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However, a store that visibly and clearly appreciates keeps them there. I've seen two stores that do free printing for PFS materials (chronicles, printing sheets, handouts, maps) and even buy scenarios for us. One of them gives $5 in store credit to anyone who GMs a table (which can add up quick, and frankly is nicer than my stars:). Being willing to open the store early, late, or even arrange for free wifi makes a big difference long term. The bad area had store that planned magic tournaments on the day when PFS usually played; they kept our table available, but filled the other 8 tables with magic players. We we changed days but the relatively early close time caused problems - they wouldn't stay open past 8 on weekdays, which made it very hard on us.
Our store appreciates us, but has nearly the opposite situation as the "bad store" you mentioned. Our location has lacking wi-fi and runs all-night MTG events on the same night. Furthermore, our location requires us to rent the space.
That said, the space could easily become many more MTG events (or pokemon or yugioh), and pathfinder doesn't bring in nearly the revenue, so I feel we are well treated. Plus, the MTG event means we can play as late as we need to. Works out very well for us, I think.
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At the sake of sounding like a curmudgeonly old fart, excluding a significant portion of a youthful base for a campaign is a recipe for long-term disaster.
Sure, the novelty of being able to grab a beer or a mixed drink is awesome.
But the cost to the Society community may not be worth the venue in the short term.
Game responsibly, folks.
Ahh mate and see this is where we strange people in 'Straya are one up again.
The legal drinking age is 18, which means we're still netting teenagers.
Similarly, where the Cons are held is always in the 'bistro' section of the pub, which means that as food is being served (and there are no gambling machines) younglings can also come along as long as they are under the responsibility of an adult.
My 11 year old had no dramas ordering a ripper chicken schnitty whilst smashing Goblins and getting the barmaid to top up her schooner sized coke.
On the upside, in the last couple of years we have seen the return of a few FLGS, something that had disappeared from the urban lanscape back in the 90's.
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Now she's 16, she will be able to drive us to the event too!
Back on point though...
So what do we have as a solution?
So far people have debated venues - but yeah venues are either 'pay for play', or 'free but noisy' it generally seems - both of which create an impact.
Similarly we talked Warhorn vs Meetup etc, perhaps a few opportunities are in there?
What about support? What can be done from Paizo? 'moar boonz' is always a common answer, but is there much more they can do to assist?
Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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I'm very interested in the comments people have made about how to actually go about recruiting people. The venues we have are quite decent (not too noisy, free, friendly shopkeepers), but getting the word out seems to be our weak spot.
Ask the store to allow you to post a flyer. A really friendly store will point customers to your event. We have gotten a few people that way. That usually requires that you establish a friendly presence first, but not always.
If there is a community flyer or BBS, see if you can post there.
See what sort of events are in your area and Visit some of those.
Google games and the name of your city. See what turns up and see if you can't figure out a way to make yourself findable to someone searching electronically. When doing this, try to make sure you don't break any etiquette.
Talk to friends that have different interests about trying to spread the word. They may know of some place you hadn't known or thought of.
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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.
I'm not through the thread but I noticed this question hadn't been answered on the same page it was asked...
No, for a small lodge sanctioning of modules causes more headache. If someone asks about scheduling it, you can, but then your other 2 GMs want to play in it, meaning you have no other tables for multiple sessions, your other players stagnate and loose interest, hurting the already small lodge. Or you force one of those other GMs to run, and they burn out faster because they really wanted to play that scenario.
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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.I'm not through the thread but I noticed this question hadn't been answered on the same page it was asked...
No, for a small lodge sanctioning of modules causes more headache. If someone asks about scheduling it, you can, but then your other 2 GMs want to play in it, meaning you have no other tables for multiple sessions, your other players stagnate and loose interest, hurting the already small lodge. Or you force one of those other GMs to run, and they burn out faster because they really wanted to play that scenario.
Which makes me wonder how much the life of a lodge depends on your GM pool? It seems to me that even getting the occasional chance to play can go a long way to prevent burn out, especially if it is regular. Unfortunately, this may be dependent on having a cooperative store.
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Maybe we should offer some type of reward to a player who "brings a new gamer" with them - say a companion Boon to the First Time player boon... a "Reward" for a recruiter who get's someone to start a XXX-1 PC.
