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This is inspired by the race boon thread. I was listening to the complaint that they lived in X city which couldn't support a con big enough for boons.
This summer I visited another city for a month, got in touch with the VC, learned about the city, which is about twice as large as mine. I never got a chance to play in this city in part because of work, but in part because there was not even a quarter of the number of the tables offered in the city over a month. In fact there were probably two stores in my fair city which have more games than that entire city did in a month.
On the other hand I've seen some small places (Iowa City) which have fairly big PFS attendance.
So my question to the general community is this? What makes one city prosper and another have rather lax interest/attendance?
I have my ideas, but I'm curious about what others think.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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I have my ideas, but I'm curious about what others think.
I don't know. But I can tell you my experience.
It fluctuates. Some weeks we have 18 to 20 people. Other weeks we will have 5 people. I don't know how to improve that, but I believe some of it has to do with how many games your players have played. With more players you get more conflicts on who can play what for credit. So I think you will always have more trouble making tables fire when you have more people who have played at more places (bigger cities) than you will in a smaller city (where everyone has played less.)
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#1 requirement - Each location needs someone willing to bite the bullet and start organising gamedays and GMing sessions. Without someone to start things up, shout it out, and keep it going week after week, there's no event.
There are still cities without regularly scheduled, open-to-the-public PFS gamedays ... I know, hard to believe, right? If you're in one of those cities, first thing you need to do is download the Guide to Organised Play, and a few Scenarios, read up and approach your local game store, library or other suitable location.
That's exactly how many of our current Venture-Captains and Lieutenants got things started in their local areas, including myself. Build it, and they will come!
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I think what makes it successful here in Perth is a combination of things. One is that we dont schedule games every weekend. It used to happen here and we were burning through scenarios too quickly. Perth Pathfinder (or Perthfinder as our VC started.. not a dating service! :) ), is organised around a 2 week cycle.
Sure that might mean that we miss out on those that might only be able to play that other weekend, but I also think it gives our gamedays an event feel.. people organise themselves for those times to attend. Im often a little concerned when I see places which have sessions all the way through the week, week after week and I wonder to myself how long those players and gms last. Do they burn out?
We also occasionally have times where we break that cycle. A Local Networked gaming event, RFLAN lets us use some tables at the back of a rather large stadium. This is where we run modules and other more unusual scenarios. It puts us out there and we have indeed recruited some players from the masses of computer gamers there.
This would not have happened without either Callum or Chris outrlocal VC/VL. Chris in particular prefers to dm over play and does so a lot.
I also think that the support for the VC/VLs have to be there. You dont want all your VCs and VLS eating scenarios just so you can play. I think they need to play (even if they doth protest) and so have eaten and will continue to eat scenarios that I havnt played yet. If you arnt willing to do this, then I think you cant expect that others will do it.
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Detroit is running at least 1-2 games per day. Each venue runs monthly, weekly, or biweekly. That certainly wasn't the case two years ago. We have people who start venues, run them for 6 months and pass them to new coordinators. The progression keeps going. Some of these are vx some are not.
To grow you need new players.
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Wow, this is a huge discussion topic.
One thing to keep in mind when considering various options, is that the challenges you face will change as your community grows. What might be manageable today, could become the source of the problem tomorrow. And most gaming groups experience seasonal ebbs and flows, such as a slow-down during exam time, or an influx of new players afer a pop-culture con. So it's best to keep an open mind and remain flexible to different approaches.
I think having a regular presence is really important, whether it's every Thursday evening, or the first Sunday of each month, something players will know and remember, so if they miss one session, they instinctively know when the next will be, and won't turn up one week to find that it's shifted to a different day.
Have somewhere players can sign-up to reserve a seat at the table they wish to play, will save you a lot of scheduling and organisational headaches, particularly as your community grows.
Warhorn v2 is probably the best at this, you can now manage multiple venues within the one ongoing Warhorn event! Meetup is another good option, as it has a discussion forum for each event. Though, personally, I think Warhorn for signups and Facebook Groups for communication is a good combination.
