Are we dismissing the problems of small lodges?


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Dark Archive 4/5 5/55/5

Piling on from MN, but having grown up with nowhere near the level of RPG luxury I currently enjoy I am super empathetic to smaller lodges. One idea to consider might be trying to do the reverse of what our local organizers have done (at least as I understand it) and try and reach out to a larger lodge that might be something of a reach drive, and see if there is an opportunity there to increase some play chances that way. Maybe they can send a GM sometimes to run a second table? Or maybe by making some of the local players aware of that opportunity some might be interested in going a little farther to catch a game when they couldn't make your time.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

Rei wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
I don't think we're dismissing the problems that small lodges face, but outside of convincing people to move, it's really up to them to deal with the problems. They may need to step up their efforts to promote themselves. Or consider other venues such as online gaming via Roll20.

Please offer tips on how to further promote a small lodge. (Not even you specifically - this is a general call for advice open for any responses.) We'll consider any advice we can get.

I'll write a more in-depth post in this thread once I have the time. Sometime later today.

Just FYI, I gathered sum rough data. Here's all regular scenario sessions(including 2 WBG's) we managed to run last season in the Tampere region.

(month+year: number of sessions):

August 15: 8
September 15: 8
October 15: 5
November 15: 22(includes a small con)
December 15: 5
January 16: 5
February 16: 9(start of monthly game days)
March 16: 8
April 16: 8
May 16: 7
June 16: 6
July 16: 9
August 16: 7

Last August-September we had both that Everwar run as well as the last 3 sessions of my Blakros Museum marathon which explains nearly double numbers compared to the regular 5 a month, pre-game day routine.

I dunno, might not be useful, but least it's somewhat interesting. Game day practically doubled our output!

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

Muser, that's great data. I do believe that consistency is a major factor in a group being able to take off. Billing special events like a "Blakros Marathon" is also great marketing.

Hmm

5/5 5/55/55/5

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This is a huge one..

"Just play core..."

Core is not an option in a small lodge.

You need to run a low table because without something for the new people to play you're going to die.

You need to run high tables to keep the veterans from getting bored and because if you don't you will quickly exhaust your 1-5s

You need people to advance from the low table to the high table (or the high table dies out) If you're alternating core and standard you're effectively halving their xp

Having core creates another entire dimension on the geek suduko chart, one you just can't fill with 7-12 pieces.

4/5 *

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Nohwear wrote:
Does anyone have suggestions on how to draw people to the hobby (...)

This is probably the best thing a smaller lodge can do. If there aren't enough gamers living in your area, you need to grow more gamers.

One idea is to play in public locations that are not game stores. Local library is a great idea, but there may also be community centres or other places where the public can sign up to "teach" courses or run clubs. I think there was a library partnership/program in the works at some point... does anyone recall the details?

If you're a teacher (or know a teacher), start an RPG club at your school.

Shopping centres sometimes have community days where you can set up a display - get a few folks out to play something with some nice visual appeal in public, and take names.

Regular event scheduling is also pretty key. If someone is new, trying to keep track of when the next game might be is more difficult. If you're running weekly, run weekly and never miss a date. If you're running monthly, ditto, but pick something like the first Saturday of the month and advertise it that way.

The new Pathfinder Academy sounds like it might be useful as a teaching tool, although it sounds like it still requires multiple-hour buy-in from the outset. Maybe a character generation session, followed by playing a single quest, might be a good event to promote to grow new players. Sometimes it's hard to have new players just jump into an existing group, so someone needs to be the person who walks them through everything and shows them how to play from scratch. That is best done not at a regular PFS game with your vets, but by someone who has the temperament for teaching in a special session where they're not holding up the "real" game.

What other things have people done to bring in new players? Are there populations worth targeting for recruitment? Demo game in a movie theatre lobby on opening night of a fantasy film?