I was just talking about a bring a friend boon yesterday with a VO
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Over here the D&D encounters is a huge hit with the high school crowd. They are organising three tables a week and are looking at adding a third. The short format works wonders for them.
This! Short-format games work better for so many people, and not just kids who need to get home to their parents but for parents with said kids as well. Sometimes I think it's just us old folks who think adventures should last 5+ hours...
I'm glad to see Quests coming out more regularly now - they are a great format to run this sort of thing. I've toyed with running a module this way as well, as an "attract new players" event. Even an AP could work this way, although the continuity takes away from some of the drop-in benefits of Organized Play.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I was just talking about a bring a friend boon yesterday with a VO
Maybe we should offer some type of reward to a player who "brings a new gamer" with them - say a companion Boon to the First Time player boon... a "Reward" for a recruiter who get's someone to start a XXX-1 PC.
"Bring a friend" sounds like a good title for a boon actually.
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"Bring a friend" sounds like a good title for a boon actually.I was just talking about a bring a friend boon yesterday with a VO
Maybe we should offer some type of reward to a player who "brings a new gamer" with them - say a companion Boon to the First Time player boon... a "Reward" for a recruiter who get's someone to start a XXX-1 PC.
wow...
How about something like:
Showing them the way it works -
"Provide an additional bonus of +2 to an 'Aid Another' skill check when assisting a players First PC (one with a PC number of XXXX-1) on a Skill Check. Check off one of the Boxes when you use this boon. When all the Boxes are checked off, cross out this boon."
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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.I'm not through the thread but I noticed this question hadn't been answered on the same page it was asked...
No, for a small lodge sanctioning of modules causes more headache. If someone asks about scheduling it, you can, but then your other 2 GMs want to play in it, meaning you have no other tables for multiple sessions, your other players stagnate and loose interest, hurting the already small lodge. Or you force one of those other GMs to run, and they burn out faster because they really wanted to play that scenario.
One MN thing that could help here is what's referred to as Slot Zero. Jon and MisterSlanky can probably explain better than me, but the idea is to run scenarios/modules exclusively for GMs so they can prepare by experiencing. They're run as home games, typically on a day/time that doesn't have a store event. Thus, you don't mess up slots at your store's game day, but the GMs still get to play the content.
If you have 5+ GMs in your area, these work great. If you have fewer GMs, you could supplement the table with folks that have done good things for the community.
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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.I'm not through the thread but I noticed this question hadn't been answered on the same page it was asked...
No, for a small lodge sanctioning of modules causes more headache. If someone asks about scheduling it, you can, but then your other 2 GMs want to play in it, meaning you have no other tables for multiple sessions, your other players stagnate and loose interest, hurting the already small lodge. Or you force one of those other GMs to run, and they burn out faster because they really wanted to play that scenario.
One MN thing that could help here is what's referred to as Slot Zero. Jon and MisterSlanky can probably explain better than me, but the idea is to run scenarios/modules exclusively for GMs so they can prepare by experiencing. They're run as home games, typically on a day/time that doesn't have a store event. Thus, you don't mess up slots at your store's game day, but the GMs still get to play the content.
If you have 5+ GMs in your area, these work great. If you have fewer GMs, you could supplement the table with folks that have done good things for the community.
It is for GMs and store coordinators. We usually run both new releases the Saturday of the week they are released. It is as Serisan mentioned and a bit of a "Thank you!" for the people who make our lodge what it is. You just need to put up with me and Hamm's. Mmmm... Hamm's.
We go over problem areas, things that are not clear or a little off, and talk about the scenario in general. It is a fun time, and I recommend other areas try it.
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Sounds like this is a practice left over from the old Living Greyhawk Campaign. Back then "Slot Zeros" were run before every major (and most minor) CONs to get your judging staff the scenario before they ran it. Otherwise they wouldn't get credit. (One judge would "eat the mod" and not get credit, but he seeded the area with people who could then run it, as they had played it before. It also resulted in several people planning to run it, being able to "debrief" after the game, to review how they were each going to run it.)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.I'm not through the thread but I noticed this question hadn't been answered on the same page it was asked...
No, for a small lodge sanctioning of modules causes more headache. If someone asks about scheduling it, you can, but then your other 2 GMs want to play in it, meaning you have no other tables for multiple sessions, your other players stagnate and loose interest, hurting the already small lodge. Or you force one of those other GMs to run, and they burn out faster because they really wanted to play that scenario.
