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Last night I had a great night of PFS thanks to meetup.com, a social website designed to link people with similar interests and hobbies. You guessed it - one of those very popular hobbies is pen and paper roleplaying!
I browsed my capital city, and lo and behold there was already a local tabletop gaming group with a staggering 300 members, all there united by a love of pen and paper rpgs. Some folks were running homebrews, some were running weekly dungeon crawls, but the group was active. I put down a tentative game of running First Steps, and within less than a week I already had 5 brand new players signed up and ready to go.
I didn't know what to expect walking in to my local bricks and mortar game store with my GMing supplies. Most horror stories begin with 'we conversed on the internet and then decided to meet'. Gaming can add new complications.
But... it was AWESOME.
We had one no-show but the gamers we did attract had a great familiarity with the rules, were dedicated to roleplaying and genuinely appreciated someone GMing a game for them. They bravely faced down Ledford, they were stern but fair with Auntie Baltwin and they got blasted by a pink prestidigitation and took it all in their stride. In short, great players.
I am now thinking at the rest of those pen and paper enthusiasts in my local city's meetup rpg group and wondering if my new 4.5 star rating on meetup will attract more new Pathfinder recruits...
Has anyone else out there had any success with meetup.com? Got any tips or tricks? Or has anyone started a new Meetup group themselves and had people sign up?
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Meetup.com is how I got introduced to Pathfinder.
I returned to RPGs after a 20+ year hiatus, bought some 4th edition stuff, and went on Meetup looking for people to play with. I had never heard of Pathfinder, but the whole edition war was explained to me at the first meeting I went to, and I ended up picking up the Core Rulebook to play with that group. Ironically, that group disbanded after two sessions, and another group I didn't expect to stick with ended up becoming my regular gaming group.
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I get huge numbers in the store from Meetup groups. Not RPGs, though; board games. I'll get 25-35 people in on any given Saturday night, and Meetup is how they connect. And they play a lot of fun, cutting edge games, not the typical stuff you see everywhere (and thankfully I was carrying a lot of the titles, already, so they really like me).
Beyond that, though, I don't have anything meaningful to give you. Sorry.
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I am happy to beam with pride in saying that our area also flourished with Meetup!
One of the things for us, is that our area is very spread out and that we sit between two bigger gaming areas. Meetup allowed our group to throw out the net and score new players. And every time we expanded to a new location, Meetup allowed us to promote in that area our local PFS games as well.
We have caught the attention of many people who may have had to move to other areas, and allowed us the chance to connect them with gamers in their areas as well. So Meetup is definitely worth it's weight in gold. No it's not perfect, but until Paizo or Warhorn comes up with a system that rivals it in marketing/advertising games to the masses, it works for us, so we don't intend on fixing it.
Some tips:
If you start a Meetup Group, you get an organizers' "To-Do List".. Do as much of it as you can. It really is Organizing PFS 101, but in a nice format that can work in other things as well.
Have an FAQ, to help those who are new to signing up as well as those new to PFS in general. Put files in the "files" section for those who want to learn more about how to build for PFS and for choosing factions.
Utilize that greeting email for new signups. Also, if players don't want to be spammed, be sure to tell them how that works too.
Although I don't use the messageboards as much as I like and/or should, they are there. Don't hesitate to utilize them.
They also have great table tents, and if you can get the formatting right, you also can make badges for free! It's pretty darn cool.
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I've used a meet up.com site here in Milwaukee for the past couple of years with great success. The meetup group already existed and runs a mix of Pathfinder and 4E.
When you post a game only add as many tables as you have confirmed GM's and put in a wait list. I've found that players will volunteer to run another table if needed with little to no prompts on my part. It also helps to request people to put in what scenario they want to play and character level in their RSVP. Not everyone will do it but it helps to see what's got people interested in.
Once you've been going for awhile a level gap will start to show up with the regular players and the new players. Be sure to try and schedule a 1-5 tier for every game day. If new people show up and a table is formed then awesome! If not then the GM gets to play!
Also, personalities will clash. In the end we can't force people to be civil so don't get frustrated.
Hope this helps.
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Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN Meetup site
373 members in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. Virtually all of the gaming stores use the Meetup site to coordinate tables, scenarios, times, and locations. It's typical for each event to have 3-6 tables running. In short, AWESOME.
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For the PFS I help with, an issue arose: PFS in Toronto is organized through www.ontariopathfinders.com, but ever since mentioning it on meetup, people have been RSVPing there as well as on the official site. Despite mentioning for each session that there's a better place to RSVP, we've had an overflow, but not enough room for an overflow table.
Fortunately, though, that issue just came about from people who couldn't make it cancelling one of the sites instead of both of them. I can't wait to see how both tables tackle their respective thrilling conclusions!
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Awesome stuff :D
We have traditionally used Warhorn but it seems to be far less 'open to discovery' that other websites offer. Basically, if people are specifically aware that a Warhorn event is organised, they *might* use it :/ Now for Meetup we have a clash between Warhorn and Meetup. Meetup is WAAAY more social than Warhorn and, just quietly, seems like the system I prefer.
The alternative choice is Facebook but some people may be leery of the high level of surveillance that can happen with that site. Although it does seem like a fantastic way to open yourself up to new members and just about everyone seems to be a Facebook addict anyway, so people don't need to travel to a different site.
What are people's takes on using a pre-existing RPG group to organise Pathfinder Society. Is that a rude thing to do?
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Meetup is a fantastic way to draw in more gamers. It is great for announcing events as well. It doesn't have the robustness of Warhorn for actually mustering games, but Meetup does a great job in reaching those who are not already members of a particular group.
I've been Venture-Captain of the Boston Lodge covering MA, NH and RI for 20 months and I've been highly resistant to using Meetup (or Facebook) to develop the PFS community here, mostly because I prefer how Warhorn manages events and Meetup has a required fee to create a site. We use a Yahoo group for the social side.
But there are already Meetup groups for tabletop gamers out there and I have been remiss in reaching out to them for the most part - until now. I just don't want to come across as trying to draw members away.
Any suggestions on how to utilize local Meetup sites to bring players into the already existing PFS fold (ie Warhorn) without it looking like I'm trying to steal memebers?
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I think the main tactic is, if you are offering to run a game for new players, you make sure it's on a night that doesn't clash with one of their regular gaming experiences. If they run two tables of GURPS or Rolemaster on Friday, choose Pathfinder for Wednesday or Thursday instead.
The good news is everyone appreciates someone offering to GM for them. Especially if the game is good and it's an experience that people want to come back to.