Shadow Lodge 4/5

All things considered (this comic illustrates our #1 dilemma), we're seeing growth. There's just no FLGS culture here at all which is a shame.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Davor Firetusk wrote:
Piling on from MN, but having grown up with nowhere near the level of RPG luxury I currently enjoy I am super empathetic to smaller lodges. One idea to consider might be trying to do the reverse of what our local organizers have done (at least as I understand it) and try and reach out to a larger lodge that might be something of a reach drive, and see if there is an opportunity there to increase some play chances that way. Maybe they can send a GM sometimes to run a second table? Or maybe by making some of the local players aware of that opportunity some might be interested in going a little farther to catch a game when they couldn't make your time.

This is a pretty reasonable idea. Back over a year ago, Jon Dehning and I hired Jack Brown and Keith Apperson as VL's with the specific intent that they travel to some of the smaller cities too far away for Jon and I to support fully. In that process, Keith and a few other local GMs traveled to St. Cloud, Rochester and Shakopee to start up games, and now each location has a self-sustaining game day.

But it could just as easily happen the opposite way around, with the individuals wanting to grow contacting the larger lodge 90 minutes to 3 hours away and asking for assistance. I know several VOs who regularly travel hours both ways to help out smaller lodges.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

BigNorseWolf wrote:

This is a huge one..

"Just play core..."

Core is not an option in a small lodge.

You need to run a low table because without something for the new people to play you're going to die.

You need to run high tables to keep the veterans from getting bored and because if you don't you will quickly exhaust your 1-5s

You need people to advance from the low table to the high table (or the high table dies out) If you're alternating core and standard you're effectively halving their xp

Having core creates another entire dimension on the geek suduko chart, one you just can't fill with 7-12 pieces.

I don't think you should forget about core in the smaller regions. Its just until you get a stable 2 tables a game day and start venturing into a 3rd, you should most likely choose All Core or All Regular until you can support both reasonably.

5/5 5/55/55/5

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"growth is infinite, just keep growing..."

At some point, you are a goldfish in a goldfish bowl. That is going to limit your size.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

BigNorseWolf wrote:

"growth is infinite, just keep growing..."

At some point, you are a goldfish in a goldfish bowl. That is going to limit your size.

Oh, absolutely. And all the suggestions I'm making are not with an eye for saying, "Just do more work," or, "Build it and they will come." There is a time where the area you are in is saturated.

That being said, all the suggestions to help smaller areas, are suggestions that may help them reach that saturation if they are not already there.

If they are already there, then trying their best to make things work is about all you can hope for. We can go over the best practices to ensure that folks get to play things to keep your veterans and help the new folks.

The session tracker is one that I'm seeing work to play the Geek Sudoku weeks before the game day, so that the lesser run scenarios get to see the light of day, and entice the veterans back to play at those tables.

Dark Archive **

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I represent one of these smaller lodges. We manage to pop off a table or two every other week, although it gets more difficult as we add new players or our main pack of regulars get separated by level from our less regular players. We have a minor con in town for recruiting, and even then that just keeps us going for a year. Recruitment is our main problem, as we have an incredibly supportive FLGS, but our rpg community in town is crap. We have a large college campus in town, but we haven't found an in yet, and until we do, we'll just be getting by

We've only had to worry about geek sudoku when our tracker isn't updated, but when I push for the most recent material, it's a non-issue. It also might be because we're a relatively young lodge.

I'm getting ready to leave town, however, and I would not be surprised if that means our lodge falters. I don't think boon support will help because that only caters to our long-term players who appreciate them. We do have a great con circuit in the area though (looking at you Pittsburgh) so our regulars can still get their fix.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Randy Saxon wrote:

I represent one of these smaller lodges. We manage to pop off a table or two every other week, although it gets more difficult as we add new players or our main pack of regulars get separated by level from our less regular players. We have a minor con in town for recruiting, and even then that just keeps us going for a year. Recruitment is our main problem, as we have an incredibly supportive FLGS, but our rpg community in town is crap. We have a large college campus in town, but we haven't found an in yet, and until we do, we'll just be getting by

We've only had to worry about geek sudoku when our tracker isn't updated, but when I push for the most recent material, it's a non-issue. It also might be because we're a relatively young lodge.

