[Craft] Building a Player Network

[king_kaboom]

You can call it a club, organization, cabal, or other such name, but ultimately if you want to play more often and play with people who more closely match your gaming preferences you will need to join or form a player network.

The purpose of this thread is to share tips, tricks, and resources for making the most of your player network. I'm going to share my experiences of building up an existing Yahoo group and I hope others will do something similar.

First a little background.
Last year I got the urge to play again after about a year off roleplaying. My previous group had been formed from my girlfriend at the time, one of her coworkers, and a guy we found on the Internet. I broke up with the girl, her coworker moved back to North Dakota, and the guy from the Internet is into different games than I am. Left with no prospects I combed the Internet for other players. Ultimately I had a list of about a dozen that I was spamming in an effort to get an nWoD game rolling. I almost succeeded. We had inconsistent attendence from at least eight different people for almost nine months before that game utterly collapsed. Once more at loose ends, though with a substantial number of email addresses at my disposal I determined that I would be better off finding an existing group and converting them over to my preferred game. This led me to a D&D group that ultimately turned out to be completely wrong for me. However at the same time I was investigating the idea of starting a web group to network local players. Keeping in mind the advice of an old college professor I resolved not to reinvent the wheel and I went looking for others who may have had the same idea. Sure enough I found a Yahoo Groups page with 24 members on it. It had next to no activity and seemed like an utter waste of bandwidth. However, the group owner was still actively monitoring it. In a couple emails I was not only a member but a moderator. After a complete cosmetic overhaul and some aggressive recruiting strategies I am proud to say that I have almost tripled the membership, instituted monthly dinner meetings, and I have radically expanded the groups resources. In the process I have learned a huge amount and now I will share those lessons with you.

Don't reinvent the wheel
This is so important it bears repeating. If there is already a group in your area join it and volunteer to help with expansion, recruiting, and organization. Why? Because it gives you an established group to work with. People in general are more likely to join a group that already has members. Also people tend to take it personally when you start a group that might draw away their members.

Consider your group system carefully
If you are unfortunate enough to have to create an all new group take some time to investigate the different functions and appearances of the free group utilities available. I can not recommend Yahoo Groups. If I am able to I will be migrating my group off of there as soon as possible. Why? It doesn't show up on searches very well. It uses the Yahoo ID profile as the group member profile, limiting what people will put on it regarding their gaming habits and preferences because they do not wish to share that information with the world. It doesn't show up in Yahoo's own search results, and has limited penetration on other search engines. There is also no way to add keywords that might improve its search engine position. The message section is totally linear, making it a pain in the ass to follow discussion threads.
That being said I have no real advice on what would be better. Because the group previously existed I had no reason to make any kind of comparative study myself. If I could afford the cost of hosting a php bulletin board for the group I would probably go that route though.

On a related topic don't be discouraged by an intially small group with little activity or interest. Continue to recruit members and you will probably see growth. I personally held off on trying to schedule any group events until I had 50 members though. I wanted to be sure that even a small percentage of members showing up would be a healthy number. That was very successful for me. We had 14 out of 58 attend our first dinner. That may not sound like many, but I was really only expecting five.

Appearance counts
Just like with books the way it looks can sell a bad product or cause a good one to tank. Before I revamped the site Reno Roleplayers looked terrible. The color scheme was poorly thought out and there was no art associated with the page. Take some time in this area. Casual visitors can be inspired to join by how things look.

Recruit aggressively
Not quite press gang style but pretty close. I have literally hit every national player locator and every manufacturers site with a player index of any kind that I could and invited people who live within a hundred miles to join. I have emailed every person in the world that I could find who even remotely mentioned living in my area and gaming. The Internet is not the end of aggressive recruiting though. Make flyers. Make cards. Hand them out at every gaming event or synergistic hobby event. Encourage current members to invite friends to your group events and other players to join the group.

Don't limit your membership
Especially at the begining limiting the group membership to people who play specific games will only hurt you. While you may only be interested in meeting D&D players, groups thrive on conversation and content. Fewer people equals less of both. So invite the Warhammer players to talk about their armies. Invite the CCG players to discuss YuGiOh. etc. There's also a huge amount of crossover that gets ignored by some people. Your seemingly stereotypic card player may also be heavily into Shadowrun.

