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Have you tried contacting your VC or VL yet and informed them? PFS officers really need the support of the community to know what is going on in their region.
Currently Cleveland has both a VC and VL. You can find their profiles on this page: http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/about/regionalCoordinators
If you have not contacted one of them I suggest sending a private message.
Venture-Captain, Washington—Spokane
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To answer your initial question, there is an application process to become a VC and there must be a need for a VC within the area that you are applying. VL are appointed by VC of that region. The information on this is available under the Regional Coordinator section of the GM resources on the Pathfinder Society page.
I also agree with what the above poster stated. You may need to contact them and let them know that you are working to expand PFS in your area. They may be able to provide you with some resources to aid in that expansion. You may just have to take the bull by the horns and work on the expansion yourself.
Personally there is one store in my area where, on our Society weeks, can get a legal table. The following day at the store where I am the event coordinator, we get 3 to 4 tables a week. I am very fortunate to have a Store Owner who is more than willing to support their Game Coordinators efforts to grow.
Do you have flyers posted in your FLGS play area or where Pathfinder products are displayed? Are you on the store's event calendar?
Hope this helps.
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Additionally, while I haven't lived in NE Ohio in 23 years, I know they have a decent sized population of gamers there.
So does Minneapolis/St. Paul, which the greater area footprint has 3.78 million people. And while we have one VC and two VL's who are all fairly active, we still have had quite a bit of contraction of the player and GM base as people are getting to the point where they've played almost everything available for their characters. We are seeing more growth again (as we seem to every year) after Con of the North.
If the Cleveland area is running games once a week, and they have been for a year, and most of the regular player base is playing every week, that's 52 scenarios. And if there hasn't been a significant increase in number of higher level (5-9's and 7-11's) tables (whether because the player base isn't signing up for them, or the store coordinators aren't scheduling them or some combination there-of) then your player base is contracting because there is nothing left for them to play that is being offered on the game days.
Bring this concern to your local VC and VL and see what they have to say. Bringing it to the public boards is not appropriate.
If they've only been organizing for a year, then give them time to learn from any errors they might have made (may be making) in how they schedule scenarios. Lord knows I've made a few and have learned from them. This is in no way indicating or implying that they may be or may have made mistakes. I'm not there, I have no idea what is going on in the NE Ohio and Cleveland region for PFS.
Give it some time as you gain newer players your regular low level game days will grow again, and if that particular game day doesn't support high level play, then you can of course try to organize your own high level game day if you wish. You don't need to be a VC or VL to coordinate a game day.
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As to your specific question in the OP...
to become a Venture-Captain you have to specifically apply to Mike Brock (the application process is detailed, I believe, in the GM Resources area of this website). I'll see if I can find a link in a second.
EDIT: LINK
I doubt Mike Brock would take an interview for a V-C in an area that already has one, but only Mike Brock can really answer to that one.
To become a Venture-Lieutenant, your V-C requests you become one, and then nominates your name to Mike Brock, who then has final approval.
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What Andrew said.
And for what it's worth, the question you should probably be asking is not "what are the benefits?" but "what are the responsibilities?"
+1 to this.
Andrew gives good advice, but if your primary goal here is to get the benefits of being a VO, then I doubt you would make good VO material. I am not saying that was your intention, as it sounds from your comments that you are sincerely interested in helping grow the game in your area, which is a mark of a good VO, but your first post probably could have been worded better. :P
Good luck. I hope you can find some kind of satisfying answer. :)
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Guess I can try to get in touch with my VC and hope he responds to see if he has access to posters/fliers. What else can I do? Has anybody else had good experiences as a player doing things to get game days better attended? Share your stories, please.
Good call getting in touch with your VC. Not only is it helpful to you, but also to your community as a whole.
My partner and I hosted a weekly game in SoCal for about a year, had many good experiances and made a lot of good friends. I think we were one of, if not the first weekly week-day PFS games in SoCal. I learned over the year that the majority of our draw was from out of town and eventually those people started PFS games in their own town. After losing my job our weekly game eventually died, but now there are 3 or 4 weekly week-day games in SoCal, so it worked out for the best for the community.
Still have all those friends we made. =)
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I think the most important thing, at least for me, has been staying consistent in scheduling events. If you run an event twice a month on the 2nd and 4th Saturday a month at 6pm till 11pm, stick to it and make sure there is a game going on during those times. The shops will now know where to direct people looking for a game and word of mouth is gold in this endeavor.
Of course this assumes you have a good relationship with the shops in your area and that they are interested in having PFS in their shop.
If you have a venue then you might have to run some scenarios for a while so people know that there is going to be a game ready for them if they come to the event.
being willing to GM is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest ways to help PFS grow.
Good luck and I hope you can get in touch with the VC/VL's in your area and get things rolling again.
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Venture-Captain, Washington—Spokane
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Guess I can try to get in touch with my VC and hope he responds to see if he has access to posters/fliers. What else can I do? Has anybody else had good experiences as a player doing things to get game days better attended? Share your stories, please.
Talk with your store owner and make sure you let them know how things are going with your event. Do you have flyers posted? Social Networking groups are another source. I am pleased to have a great working relationship with the store that I run PFS out of in my area. He is great in getting the word out about our games and willing to work with ideas to help build our numbers. I just worked with him today on a tool that will, hopefully help my efforts to get more people to step behind the screen.
Is the day just not working for your player base? You may have to change days or add another?
Hope this helps.
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When we started a weeknight game, we suddenly had 2 to 3 tables of which at least half the folk couldn't play on the weekends.
As a player, you can start your own game day. Before I became V-L I started a double header at a store where I knew the owner. Even if you don't know the owner, most game stores that have open gaming space are more than willing to allow you a table or two for once or twice a month gaming. Just talk to the store owners/managers and find out what their policy on such is.
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Even if you don't know the owner, most game stores that have open gaming space are more than willing to allow you a table or two for once or twice a month gaming. Just talk to the store owners/managers and find out what their policy on such is.
I was store liaison for a store in that Atlanta region that just a few days before a gameday decided thy did not want to host PFS anymore. I was left with tables with people signed up to play, but no venue.
I went on Google and looked for any game/comic stores in the area. A good number of comic stores here have table space and carry at least some RPG merchandise (If you know about distribution in the US, Alliance carries both comics and RPGs here). I went to a few that seemed promising, and just asked to talk to the owner/manager. I found one fairly close to the original store, and we have been having our game days there ever since.
I made my own fliers, and took them to the store for her to distribute. Honestly, it is just that easy. Today, we field 2 slots of two tables once a month at that store, and there are times that if the store had the space, we would probably have three tables.
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My partner and I hosted a weekly game in SoCal for about a year, had many good experiances and made a lot of good friends. I think we were one of, if not the first weekly week-day PFS games in SoCal. I learned over the year that the majority of our draw was from out of town and eventually those people started PFS games in their own town. After losing my job our weekly game eventually died, but now there are 3 or 4 weekly week-day games in SoCal, so it worked out for the best for the community.
I know your example was why I started a weekly game in Poway. So thanks for that!