I'm getting ready to leave town, however, and I would not be surprised if that means our lodge falters. I don't think boon support will help because that only caters to our long-term players who appreciate them. We do have a great con circuit in the area though (looking at you Pittsburgh) so our regulars can still get their fix.

I can't get them to use a tracker. Other than that...

*

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Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
I don't think we're dismissing the problems that small lodges face, but outside of convincing people to move, it's really up to them to deal with the problems. They may need to step up their efforts to promote themselves. Or consider other venues such as online gaming via Roll20.

I felt quite dismissed reading this. The next post didn't improve my interpretation.

*

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Davor Firetusk wrote:
Piling on from MN, but having grown up with nowhere near the level of RPG luxury I currently enjoy I am super empathetic to smaller lodges. One idea to consider might be trying to do the reverse of what our local organizers have done (at least as I understand it) and try and reach out to a larger lodge that might be something of a reach drive, and see if there is an opportunity there to increase some play chances that way. Maybe they can send a GM sometimes to run a second table? Or maybe by making some of the local players aware of that opportunity some might be interested in going a little farther to catch a game when they couldn't make your time.

I think this is what helped us. I struggled for a couple of years with my VC five hours and a time-zone away. At the same time an active group grew up much closer, but officially another state. Getting official support was next to impossible, but when the unofficial VC & VL started coming over so did many of the players. On my own it was 1 table every other week. Now we have 1.5 tables weekly. While not quite a con, getting a group to come 'out to the boondocks' is a mini adventure in itself & you can get some takers. Host them in your basement for the night so they can trip home the next day :)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

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Thanks for sharing this story, Curaigh. It's nice to see other groups reaching out to help!

Hmm

5/5 5/55/55/5

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Curaigh wrote:
I felt quite dismissed reading this. The next post didn't improve my interpretation.

A thousand times this.

*

One thing I would like to see, even if it is not as fancy as the one I saw at GenCon, is the 'goblin adventure/dungeon delve' thingy. It would be great for something like the mall's community day mentioned above or the farmer's market or the school's fair. Even adults like the idea of playing around for an impulsive second. Even an hour (let alone 4-5) is a time commitment, but these 20 minute diversions are doable for introducing. Are these things published? Can we download them for use at our smaller venues? I hope this isn't the academy which I haven't actually done anything with :)

Shadow Lodge 4/5

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Quote:
Are we dismissing the problems of small lodges?

I think we are, and while it is natural to speak to your own experiences, it is something we need to combat.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 *

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BigNorseWolf wrote:
Curaigh wrote:
I felt quite dismissed reading this. The next post didn't improve my interpretation.
A thousand times this.

If I didn't know about the better experiences in the club I'd be walking away with this response.

Honestly, telling people to play a game online while others play in live is the easiest way I've had players walk away from a game. Not only did they walk away, they walked away and let other gamers know of their bad experiences. It's like telling someone your a second class citizen.

More to the OP's point - I think there are issues with smaller games that are not fully addressed, but the odd balance is if you try and address them they can cause issues for larger games.

Prior to moving, we had a game where from member to member at the longest was an hour drive. Attempts at recruitment found that most gamers we're already playing or not really tabletop players. -- At one point we counted up having 16 scenarios that were available to sit a table before breaking into APs before more scenarios are published.

APs are not conducive to some groups if you have people that cannot come to every game. Scenarios you just need the four people to fire and if you miss one, you miss one. APs or even Modules you miss something you take a hit on the sheet AND you miss out on what happened while you are gone.

The standard response was well have people GM. The issue with that is you just had one GM and six players... and when you flip GMs you still have five players who already played that situation. "Well you should play Core" -- and have half the group not interested after playing Normal for years, mean tables don't work.

You can toss replays at people, but if you have one person insisting on GMing, then the only person who has replays is the one that doesn't need them. You try and open up replays for the players randomly - you flood the larger games that don't need them because you can't just give them to one subset of the club but not others.

It's an odd situation and there's not a good balance. Trying to support the smaller games you unbalance the larger games.

