or life changing event.
I've never tended to GM, but as a player there are things I like to see. No first come, first served. For one thing, you get the people who join indiscriminately and don't last, for another, you aren't likely to get the quality players who are likely to be more cautious. I also like the GM to ask for a writing sample of some sort. I've ended up in too many games with someone who appears to be functionally illiterate. LOL I remember one game (on another site) where neither my character nor I could figure out what the other character was talking about so mine got up, said she had somewhere to be, and didn't go back. That GM added anyone who applied, despite being warned about that particular player. His character didn't last long; he tried to kill the queen of the fairies, another PC, because he'd decided his favoured enemy was fairies, typical of his style of play, even when you could understand his posts. In that game, his character was quickly killed by friends of the fairy queen, but in other games he tended to drive all the other players away with his 'my foolish way or the highway' attitude.
That brings up another point, if you have a player who makes trouble of whatever sort with other players, give them a chance to work it out, but not long, especially if s/he is obviously irritating more than one other player. If it's only one other, sometimes it's hard to tell who's at fault, if either. Try mediation but if that doesn't work, especially if the irritant doesn't show any intention to deal better, dump him, before he spoils the whole game. If a game isn't fun any more because there is an idiot to deal with, the good players are likely to go, leaving you with only the idiot! And there won't even be any point in getting new players if the idiot is just going to do the same again.