One MN thing that could help here is what's referred to as Slot Zero. Jon and MisterSlanky can probably explain better than me, but the idea is to run scenarios/modules exclusively for GMs so they can prepare by experiencing. They're run as home games, typically on a day/time that doesn't have a store event. Thus, you don't mess up slots at your store's game day, but the GMs still get to play the content.
If you have 5+ GMs in your area, these work great. If you have fewer GMs, you could supplement the table with folks that have done good things for the community.
Nope. Never played Living Greyhawk.I don't know if MisterSlanky did either.
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I did not, and it was not meant to be a nod to Grayhawk Slot Zeros. It was honestly constructed as a way to let our GMs experience a scenario, while also providing them an opportunity to ask about mechanics, or describe were problems in the scenario prep. More than anything it was meant as a "thank you" to the hard work of the GMs. With two of us doing this, we still get to play 50% of the scenarios before we run them.
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ah... then why call it a Slot Zero?
it got that term in LG because that was the Convention Game time before "First Slot" at the Con. So, what comes before Slot One? Slot Zero...
it seems to serve most of the same functions, work much the same way and it's called by the same name... are you sure it is an original creation?
They're not called "Slot Zero". They are called "GM Appreciation Day". I've never claimed anything original about it. It's intent was, as designed by me, an opportunity to thank our GMs by letting them play for a change. The rest grew organically.
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ah... then why call it a Slot Zero?
it got that term in LG because that was the Convention Game time before "First Slot" at the Con. So, what comes before Slot One? Slot Zero...
it seems to serve most of the same functions, work much the same way and it's called by the same name... are you sure it is an original creation?
That was Serisan's name, not the one we use. I prefer "GM Awesomesauce Day!"
It is, as identified above, a thank you to our hard working GMs and store coordinators.
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ah... then why call it a Slot Zero?
it got that term in LG because that was the Convention Game time before "First Slot" at the Con. So, what comes before Slot One? Slot Zero...
it seems to serve most of the same functions, work much the same way and it's called by the same name... are you sure it is an original creation?
That was Serisan's name, not the one we use. I prefer "GM Awesomesauce Day!"
It is, as identified above, a thank you to our hard working GMs and store coordinators.
It's a colloquial term that a number of the participants use because it's shorter to say. >.>
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The Raleigh-Durham area is a great example of what was once a large lodge that collapsed into a vast desert of PFS. There are no less than four game stores in the area, and all but one of them struggles to have more than one table on a consistent basis. And that store has become something of a fly trap for players that ran off players from other stores. The store in Raleigh where MANY people came into PFS hasn't had a reliable PFS presence in years, and whose efforts to reestablish a presence consisted of, "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas." The reasons are multifaceted, ranging from individuals ruining tables so that no one wants to play with them, a diminishing pool of overworked GMs, active and passive efforts by the various stores that discouraged PFS groups, campaign leadership with a complete hands off approach leading to an organization having no organization, and the general frustration of all of the above which has resulted in a slew of home games, and desertion to other games from what's left of the disintegrated player base.
It's an area with numerous universities, multiple successful game stores, and strong talent, which should be a recipe for a thriving PFS community, but has all but died. So, it's not just the small lodges that have problems.
As one of the Venture Agents in this area, my understanding of the situation is a bit different. The Durham store management has never been anything but helpful and encouraging to us. There have been two instances over the last three years were the person in charge of scheduling miniature game tournaments failed to notify us that they needed our reserved space on a particular weekend, but that was a simple communications issue and store management was very apologetic. There have been ups and downs, but I'd say that our average number of tables per week right now is pretty consistent with what I've seen over the three years that I've been playing/running at this location.
I do understand that Raleigh store has essentially stopped running PFS and I have heard rumors that some of the store staff were actively hostile, but I have no firsthand experience with that. I heard that our Venture Captain tried to recruit a new Venture Agent for that location and was not able to find anyone who was interested, so I don't know that this is something that can be fixed. The Cary location has been consistently running one table on Fridays since I started playing and I don't see any real change there. The store staff have been very friendly and helpful the couple of times I've gone to play or run there recently. The Garner location has been seeing a major increase in play over the last six months, based on what I've seen regarding their sign ups. My understanding from conversations with the organizers there is that they have a very good relationship with store management. All of that said, I don't agree that the Pathfinder community has all but died here.