5/5 5/55/55/5

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TOZ wrote:
Quote:
Are we dismissing the problems of small lodges?
I think we are, and while it is natural to speak to your own experiences, it is something we need to combat.

It should be blindingly obvious that attracting a few tables in a city of 300,000 and 3,000 aren't the same task. Blaming people for that, calling them neckbeards and telling them to use social skills to get their numbers up and deal with their own problems isn't speaking to your own experience it's backhanding everyone that doesn't have yours.

If i could hurt the campaign without only hurting people i know right now by walking away i would.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

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I'm so sorry, BNW. I feel so horrible right now. I've been part of the problem haven't I?

Maybe all of us from the big lodges need to just listen for a while -- myself included. Can we start over? My name is Hilary. I have a habit of putting my foot in my mouth. Mmmm. Yummy, yummy feet. So tasty.

I'll keep my foot there for the moment, to stop giving advice more appropriate to large urban areas and just listen to all the great stuff you guys are doing in the small lodges.

Hmm

4/5 *

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You're an active part of the online community and a pillar of your local group - I'd hate for you to walk away.

I get that larger lodges just don't understand the issues faced by smaller ones, and I'm glad this was raised, because you're right, just saying, "get bigger" doesn't help when your fishbowl is only so big (to use your analogy).

I guess the question is, what can we do to help? Right now we're offering what has worked in our locations, because, well, that's what we got. What else do you need?

Would it help for some of the smaller lodges to describe their situations and perhaps share best practices without everyone else chiming in all the time about how we do it in Megametropolis? Hard to do on these forums, but maybe a "smaller lodge forum" somewhere might help you communicate better?

I know some folks have done gaming with one or more players Skyping in, but still using the tabletop game without any of the online maps and tokens and stuff... is that something worth exploring for smaller Lodges?

We really want to help, because we want to see PFS grow.

Shadow Lodge 5/5

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TOZ wrote:
Quote:
Are we dismissing the problems of small lodges?
I think we are, and while it is natural to speak to your own experiences, it is something we need to combat.

A thousand times this, and something I've been trying to say for awhile now in other discussions. The MN lodge is VERY vocal, and I can assure you that once things start moving, we have some VERY effective ways to keep the momentum going, but it might be time for us to stand back from the discussions of those struggling at an entirely different level.

I know first hand what it's like to start your first game day and hope that four players are going to show up; I can only begin to imagine what that feeling is like week in and week out.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West

GM Lamplighter wrote:
I get that larger lodges just don't understand the issues faced by smaller ones, . . .

Some of us do understand a few of the issues. We might not have to worry too much about the stores that can run four or five tables every game night, but we are very much aware of the difficulties trying to get PFS up and running in a new location when you can get four players only if everybody shows up, and where you can't wait for somebody else to drive an hour to get to the store because that means you won't have time to run a game before the store closes.

*

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Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

I'm so sorry, BNW. I feel so horrible right now. I've been part of the problem haven't I?

Hmm

Negative HMM, its largely about tone. Offering what worked for you is welcome. It may not work, it may not even be relevant. Telling others it is the ONLY solution is not welcome. Insulting someone's facial hair & etiquette while doing so... not a helpful tone.

1/5 5/5

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I was going to flag the neckbeard thing as an offensive comment, but it actually serves a very important depiction of the exact disconnect that could threaten to tear out the heart of this community OR help it overcome the adversity of these sorts of situations and rise above childish name-calling.

It isn't simple, these days, to build a face to face venue and tradition.

With the Internet, 'smart' phones, tablets, and instant gratification all 'trending' up, it's hard to look to pen and paper and tabletops and rolling dice and see it meeting those qualifiers.

Let us try to work together to build, and see what we can learn here, and hopefully grow in the process, perhaps not in numbers at a smaller venue, but as persons exploring this.


The only thing I can really offer being as I am not active at this time is that if any lodges in southeast Arkansas are needing numbers let me know would love to actually get started with society play.

