[Jim Bob]

This thread arose out of another discussing Dogs in the Vineyard. It came up there

Originally Posted by coffeestain

Please, please start a new thread on this. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on recruiting "new" gamers, particularly to games you'd like to play but that might be a hard sell either because you're selling to non-gamers or you're selling to gamers that are too comfortable where they're at to want to try something new.

This is something that goes beyond just recruiting for this game, but recruiting in general. As I see it, the number one problem for a gamer is getting a decent game group and keeping it. Just as the number one problem for a person wanting to get fit is to get up and exercise every day, and the number one problem of the workplace is getting a job and keeping it... if that's achieved, then, and only then, can you look at other problems. A lot of talk about gaming or exercise or work has lots of good advice for what to do once you get going... but they don't tell you how to get going. To my mind, that's stupid - it's like getting driving lessons when you don't know how to start the car!


Who can you recruit?

Okay, so, recruiting gamers... as I see it, there are four types of people you can drag into your roleplaying game sessions,

1. Active gamers - we'll just call these people Oldies
2. Old gamers who stopped for a bit, but you bring 'em back in - we'll call these Retreads
3. New gamers, people who've never gamed before, and will probably like it - we'll call these Newbies
4. New gamers who think the whole thing is awful, but you persuaded them somehow - we'll call these Lost Causes

Who should you recruit?

Now, those are your four basic types of people with regard to getting them into your group. But gamers are like girlfriends and boyfriends. It's easier to get them than to keep them. How do you keep 'em? Well, you need two basic things,

1. They must like the people in the group, or at least not mind them.
2. They must like the game you're playing, or at least not mind it.

There's quite a bit to discuss here. The first thing to mention is that when most gamers think of starting a new group, they usually focus on the Oldies. So they put a notice up at a game store, or in a forum like this. By doing that, they miss out on Newbies and Retreads. They'll get a few Retreads sometimes as Rretreads get nostalgic and occasionally wander into game stores and online forums... but mostly they miss 'em entirely.

Sometimes the lonely gamer, finding not enough Oldiers, focuses on a Lost Cause. The Gaming Spouse is the classic example of this - the boyfriend or girlfriend who really isn't interested but came along just to be polite.

So our lonely gamer is putting their effort where effort's not needed (you need very little effort to recruit Oldies), or where it's futile (Lost Cause is a lost cause, mate, sorry...). Far better to put your effort into Newbies and Retreads. I can go on at great length about how to do that, but I'd like to see other suggestions in the thread, too.

Now we come to the second bunch of things you want - that the players should like your group, and your game. This is another place people fall down a bit, I think. People get used to their little groups, and can be reluctant to try new groups. I think that this is a social and psychological question, and probably a bit too much for this thread. We should probably set it aside... Basically, some people like trying new games and groups, and some don't... perhaps an extroverted vs introverted thing? Anyway, probably more of a Tangency topic

And people get used to their little games, too...

I see two basic kinds of problems in terms of the game putting people off. One is that the game is perceived as childish (D&D, Hackmaster, Paranoia, etc sometimes get this reputation), the other that the game is perceived as elite or weird or obscure (Dogs in the Vineyard, Tekumel, Ars Magica, often have such a reputation).

The first one I'm not sure what we can do about. The second one has been discussed in these forums before, because of a Tekumel game, Getting players for "difficult" settings. It didn't go really far but there's still plenty of useful stuff in there.

Okay, aside from my posting up the back 1/3 of d4-d4 here, I'm not sure what else I can say. This is me raising the questions, I'm interested to see what answers other people have come up with...