Creating Gamers

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:10 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:If you can't find a group, you may have to make one.

virgil wrote:I'm willing to start a group. The question is how to find the gamer for said group.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:No, I meant you might have to make the gamers. From non-gamers. Make some friends and see who's up for it.

Since not getting to play as often as we like is something that seems to plague a lot of us (me included), I figured a thread on this sort of thing could be handy.

I initially wanted to play start playing after reading DM of the Rings and Darths and Droids. I got (some of) my friends interested by showing them the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons episode of Community.

Somewhat recently, one of my players actually asked to see the features of his class, so I'd say he's on the right track. Normally none of them give a shit about the rules. They tell me what to do, and I give them options that most closely resemble what they're trying to do ("I kick him in the nuts", "Okay, I'll just interpret that as an unarmed power attack, but your target hasn't drawn his weapon, so that's fine"), and the odds of success (not the exact odds, but phrases like 'that's got a good chance of working','that probably won't work', etc.). This has prompted them to sometimes ask how to make it work if the odds are low, after which I suggest certain feats on level up, picking different classes, equipment, etc. and this has had some success teaching them to play. Sometimes even creating a character can be too intimidating for newcomers (took me around 3 hours the first time making one for a player who was complaining about it taking so long the entire time), so it might help to ask them for a character concept and then build it for them.

So, how did/do you guys go about creating gamers?

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:48 pm

I married a gamer, had kids, and waited until the time was right to drag them into my hobby. RPGKids worked rather well for it.

Or did you mean "create" in a less literal way?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:49 pm

It's usually quicker to retrofit an existing chassis into a gamer than to build one from scratch.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:54 pm

TarkisFlux wrote:I married a gamer, had kids, and waited until the time was right to drag them into my hobby. RPGKids worked rather well for it.

Or did you mean "create" in a less literal way?

I'm going to be honest here: I was picturing test tubes or something like that. Maybe a machine shop.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 10:05 pm

Chamomile wrote:It's usually quicker to retrofit an existing chassis into a gamer than to build one from scratch.

Procreation is playing the long game, I admit. But I'm interested in the long term viability of the subgroup, so it's worth it overall for me. I understand plenty of others are less interested, so I'll take it for the team. Or something.

RadiantPhoenix wrote:I'm going to be honest here: I was picturing test tubes or something like that. Maybe a machine shop.

I can neither confirm nor deny whether a machine shop was involved. There were no test tubes though, at least not until those junior chemistry kits.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 10:09 pm

My cousin got into gaming when I was like three or something, and it seemed cool when I was tiny so I started.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 10:21 pm

Step 1: Make friends.

Step 2: Be charismatic

Step 3: Run a game that's not shit.

Step4: ???

Step five: PROFIT!

In all seriousness, I got into gaming when my sister's old boyfriend ran a cool game with me and my friends. It was fun so I ran with it.

Ravengm · Post by **Ravengm** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 11:57 pm

Really, the best thing to do is grab a couple of open-minded friends and offer to run a game. If you play the game a bit looser than "THIS IS A RULE AND YOU MUST FOLLOW IT REGARDLESS OF IF YOU HAVE FUN", you're more likely to attract non-gamers.

If I want to get someone into the hobby, I would read the flavor descriptions of classes that they might like and flash a few art bits from the books. Maybe describe some of the things that are possible to do ("oh man, this one time, there were like 300 orcs and we killed them all by...").

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Feb 06, 2014 11:20 am

I think you should ask your parents this question. They will be the best ones to tell you how little gamers are made.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Feb 07, 2014 4:17 am

So, how did/do you guys go about creating gamers?

I was created by being asked to a game, had nothing better to do, and here I am. Was interested in the rules of it so was running before long.

Created many more by running games for how ever many people turned up. Had to join clubs a couple times to meet people after moving, then it's easy enough to find one or two people ready for a game and before you know it their friends and flatmates and brothers and all sorts are turning up to play all the time too, some of whom are new.

Only once turned a whole bunch into gamers at once, but that was just someone asked what I was reading and next thing I'm running for that lot to show them and boom, gamers.

But as an old man, I don't want to spend the time at it and the epic 10+ hour sessions every week are a thing of the past, I already know plenty of people who want me to run more games and, you know, maybe 5e won't suck too much and I'll drag some of the new generation in again. We'll see.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Fri Feb 07, 2014 8:39 am

Just remember, gaming is like an STD... or zombism, be sure to use protection whenever you game.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Wed Feb 12, 2014 6:40 pm

I don't think I'm in a stable enough position to create children at the moment. I'll just have to corrupt my sister's kids.

So, the secret to getting people interested is to run a great game? Hmm... I'll need to work on that.

codeGlaze · Post by **codeGlaze** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 4:41 am

radthemad4 wrote:So, the secret to getting people interested is to run a great game? Hmm... I'll need to work on that.

Definitely the best way. No two ways about it.

I've found that people who can make things just plain ol' interesting have the best "conversion rates".
A lot of that tends to involve throwing rules out the window at first.

But really experienced/talented GMs can get a game started quickly, have it move at a nice pace and STILL tell a story that people feel involved in. Better yet, one or two I've played with have been able to sandbox the world and just roll with the players doing ... what ever.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 5:17 am

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 5:39 am

A lot of Chinese people get into Pathfinder through their english teachers, so it's a vessel for improving their English while having fun.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 8:50 am

ubernoob: Okay, that is pretty hilarious and an extremely positive invocation of rule zero. The fact that you were just set free to try whatever without any danger of dying like the no save insta death traps of yore definitely helped. Hmm, I'm going to start a new thread for the best uses of Rule Zero you've encountered, and I'll quote you there.

OgreBattle wrote:A lot of Chinese people get into Pathfinder through their english teachers, so it's a vessel for improving their English while having fun.

Wait, what... Chinese teachers run rpgs for their students... Damn, that's freaking amazing.