Community & Digital Content Director

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Removed a post and reply. If you have suspicions about the status of an account, let us know at community@paizo.com. Calling out folks as being "troll accounts" or "sock puppet accounts" can be pretty damaging, and stir up uneeded drama.

1/5

I wonder if sanctioning the new modules will help? In theory, these offer a lot of the benefits of an AP with less time commitment. Although at this point I feel that all I can do is offer ideas and hope that they are useful.

Silver Crusade 3/5

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Because I realize that things are a bit different here in Finland, I'll explain how our things are organized.

There are three separate areas where there is a lot of play, Helsinki/Espoo, Tampere and Oulu. Helsinki/Espoo is the largest, and I'm from Tampere, so I'll mostly address the situation here, specifically. There are some indivdual

Most of our PFS gaming is at the home of one of the people playing, usually the GM. There are a couple of local gamestores, and we did try at one of those, but that didn't really work for various reasons. There are monthly gaming days in with two slots of two tables each, at maximum. These gaming days are run at a space that the local university organizations can use for free, and we have a deal with them.

We organize games on a separate forum (which I'm not going to link as it's all in Finnish). Basically, a GM decides to run a game, they put up a topic announcing this. Players reply, if there is enouch players, the game will happen. For gaming days, first a date is decided, then GMs reply, maybe give suggestions about what they'd like to run. Players can tell that they're coming, but no actual reservations happen. We usually manage to run 3/4 with this method, as not everyone wants to stay for a second slot.

There's also a wiki where a lot of information is stored. We have a character list (simply a list of characters sorted by faction, with level and class marked, and a link to their statblock), a Googledocs chart for marking which games you have played/run, our own scenario ratings (this mostly because again, Finnish), etc. This is a useful tool for keeping track of things, but does require everyone to participate, as you're supposed to keep your own info up to date (I must admit I'm lazy at especially the stat blocks).

And we have a IRC-channel for the everything that does not need to stay written down. I guess a other kind of chat-like service could work as well.

Thus far recruitment has mostly been word of mouth. Telling your friends, noticing on the wider roleplaying Facebook groups that someone is looking for a gaming group and the like. The gaming days are advertised on the university roleplaying club's mailing list, at least. It is noticeable that the gaming days have helped in letting new people try the game. I think it's about not having to commit to coming/going to a stranger's house in the first place. Some of those people have returned, some not, but at least they know about us now. I guess we could be a bit more aggressive in actual advertising, true. There has been talk of making flyers, stuff like that.

Verdant Wheel 4/5

Here, in Brazil, we don't have a lot of public gaming or organized rpg. Most people don't even like running published modules. And even if they do, most willing Gms can't read English well enough to run a scenario.
So, only a handful of people GM PFS, and to do a imprompt second table if too much people shows up, is impossible.

4/5

GM Lamplighter wrote:
Nohwear wrote:
Does anyone have suggestions on how to draw people to the hobby (...)
The new Pathfinder Academy sounds like it might be useful as a teaching tool, although it sounds like it still requires multiple-hour buy-in from the outset. Maybe a character generation session, followed by playing a single quest, might be a good event to promote to grow new players. Sometimes it's hard to have new players just jump into an existing group, so someone needs to be the person who walks them through everything and shows them how to play from scratch. That is best done not at a regular PFS game with your vets, but by someone who has the temperament for teaching in a special session where they're not holding up the "real" game.

Although we ran them at GenCon as five-hour blocks, the lesson-based sessions are designed to be runnable as 1-2 hour segments. There is a lesson plan and a single-encounter to each part. If I recall correctly, the Beginners is four segments.

4/5

Leathert wrote:
These gaming days are run at a space that the local university organizations can use for free, and we have a deal with them.

This really stuck out to me and I'm curious to learn more.

  • How did you get this deal with the university?
  • Was it a difficult process?
  • Does the university provide any support (advertisement, etc.) outside of allowing you to use the space?
  • Does this impact your area's membership in any particular way?

This seems like it could be a really cool opportunity to utilize in other areas.

The Exchange 4/5 5/5

Serisan wrote:
Leathert wrote:
These gaming days are run at a space that the local university organizations can use for free, and we have a deal with them.