At a typical gameday, players will arrive, the store will be noisy, the scenario is run, chronicle sheets are handed out, and everyone is in a hurry to leave. Great game, but there's no time built in to actually communicate about the important stuff, like what are we running next week? who's going to GM? have players already played this scenario? and I'm away next week! etc.
Having a place to announce the next gameday, somewhere for players to connect with each other and provide feedback to your organisers, is a huge benefit.
I'm often a little concerned when I see places which have sessions all the way through the week, week after week and I wonder to myself how long those players and GMs last. Do they burn out?
I'm concerned when two scenarios are run per gameday, or three per convention day, or when I hear of scenarios being run in 4-hours.
Quality over quantity. Less is more.
Provide a meal-break half-way through your session to allow gamers to network with each other, talk about character builds, Adventure Paths etc. If at all possible, try to avoid the arrive-play-chronicle-home routine. Friendships build a stronger community.
I used to run PFS from the same store every Sunday, week after week. I'd sometimes be asked why I don't run games at another store, or on another day of the week? I'm only one person, so to keep our schedule on track, I'll GM when it's convenient for me. Refer to my earlier post regarding each location needing someone to bite the bullet and organise gamedays. But early on I also realised that we were runninng four scenarios per month, while only two scenarios were published each month. It takes a while, but players do catch up, and then drop out, because there's not something to keep them engaged every week.
As our community has grown, we now run PFS sessions at two or three venues each week. Some of our new players are double-dipping, playing eight scenarios per month. At this rate, even with five years of back-catalogue, they're playing at four times the publish cycle, and when you add conventions in, will have hit the wall within 12 months.
Another problem we've found has been different players have played different scenarios, so when we schedule a range of scenarios each week, some tables are in demand, and others sit empty. We used to keep a spreadsheet of who has played what, but as our community grew it became too difficult to maintain.
What we've found works for us currently, is scheduling the same scenario across multiple tables at different venues in the same week. It gives players a choice of venue, but prevents double-dipping. This way, we know that particular scenario has been played out, and we can archive it for 18 months, until we've acquired another wave of new players. This only works if your GMs across different venues are involved in the planning and in cooperation with each other.
Last convention we ran a GM101 session, and starting next week, we're launching a formal slot-zero program for our new-recruit GMs. They'll each take turns preparing a new-release scenario, and run it for the others, with VC or VL or another veteran GM playing at the table.
After the game, time will be set aside for everyone to have an opportunity to look through the scenario and discuss and offer feedback. Thereby, our GMs each get to play new release scenarios before running them publicly for players at their various store locations the following week. I'm hoping this will lead to better prepared scenarios and encourage a closer support network between our GMs.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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I'll be watching this topic with interest. Where I play (Asheville, NC), there's a very robust group, which runs a game day every other Saturday, with two slots of 3-5 tables each. However, that's a 90 minute drive for me, so I tried to start a local group.
My local group has had new players come in, but the older players have mostly stopped coming, with no explanation. The players I do have seem to be interested only in showing up and playing; they won't GM even when I bribe them with race boons, and they can't seem to find the time to even build or level up characters (even though they easily find the time for a 4-5 hour game every time I offer it). I'm trying to turn it from a game day to a community, but nothing seems to stick. I'd probably throw in the towel now if it weren't for the lure of GM credit...
I live in the back of beyond. Me opening a Pathfinder rulebook probably makes it the most popular RPG for a 20 mile radius... does that count as success? :D
I have one game where we're very lucky everyone involved is happy travelling for it. The other I run over a VTT so distance isn't an issue.
Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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Having been involved in 3 organized play campaigns I can say the number one key to success is the drive and investment of the organizers. While there are quite a few other factors that can contribute, none of them matter without dedicated organizers. The enthusiasm of the organizers has a direct effect on the enthusiasm of that organization's members and potential members.