Start and maintain discussion
Before the group has hit a point where there's a constant stream of chatter on multiple topics you will need to go out of your way to start conversations. Remember that using open ended questions will generate a lot more talk than ones with a yes or no answer.

Generate resources
People frequent a site for a couple reasons. One is the membership, another is that it is a useful place to visit. When your group is just getting started you won't have the membership so you better have some content. Part of this goes along with selecting the right group platform. You will want to make the best use of every available element of the software. For example Yahoo Groups features a calendar, poll section, photo section, file section, database section, links and message section. About the only one of these that hasn't gotten any use from us is the database and that's probably just because nobody cares to figure out how it works. I'm actually quite proud of my links section. It's enormous. It has every RPG publisher I could find and I am working my way through the miniature manufacturers now.

Meet in person
Orchestrate group meetings with as many members as you can. Putting a face to the name will improve the experience for everybody. Fail to do this and your group will be nothing more than a glorified cork-board.

Those are my big suggestions. I hope they will be useful to you.

[clockworkjoe]

Recruiting players can be tough. Good post. How do you deal with people who show up but aren't really viable members? (cat piss men fer example)

[cjh]

Originally Posted by clockworkjoe

Recruiting players can be tough. Good post. How do you deal with people who show up but aren't really viable members? (cat piss men fer example)

Part of the key, I think, is to make the get togethers into social activities primarily and not gaming functions. Really the idea is to set up situations where gamers can meet and get to know each other, in a non-gaming environment, in order to create the linkages needed to start future games. I think that keeping things on a social level is its own release valve for things and keeps those who are less socially acclimated at a bit of a distance.

Edit: And may I suggest utilizing a wiki in conjunction with what ever you use to organize your group. We've used the one offered by Yahoo to put up a couple of pictures from our Game Day and to start a list of local game stores with comments from members. I'm not a big fan of wikis but this one seems to work ok.

[king_kaboom]

Originally Posted by clockworkjoe

Recruiting players can be tough. Good post. How do you deal with people who show up but aren't really viable members? (cat piss men fer example)

It hasn't been an issue yet. Since it's a non-gaming function that requires they interact with other human beings I think they may be disinterested. However in the event that one does appear I am not a nice person and I will insist that anyone who's odor is offensive leave. Hygene isn't simply a courtesy it's a requirement of participation.

Other than the hygenically challenged I can't really think of anyone who would actually be unacceptable for a social gathering. Since we're not playing anything at our meetings I'm not concerned about whether they have bad game habits. The guy who won't shut up about his awsome character isn't that big a deal when you can actually walk away from him.

[cjh]

I know that I've gotten two players in my current campaign thanks to Cleveland Gamers. I know that others have recruited using it as a resource as well. These networking groups are a great idea and they really work.

[C.W.Richeson]

I agree with the others, they match my own experiences from having run knoxgamers.com for 4 years and generally organizing many gaming groups. However, sometimes reinventing the wheel is a great choice. Since coming to Lexington i've encountered a number of folk trying to organize others and they all do a very poor job of it. Seeing barely used websites and cults of personality spring up with frequency continues to provoke me into starting up a new better run organization.

So I would add "Don't be afraid to step on a few toes to turn a shack into a castle." Some folk just aren't good at creating a player network and wont tolerate other people's ideas. I think it's actually a fairly common problem.

Originally Posted by king_kaboom

Don't reinvent the wheel
This is so important it bears repeating. If there is already a group in your area join it and volunteer to help with expansion, recruiting, and organization. Why? Because it gives you an established group to work with. People in general are more likely to join a group that already has members. Also people tend to take it personally when you start a group that might draw away their members.

[king_kaboom]

Originally Posted by C.W.Richeson

I agree with the others, they match my own experiences from having run knoxgamers.com for 4 years and generally organizing many gaming groups. However, sometimes reinventing the wheel is a great choice. Since coming to Lexington i've encountered a number of folk trying to organize others and they all do a very poor job of it. Seeing barely used websites and cults of personality spring up with frequency continues to provoke me into starting up a new better run organization.

So I would add "Don't be afraid to step on a few toes to turn a shack into a castle." Some folk just aren't good at creating a player network and wont tolerate other people's ideas. I think it's actually a fairly common problem.

I agree that in a situation where the group is totally mismanaged by a domineering asshat that won't even let you help you might be better off building a new, more open, organization. However, I still maintain that the ideal situation is to actually become a part of an existing community.