This really stuck out to me and I'm curious to learn more.

  • How did you get this deal with the university?
  • Was it a difficult process?
  • Does the university provide any support (advertisement, etc.) outside of allowing you to use the space?
  • Does this impact your area's membership in any particular way?

This seems like it could be a really cool opportunity to utilize in other areas.

Serisan, I don't know where you are based but in the USA, there's really only one thing you need to get this going: the help of a student who attends the school.

Almost all public and most private colleges will let students form a club. Sometimes they require a faculty advisor but it's really easy to find one if the only commitment is "sign here." Once you have a club you can reserve rooms in whatever common space the university has (and it turns out very few clubs want space on Saturday mornings/afternoons). After that it depends on the individual school. They rarely provide direct support (advertising) but do provide places for students to advertise. Bulletin boards, online, and occasional activities fairs.

I do suggest you form a "gaming" club rather than a "PFS" club. Not only is it an easier sell but you can get a fair amount of cross-pollination from people who normally show up to play board or card games but want to try something else.

Dark Archive 5/5 5/5

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Serisan wrote:
Leathert wrote:
These gaming days are run at a space that the local university organizations can use for free, and we have a deal with them.

This really stuck out to me and I'm curious to learn more.

  • How did you get this deal with the university?
  • Was it a difficult process?
  • Does the university provide any support (advertisement, etc.) outside of allowing you to use the space?
  • Does this impact your area's membership in any particular way?

This seems like it could be a really cool opportunity to utilize in other areas.

We looked into this a bit ago. Might be time to try again.

4/5

Kevin Willis wrote:
Serisan wrote:
Leathert wrote:
These gaming days are run at a space that the local university organizations can use for free, and we have a deal with them.

This really stuck out to me and I'm curious to learn more.

  • How did you get this deal with the university?
  • Was it a difficult process?
  • Does the university provide any support (advertisement, etc.) outside of allowing you to use the space?
  • Does this impact your area's membership in any particular way?

This seems like it could be a really cool opportunity to utilize in other areas.

Serisan, I don't know where you are based but in the USA, there's really only one thing you need to get this going: the help of a student who attends the school.

Almost all public and most private colleges will let students form a club. Sometimes they require a faculty advisor but it's really easy to find one if the only commitment is "sign here." Once you have a club you can reserve rooms in whatever common space the university has (and it turns out very few clubs want space on Saturday mornings/afternoons). After that it depends on the individual school. They rarely provide direct support (advertising) but do provide places for students to advertise. Bulletin boards, online, and occasional activities fairs.

I do suggest you form a "gaming" club rather than a "PFS" club. Not only is it an easier sell but you can get a fair amount of cross-pollination from people who normally show up to play board or card games but want to try something else.

I'm part of the MN crew, so it's not particularly applicable to me, but I also ran a club back in college (a full decade ago now, sheesh...) and recall having some more work than that as a student - petitioning the student government for things, etc. Could vary by school.

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Serisan wrote:

This really stuck out to me and I'm curious to learn more.

  • How did you get this deal with the university?
  • Was it a difficult process?
  • Does the university provide any support (advertisement, etc.) outside of allowing you to use the space?
  • Does this impact your area's membership in any particular way?

This seems like it could be a really cool opportunity to utilize in other areas.

This isn't directly related, but reminds me that most people in my city don't realize our libraries have rooms that folks can reserve. They're pretty nice, free (although you're responsible for damages), and you can reserve them months in advance, just need a library card in good standing.

For student groups, my old university gaming group just required a few students on the rolls. Somewhere in the order of 3 to 5 people, so basically your normal gaming group.

And that got us, not only meeting space when we wanted, but an office we could access whenever. You usually need to renew every year, but the paperwork was trivial. They allowed advertisement on bulletin boards, but it had to be approved in advance, so I don't think we ever bothered.