Other factors that can matter are:
- Cooperative Store Owners
- Advertising
- Available play locations
- DM quality
- Proximity to other venues, especially larger venues.
- Involvement from Paizo, including sending special benefits for organizers to doll out, VIP visits, etc.
- Knowledge of the local gaming scene
- Encouragement of a non-exclusive environment
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Detroit is running at least 1-2 games per day. Each venue runs monthly, weekly, or biweekly. That certainly wasn't the case two years ago. We have people who start venues, run them for 6 months and pass them to new coordinators. The progression keeps going. Some of these are vx some are not.
To grow you need new players.
To add onto what Right said (which I agree with), having players transition into local coordinators has made the Detroit region successful. Over the past year we've added a hundred new players. I manage our Warhorn site and every week I get 'pinged' 2-3 times with new player sign-up notifications.
Three years ago the local PFS scene was centered around a single game store that ran games on the weekends, usually on a bi-weekly schedule. They'd fill the open play room. The toll was there was little diversification. The same small GM pool was being tapped again and again, and if you wanted to play you had to burn a lot of gas unless you were lucky enough to live locally. The organizers would get burned out also. Cat-herding is frustrating.
Two years ago PFS fell into stagnation. The VC resigned and play became sporadic. One location kept the fire burning every Wednesday night.
One year ago there was a new VC and a very successful convention. Some new blood came onto the scene and people got fired up. Players converted into organizers, something that just hadn't occurred before. New locations were sprouting like mushrooms after rain. These new locations have been the primary source of the new players. Old players drifted away, but the rate of growth has more than compensated.
So I agree with Righty, new players are a big part of our success. What they have done is pushed more people into GMing roles and created viable tables over a greater area of the region. I can't say enough about the gameday coordinators, too. These people are the ones who have the most thankless job, but without them we'd be right back into stagnation for lack of coordination.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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One year ago there was a new VC and a very successful convention. Some new blood came onto the scene and people got fired up. Players converted into organizers, something that just hadn't occurred before.
So how do you accomplish this? How do you turn passive "takers" into active participants?
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One year ago there was a new VC and a very successful convention. Some new blood came onto the scene and people got fired up. Players converted into organizers, something that just hadn't occurred before.So how do you accomplish this? How do you turn passive "takers" into active participants?
Painlord would say you ask them, and you don't take no for an answer.
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One year ago there was a new VC and a very successful convention. Some new blood came onto the scene and people got fired up. Players converted into organizers, something that just hadn't occurred before.So how do you accomplish this? How do you turn passive "takers" into active participants?
Perhaps if those organizers are reading this thread, they could explain it.
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Your PFS coordinator should consistently promote local gamedays with:
- flyers in game store windows or library noticeboards;
- business cards on the store counter works well;
- Paizo's event calendar, Warhorn, Meetup;
- local gamer interweb messageboards or chat forums, such as here on Paizo.com, anywhere that has a Pathfinder messageboard, eg Enworld;
- your local gamestore Facebook page, your own Facebook page, start a Facebook Group!
- maintain an email contact list of everyone who plays your sessions, and send emails to announce upcoming gamedays or conventions.
It's certainly a lot of work maintaining all of these each week, but having a broad reach helps. If you're consistent enough, you'll soon become known as the "Pathfinder guy" in your region, and people will start referring players your way.
I do find that local game conventions are preaching to the converted. We may get an occasional new player or two arrive at a boardgame/rpg convention, but typically these events don't get much publicity outside of existing gamer circles. They do well to support your current playerbase, and as a gathering point for out-of-town players or those who play infrequently, so they're important events, they just don't generate new players.