Honestly, I think you have just had a bad run of luck. I know I would love to have somebody volunteer their help or take the initiative to organize some events.

[C.W.Richeson]

Originally Posted by king_kaboom

I still maintain that the ideal situation is to actually become a part of an existing community.

Sure. I'm just responding based on my personal experience having done all of the above things. Most folk aren't going to try and found a competing organization unless there is a reason they would *not* want to support the existing one. Why would they? Building a network is expensive and often frustrating for those that are really involved.

[spshu]

Originally Posted by king_kaboom

<snip>

Consider your group system carefully
If you are unfortunate enough to have to create an all new group take some time to investigate the different functions and appearances of the free group utilities available. I can not recommend Yahoo Groups. If I am able to I will be migrating my group off of there as soon as possible. Why? It doesn't show up on searches very well. It uses the Yahoo ID profile as the group member profile, limiting what people will put on it regarding their gaming habits and preferences because they do not wish to share that information with the world. It doesn't show up in Yahoo's own search results, and has limited penetration on other search engines. There is also no way to add keywords that might improve its search engine position. The message section is totally linear, making it a pain in the ass to follow discussion threads.

Yahoo does have the advantage of build in membership. If I remember correctly you should have a link to create a geocities.com site for your Yahoo! group. You can then do what you want to do with getting into search results.

Although the next time I get a survey from Yahoo! about Groups, I will point out that they should include Yahoo! Groups in their search results.

They have changed how discussion thread are handled, but now they have a problem with going through messages in date order even in the individual message view.

Originally Posted by king_kaboom

That being said I have no real advice on what would be better. Because the group previously existed I had no reason to make any kind of comparative study myself. If I could afford the cost of hosting a php bulletin board for the group I would probably go that route though.

There are free phpBB hosts and other free boards but they just do not have the features that Yahoo Groups have. I am not sure about getting them in search results.

Originally Posted by king_kaboom

On a related topic don't be discouraged by an intially small group with little activity or interest. Continue to recruit members and you will probably see growth. I personally held off on trying to schedule any group events until I had 50 members though. I wanted to be sure that even a small percentage of members showing up would be a healthy number. That was very successful for me. We had 14 out of 58 attend our first dinner. That may not sound like many, but I was really only expecting five.

A local Yahoo! group I join a few years ago was trying to have a meeting (not a dinner as a recall) but they put the unreasonable feature of the meeting that it be at a time when everyone could attend. Would suggest that that it be at a time when many can attend. If the dinner becomes the talk of the group then they might

Originally Posted by king_kaboom

<snip>
Generate resources
People frequent a site for a couple reasons. One is the membership, another is that it is a useful place to visit. When your group is just getting started you won't have the membership so you better have some content. Part of this goes along with selecting the right group platform. You will want to make the best use of every available element of the software. For example Yahoo Groups features a calendar, poll section, photo section, file section, database section, links and message section. About the only one of these that hasn't gotten any use from us is the database and that's probably just because nobody cares to figure out how it works. I'm actually quite proud of my links section. It's enormous. It has every RPG publisher I could find and I am working my way through the miniature manufacturers now.

<snip>

Databases (DB) are not hard to set up at Yahoo Groups just select a template or start from scratch. You then name the DB and edit and/or add fields that exist for each record. Databases are great for putting gaming preferences. I have also set up DBs for gaming stores and conventions. I put conventions in a DB because it seems they never seem to get their information out soon and the website stops being updated.

I went to town on the group's links adding over 100 links. Don't forget to link from other Yahoo! groups. I found the DnDContact & RPGContact group and add links to local groups there. I even help those groups out by adding local groups from all over the place adding about 100 per each of these groups. (I even added the Reno and Cleveland group to the RPG Contact group.)

Originally Posted by king_kaboom

I agree that in a situation where the group is totally mismanaged by a domineering asshat that won't even let you help you might be better off building a new, more open, organization. However, I still maintain that the ideal situation is to actually become a part of an existing community.

Well with the existing local Y!group that I put a lot of work I, I was ask to be a moderator while the new owner was away. Pre-existing moderators fan the flames on the board and broke group rules and I moderated them with warnings. One of these moderators was the previous owner and delete the group. The other moderator had a War Machine mini Y!group that he changed to general gaming and wants people to join it. So all my work went down the drain.

[strange_person]

I would just like to mention, www.wmgg.org.