Cheers!
Landon

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 *

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Landon Winkler wrote:
This isn't directly related, but reminds me that most people in my city don't realize our libraries have rooms that folks can reserve. They're pretty nice, free (although you're responsible for damages), and you can reserve them months in advance, just need a library card in good standing.

This is something to be wary about but otherwise good, not all libraries do this. One of the one's here locally shut out all gaming groups because they reserved them so far in advanced it shut out other groups from using the rooms.

If you can do this it's great, check first on policies.

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Incendiaeternus wrote:
Landon Winkler wrote:
This isn't directly related, but reminds me that most people in my city don't realize our libraries have rooms that folks can reserve. They're pretty nice, free (although you're responsible for damages), and you can reserve them months in advance, just need a library card in good standing.

This is something to be wary about but otherwise good, not all libraries do this. One of the one's here locally shut out all gaming groups because they reserved them so far in advanced it shut out other groups from using the rooms.

If you can do this it's great, check first on policies.

Good call. Checking the fine print (and the stuff that isn't even really written down) is key. Even knowing how ours works, I'd still suggest checking with the librarians before moving on anything.

Cheers!
Landon

The Exchange 4/5 5/5

Serisan wrote:
I'm part of the MN crew, so it's not particularly applicable to me, but I also ran a club back in college (a full decade ago now, sheesh...) and recall having some more work than that as a student - petitioning the student government for things, etc. Could vary by school.

It depends on how much you're looking to get from the school. If you want to get funded for an activity, or get written up in the school newspaper, or to use a large facility, or to have permanent office space - yeah it takes quite a bit more work. But for just a room in the student center once a week it's usually a piece of cake.

The forms for founding a club used to be just a page or two. But now that I think about it; in our modern lawsuit-happy (and more prevalently the urge to remove as much potential liability as possible) the forms are now probably a dozen pages covering what you promise to do (and not do). Still not a huge challenge.

Some schools will let individual students reserve space without being part of an organization but that won't get you in the formal club listing where others might see.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.

while MN is a thriving community, and quite large, when I first became a VL, I started a game in Anoka, MN. its about a 35 minute drive NW of the cities, but most people in the cities think its hours and hours away for some reason. Its funny, they will drive to Brooklyn Park or St. Louis Park during rush hour, from across town (an hour or two drive sometimes) but won't go to Anoka on the weekend when its at most a 40 minute drive.

I tried getting a double header going on up there. Because the cross pollination with the rest of the Twin Cities was barely alive, I really struggled to keep that game day going. Some of it had to do with the antagonistic attitude of the owners of the store, the lack of food options, and the lack of the store allowing any outside food in but having no real food available for purchase. And it was the only game day that charged a fee to attend. The store had a membership that allowed you to stay 1 hour after closing. And with a double header on Saturday, we needed to stay that late to get a module or two scenarios done. So part of the fee was a day pass for that membership. And when the ownership changed it was all given back in concessions tokens which you could use to buy pop, candy, chips or other concessions. But that turned folks off.

Interestingly enough, three of the regulars that would show up at Village Games in Anoka, do not show up for games at other stores and are basically no longer active members in our community.

So I think, while I had a fall-back (run games closer to the inner belt of the Twin Cities) I do have some insight to what its like to run games in a smaller community and some insight to the frustrations that ensue.

I think a large reason why that game day essentially folded and failed, was because the store was not friendly toward us. Did not advertise for us. Did nothing to help us at all. Had prohibitive hours and prohibitive rules and were absolutely not willing to bend at all for us.

Every single other game store in the area has been able to accommodate our needs, except that one.

I don't know what I should or could have done differently to really keep that game day going, except perhaps to put more effort into advertising. But I'd grown exhausted going up there even just once a month. So I handed it off to a store coordinator and opened up a game day at a store 5 minutes from where I live. Eventually the relationship between the store and our community fizzled as people stopped showing up.

I feel your pain. And I'm not 100% sure what to do to solve these types of issues. All I can do is help brainstorm at this point.


Curaigh wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
I don't think we're dismissing the problems that small lodges face, but outside of convincing people to move, it's really up to them to deal with the problems. They may need to step up their efforts to promote themselves. Or consider other venues such as online gaming via Roll20.
I felt quite dismissed reading this. The next post didn't improve my interpretation.