What I find does attract new players are large pop-culture cons such as PAX, ComicCon and similar events. A huge number of attendees, most of whom have an interest in fantasy-scifi books/movies, internet, computer games, boardgames etc, but may never have played a tabletop RPG ... or maybe they've played previous versions of AD&D, haven't played in years, have heard the buzz about Pathfinder, but not yet tried it. If you're able to host a few tables of Pathfinder Beginner Box at one of these events, or a scenario or two for lapsed gamers looking to give PFS a test-drive, you'll be run off your feet cycling players through tables. Give each person a hand-out with contact details, and keep a list of email contacts so you can follow up with details about your next gameday after the event. We had Oz-ComicCon and PAX Aus in the same month, and probably doubled our active playerbase overnight!
Don't have a PAX or ComicCon in your city? Keep an eye out for similar events, or local community events, or get involved with Free RPG Day, create opportunities to expose new players to the game.
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From what I see (and know) about PFS in the Chicago area, the key factors seem to be:
- A backbone of players and volunteers who've been involved in Organized Play for a long time. Many of the "regulars" in PFS play in our area (myself included) were previously heavily involved in the RPGA (Living Forgotten Realms, Living Greyhawk, even Living City), and PFS is a continuation of this aspect of the RPG hobby for them.
- Paizo's clear, consistent support for Pathfinder in general, and PFS in particular. A number of those "hardcore" players I mention above were primarily playing LFR a couple of years ago, and they've transitioned to PFS, for at least part (if not most or all) of their gaming, due to the sporadic releases of LFR adventures, and now, the impending end of 4E and the LFR campaign.
- A good base of dedicated, reliable volunteers, who both organize events and make sure that GMs are to be had.
- Regularly-scheduled game nights at several area stores, which seem to do a lot to bring in new players.
- Several local conventions over the course of the year (and a number more within reasonable driving distance), giving players an opportunity to play their guts out all weekend.
We have one store in the entire city (38,000 people) that is in any way shape or form considered a gaming store...in a city with a major college no less. That store, unfortunately, is almost completely nothing but cardfloppers, so there's never really any gaming going on as is.
Additionally I probably know about 12-15 different gamers in town...but only one person that would ever actually run something and his schedule wouldn't be conducive to actually running pre-gen content on specific given schedules.
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I organize events. When I got to the store in March we had 5 players and a GM. Today, we're at 32 players (many regulars, some are occasional).
First step, is BE the guy who organizes. Most people don't want to because its uncomfortable and sometimes you have to be the "BBEG."
Second step, have access to an excel spreadsheet. That's how you know what's been run and what still hasn't and have a column next to each scenario for when it was run last. Only so many times you want to cycle into the same old scenarios before people stop coming in.
Third step, if you want new scenarios collect cash from your players. A GM should not have to pay for each scenario. That's the player's job. They get to play and the GMs get to do all the heavy lifting, the least the players can do is chip in $1 every time they sit down to play another 4-5 hours. Spend the rest on flip mats, condition cards, markers, etc...
Fourth step, players who have reached level 5, start to GM. Here is where you become the BBEG. "You want to sit at the high tier scenario, guess what, you owe me a low tier GM session, for every 3 you've played." Yes, people get uncomfortable GMing but you don't want to exhaust the willing GMs with a constant barrage of requests.
Fifth step, use your email. Send out a BCC (Blind CC) email, to protect everyone's privacy and remind them once or twice a week, what you are running, the date and the time. And keep the time steady. If you are doing a Tuesday game at 6:30PM then its 6:30PM EVERY Tuesday. People are creatures of habit and they don't adapt to change very well, also they like the warm comfort of stability.
Sixth step, make sure to encourage your players to buy their products at the store. You want to be welcome at the store by the owner and if you make sure he makes money then you'll be welcome, he does pay for rent and heating/cooling and keeping the lights on. When he runs out of product, you tell him what players need, don't expect him to figure it out, he's got other games and other orders to fill. Make sure he always carries a copy of CRB on his shelf for the new players and whatever he's selling the most of, usually UEquipment, UMagic, UCombat, APG and ARG. Tell him that the alternative is them getting it of Amazon, if he's reluctant to carry product. Soon enough, he'll sell product and make money and you'll be welcome with open arms. He'll even advertise for you because again, its $ in his pocket when new players come to the store and stay and play and buy.
