I'm currently making up a poster to find any people interested in playing d&d at the college where I live; I wouldn't mind including a short summary detailing what it is and how it works. Nothing huge, a few lines at most.
Any suggestions? Google seems oddly reticent on the subject.
Maybe Google suspects that putting up a poster about D&D at your college isn't likely to go well. Do you have a local gaming store? If so that might be a good place to post such a notice. There are also a lot of online resources for people trying to find a gaming group. I don't know which ones are good off the top of my head since I've been gaming with the same groups for years now, but two of my 3 Pathfinder groups grew out of online efforts to find a Call of Cthulhu game (which ended up leading to an AD&D 2e game)
I can guess a little, but any chance of some explicit summary of the horrible consequences that are going to happen?
I started a group up last year as and ended with an extended group of 21 members playing, but that was just friends and many have moved, wanting to open it up a little. Going to ask permission from staff before I stick it up. Here's what I ended up with.
D&D is a game played on a table with 4-6 players and a Game Master to tell everyone what’s happening. There are maps, miniatures, dice to determine events and sheets describing your character and his or her abilities. It’s part video game and part collaborative storytelling, and it’s fun.
No experience needed; absolutely no one last year had played before and they all had a blast.
Although I would include much more, I've found this comparison to get a lot across:
Video games are to movies as D&D is to books.
I would include a sentence summarizing the genre of RPG, even if you are using the label D&D.
I was mostly joking, but I'd guess that people might decide you're a nerd. The consequences of being considered a nerd can vary widely.
If you really want to put up a poster about D&D I guess you could describe it as a tabletop game where brave warriors and powerful wizards confront hordes of orcs and mighty dragons in a fantasy world. Depending on the mood you want to set you could include a picture of a battle mat with minis and some dice. Just putting a picture of the Pathfinder Core Rule Book on there might get the message across too since it depicts some essential stuff about the game's theme.
Regardless of how you pitch it I'd point out that you have all the stuff necessary so that new players don't need to own any books or dice.
I don't know from personal experience, but I have heard that college is where many people are picking up gaming.
I think that "brave warriors and powerful wizards" could do the job very well, but you could also come up with something else that indicates that all manner of characters are possible. Players that stick around for a few sessions will figure it out, but giving a sense of the full spectrum might attract some more people from the very beginning. For example, you could also say that they can create characters like those found in movies and TV , such as Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Troy, Merlin, The Princess Bride, Legend of the Seeker, Maleficent, Earthsea, Conan the Barbarian, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Willow. Thats probably not a terrific list - I've seen all of them, but don't know what kids in college have seen.
Posters work on images. Grab a snappy picture, and info on where and when.
Any college student can use google, don't worry about it.