I have seen a lot of misogyny over the decades in gaming groups right here in the New York and New Jersey area, places that are supposed to be progressive/liberal/genderinclusive/gay strongholds. There are groups that I am no longer a part of because of said behavior.

If I can observe that much in this region, one can only imagine what it must be like in regions of the country where sexism and homophobia are more accepted behaviors.

So yes, it does happen, it is real, and gaming is not the sanctuary to the degree we'd like to pretend it is.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Curaigh wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
I don't think we're dismissing the problems that small lodges face, but outside of convincing people to move, it's really up to them to deal with the problems. They may need to step up their efforts to promote themselves. Or consider other venues such as online gaming via Roll20.
I felt quite dismissed reading this. The next post didn't improve my interpretation.

I have seen a lot of misogyny over the decades in gaming groups right here in the New York and New Jersey area, places that are supposed to be progressive/liberal/genderinclusive/gay strongholds. There are groups that I am no longer a part of because of said behavior.

If I can observe that much in this region, one can only imagine what it must be like in regions of the country where sexism and homophobia are more accepted behaviors.

So yes, it does happen, it is real, and gaming is not the sanctuary to the degree we'd like to pretend it is.

This may be so, but posting something that is akin to chastising those trying to get insight and advice on how to make their small area gaming community thrive is probably not very helpful, insightful, warranted, or wanted.

1/5

Andrew Christian wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Curaigh wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
I don't think we're dismissing the problems that small lodges face, but outside of convincing people to move, it's really up to them to deal with the problems. They may need to step up their efforts to promote themselves. Or consider other venues such as online gaming via Roll20.
I felt quite dismissed reading this. The next post didn't improve my interpretation.

I have seen a lot of misogyny over the decades in gaming groups right here in the New York and New Jersey area, places that are supposed to be progressive/liberal/genderinclusive/gay strongholds. There are groups that I am no longer a part of because of said behavior.

If I can observe that much in this region, one can only imagine what it must be like in regions of the country where sexism and homophobia are more accepted behaviors.

So yes, it does happen, it is real, and gaming is not the sanctuary to the degree we'd like to pretend it is.

This may be so, but posting something that is akin to chastising those trying to get insight and advice on how to make their small area gaming community thrive is probably not very helpful, insightful, warranted, or wanted.

Although feel free to start a thread addressing that issue if you wish to discuss things further.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Kevin Willis wrote:


Some schools will let individual students reserve space without being part of an organization but that won't get you in the formal club listing where others might see.

There's the rather large issue of bringing weird people in from off campus to use the facilities, which is probably against the university policy.

we did this a time or two at our local college but 1) we had a professor in the group and 2) I'm not sure we weren't just a psychology experiment..


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Kevin Willis wrote:


Some schools will let individual students reserve space without being part of an organization but that won't get you in the formal club listing where others might see.

There's the rather large issue of bringing weird people in from off campus to use the facilities, which is probably against the university policy.

we did this a time or two at our local college but 1) we had a professor in the group and 2) I'm not sure we weren't just a psychology experiment..

If you're holding an activity at college/university, you have to restrict your audience to the student population, unless you're using a specified public venue. Most classrooms are not. Most areas at a school are not open to general public access.

4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Kevin Willis wrote:


Some schools will let individual students reserve space without being part of an organization but that won't get you in the formal club listing where others might see.

There's the rather large issue of bringing weird people in from off campus to use the facilities, which is probably against the university policy.

we did this a time or two at our local college but 1) we had a professor in the group and 2) I'm not sure we weren't just a psychology experiment..

If you're holding an activity at college/university, you have to restrict your audience to the student population, unless you're using a specified public venue. Most classrooms are not. Most areas at a school are not open to general public access.

This could also vary by college/uni. Back when I ran the Juggling Assembly, we had the largest indoor open space that wasn't the sports complex on Monday nights and people came from ~60 miles away to hang out each week.

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