That's how I got it done, folks. Take what you can from it and see if any of it can work for you.
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Personally I think online communication between the gaming community in the area is invaluable, whether it's a Facebook group, a chat room, a forum - whatever gets all the players talking to each other, and noticing it without much effort.
This means they'll have to frequent whichever avenue you're looking at, and it's plenty fine to look at more than one avenue.
This includes getting newbies involved straight away (you're hard pressed to find people who play who aren't online - get their email addresses! and don't spam them) and in-person games (a lot of people spend some downtime online).
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So how do you accomplish this? How do you turn passive "takers" into active participants?
You ask, very nicely, for a small amount of support. "Is it possible for you to do <insert task here>?" Give thanks and recognition for the job done. The next time, ask for a bit more support. Wash, rinse, repeat!
Try to avoid the idea of a clique. When established people know each other, and stick together, it can be daunting for the newer people to "break in" to the club.
Listen to their suggestions, and act on them. Thanks to some suggestions, the UK has a "feed the GMs" and sometimes "feed the gamers" depending on the Con and the site. Next weekend, one of the attendees is spending time to provide second breakfasts and lunches to those that wanted food. At our January con, we offer a communal kitchen to the GMs so they can be sure to have hot tasty food each day.
Remember, biggest thing, is to say thank you for all help received. People like kudos! They like to feel needed! You don't need all the credit yourself!
On a side note, this works well to get new GMs. We went from 3 to 12 GMs in 2 years, just by starting small and providing encouragement and thanks.
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Mediterranean
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Definitely reward enthusiasm and participation. In the UK we started strong, being lucky enough to have some fantastic players and some great GMs who were willing to put a lot of effort into it. But to maintain that level of commitment you have to make sure people are congratulated and appreciated.
Once you've got a critical mass of enough GMs and players for multiple games then you need to pick out the people to encourage to become game event organisers and coordinators themselves. I certainly saw my role as Venture-Captain to encourage enough people to play and GM Pathfinder that I could then step back and let people run it themselves. I deliberately set out to make myself superfluous ;)
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Sometimes, despite any amount of polite encouragement, help isn't forthcoming, because everyone assumes you'll always be there to keep things running for them.
But what if you're not always there, what happens then?
I was in this situation almost a year ago. I was the guy who did everything, because everyone expected me to. I desperately needed extra GMs to run things, but the new players we were attracting each week were inexperienced, and our veteran GMs had been running their own sessions for a while.
Then I fell sick, nothing serious, just a flu that wouldn't go away, but I was out of gaming for the best part of two months.
Players realised that if they wanted their weekly gaming fix, they'd have to step up and provide it themselves ... and so they did!
If you're the guy who's doing everything, and feeling it's a thankless task, sometimes taking a step back and saying "sorry, I'm not available to GM this month, could you guys keep things running until I'm back?" could be the best thing you ever do for the community.
You can still help out via email with advice, scheduling and enquiries to help keep things running, just let the players figure out among themselves who's going to GM this month? You'll be giving yourself a well-deserved break, and just might find some new stars step forward, who you can continue to work with when you're back on deck!
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Transforming players to DMs. I don't coordinate as my company has the ability to ship me off with no warning. I do GM at small conventions and fill in. However I see the mechanism run a few times.
There is often a discussion each game about background for any new player.
Have you played before
Have you GMed before
Those that have gmed before are later asked if they could run a second table (especially when, there too many players. I recall my first gm at pathfinder was for Doug when there were 10 people and one gm.
Those that play (based on how they play) are asked if they would like to try being gm.
Its not a question every session, but its worked into the conversations either intentionally or by circumstance. As you have more GMs eventually the seed gm will ask someone if they are interested in taking over, pass the baton, and look to start a new venue.