Addition: Wherein I discuss adding new players to an established game

Due to general player flakiness real lives, I found myself short a few players in the last few sessions. To solve this problem, I invited two new players to the game. Unfortunately, it took rather longer than I would have liked to introduce them to the homebrew setting we use. I asked the other players to introduce their characters and explain what was happening, but it ended up being an out-of-character discussion that quickly became sidetracked. Maybe it's an issue with my players, but as a GM who is supposed to keep the game on track, I don't accept that. The players also had some difficulty explaining the variant rules we use, even though they demonstrably understand them.

In all, adding the new guys was a bit of a clusterfuck, and I need to come up with a more efficient method. I'm considering asking one of the players to write a kind of in-character journal entry at the end of each session. And possibly having them rotate if they would prefer that. This would actually solve several problems: first, adding new players would be a breeze, as they could simply read the journal to catch up on the story. Second, it would serve to refresh the players' memories at the start of each session, since we don't play weekly and they forget things sometimes. Third and finally, I think that it might get the players more invested in their characters. Plus, it might be funny to see the barbarian dictate his entries to the wizard, since he's illiterate.

I'll try it out and report back.