EDIT: That said, if you feel that Pathfinder Organized Play is not meeting your needs in the Triangle area, feel free to contact me offline and I'll see what I can do to help.
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Northwestern Indiana
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Here in Northwest Indiana, we have had a few major changes. I am currently the organizer and we don't have a venture agent or other venture officer. (I am tempted to apply but I may have to relocate for work. I never make a commitment that I cannot keep.)
We changed our day of running PFS from Thursday nights to Saturday nights. So, we lost some GMs and players. We are rebuilding, and we still have two to three tables at Lightspeed Hobbies every two weeks.
We can all learn from each other, and I found a lot of good advice in this thread. I am already talking to a few players who are willing to GM. With any luck, we may be able to add another venue to the area.
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Playing in an area where the PFS population is small (we generally only manage 1 table a week, and have managed multiple simultaneous tables only a handful of times) and which does not have a useful tabletop gaming store (the nearest is a 5 hour drive away - and even that one is really a comic book store, nearer than that the only option is a dedicated Warhammer store that gets angry if people even ask about dice with more than 6 sides)... can be hard. Somehow we do have a VC, but his work schedule means he is rarely available or even in town.
Some things hit us hard.
The change in pregen rules is going to limit what tiers we can play significantly - as it will only take a couple of people being unwilling to take the risk with a pregen to leave us without a legal table.
We have already had to make a gentleman's agreement about not checking players have the books for additional resources for anything available on the prd, just to have enough players with characters they want to play to be able to run tables at all.
This thread has a lot of great suggestions, will have to see how many we can take advantage of. The lack of any local (non-warhammer) gaming stores is rather limiting.
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"The store I work with the most is about a block from UC Berkeley (two others are within a mile as well). But sadly, we have no players who attend, so we don't have any shoe in to do campaigning on campus. And the store itself is mostly for magic cards and computer rentals"
That sounds a lot like the situation with UNC-Asheville. We have a college campus less than a mile away from the main FLGS, but we have zero players (as far as I know) that actually attend, it completely baffles me. We have plenty of college-AGE players and GMs, but very few genu-wine college people (and none from the university next door). The few I know are all community college students.
Is this a common phenomenon? Or are UC-Berkley and UNC-Asheville the outliers when it comes to PFS?
Things are similar here in Champaign-Urbana. We have the huge University of Illinois here in our small towns, but we don't have any students coming to our game store events or to our con (Winter War). Brand recognition of "Pathfinder" seems to be essentially non-existent with that generation.
Unfortunately, our relationship with our game store is not going well either. How do the rest of you keep your players being profitable customers when there is so much incentive to go all-digital or subscribe directly to Paizo to get the PDFs with the physical books? I've gone out of my way to buy stuff in the store, but I can't merit our use of game space by myself.
Finally, do people really see cons driving new players to their regular PFS games? With the possible exception of Gen Con 2014, I don't believe I have ever witnessed any new players coming in from an initial con experience. All our players have gotten their starts in regular PFS groups.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Unfortunately, our relationship with our game store is not going well either. How do the rest of you keep your players being profitable customers when there is so much incentive to go all-digital or subscribe directly to Paizo to get the PDFs with the physical books? I've gone out of my way to buy stuff in the store, but I can't merit our use of game space by myself.
Snacks, drinks, minis, and player portfolios.
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Finally, do people really see cons driving new players to their regular PFS games? With the possible exception of Gen Con 2014, I don't believe I have ever witnessed any new players coming in from an initial con experience. All our players have gotten their starts in regular PFS groups.
Actually, yes! Though admittedly only one or two per convention.
We held Tracon last weekend and surprisingly enough got a very decent turnout. I'm not sure if all four of our regular scenario tables fired, but we could easily have run a third table of quests on Saturday and a second table on Sunday. (And yes, this is a pathetically tiny convention compared to things like GenCon.) Two of the players that participated showed interest in joining our regular games. We also talked to a couple of people who ran a program on Pathfinder deities - we got super curious about how there are PF players in the area we have no knowledge of, so we chatted them up after the program and suggested they might want to try PFS at our next convention (Tracon Hitpoint sometime in the spring) or maybe attend a gameday.
Our next gameday is next weekend, and we're hoping to see one or two or those potentially interested peeps there.
Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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Finally, do people really see cons driving new players to their regular PFS games? With the possible exception of Gen Con 2014, I don't believe I have ever witnessed any new players coming in from an initial con experience. All our players have gotten their starts in regular PFS groups.
It depends on the convention. I think that our PFS group has gotten more players from the general SF conventions that we appear at than we do from the gaming-specific ones.
Bret and I came to PFS out of Convergence, along with about eight other regulars in our area. This year, I had 4 show up at our regular gamedays after meeting us at that con. It's turned out to be a surprisingly good source of new players for our group, a number of which later took the step to become GMs as well.
Hmm
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I've not seen a con produce a new player - cons are something you generally hear about and attend once you are already into the hobby.
Where I see cons building new players is by games being showcased at our more broad based conventions like Supanova and OzComicon, but not for D&D and Pathfinder (who aren't there) but for Magic the Gathering which do a terrific job of recruitment, their stands are always packed deep and they are very welcoming and friendly. Even I gave it a go and I had noooo interest.
Its funny, because at both those cons there are stands for a number of our FLGS, but there's no clear vector into the hobby. I'd like to see Society play being introduced at those venues.
How hard would it be to build an intro kit?
Also - theres now a D&D starter kit being retailed in Electronics Boutique, which means that they are likely targeting video game players and hoping to transition them across, and it is being sold at a bargain price of $25 bucks.
Which makes me wonder how much the life of a lodge depends on your GM pool? It seems to me that even getting the occasional chance to play can go a long way to prevent burn out, especially if it is regular. Unfortunately, this may be dependent on having a cooperative store.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.I'm not through the thread but I noticed this question hadn't been answered on the same page it was asked...
No, for a small lodge sanctioning of modules causes more headache. If someone asks about scheduling it, you can, but then your other 2 GMs want to play in it, meaning you have no other tables for multiple sessions, your other players stagnate and loose interest, hurting the already small lodge. Or you force one of those other GMs to run, and they burn out faster because they really wanted to play that scenario.
It's much more dependent on a cooperative community. You need a group of players and GMs who are in it for more than just their own personal gratification. It always depends on the players to come together as a group to make things happen.
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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Building a GM pool was my first priority when I took over organizing at Dreamers. Back then, we were lucky to get 1-2 tables together, but I wanted us to have more GMs so that we could grow. We were lucky enough to have not only myself and Bret, but also Lance and Rosc in our pool of regulars. All people who I knew had GMed before. Still, I kept asking people every time when they would like to GM, offering to sit at a table that they ran so that they could do their first time with a friendly face of whom they could ask questions.
We are up to 4 tables now regularly, and we have enough casual GMs that there have been a few times now when Bret, Lance, Rosc and I have all been playing instead of GMing. Our casual GMs come in once a month or once every two months, and its become part of the culture of our branch to step up and try GMing. Almost all of our regulars have given it a shot now.
Some of them have discovered that they really like it, and only a couple have decided that they don't. Still, they've all given it a chance. We now get people volunteering to run tables even when we don't ask, mainly because they see others stepping up.
If you can get the right culture in place, GM recruitment becomes far easier as you go.
Hmm
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If you can get the right culture in place, GM recruitment becomes far easier as you go.
So much this.
Culture is all in gaming communities. Rules, setting, intent - all of that is secondary to a good gaming culture.It's unfortunate that so much of the excellent aspects of PFS culture that can be encounter offline are not as prevalent when interested potential players browse our boards. I wish that some of the changes made to how the VO's work would have focused more on organization and less on hands-on GM'ing, but metrics are much easier to measure if you're only measuring for games GM'd rather than organized.
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Its funny, because at both those cons there are stands for a number of our FLGS, but there's no clear vector into the hobby. I'd like to see Society play being introduced at those venues.
How hard would it be to build an intro kit?
Define what you mean by 'intro kit' - a starter pack for PFS players?
Define what you mean by 'intro kit' - a starter pack for PFS players?Its funny, because at both those cons there are stands for a number of our FLGS, but there's no clear vector into the hobby. I'd like to see Society play being introduced at those venues.
How hard would it be to build an intro kit?
Most cons, like the ones we run at, will have a nice big sign on the order of the "Welcome To Pathfinder Society" banner we display at the cons we run. It's at the actual gaming area, not the dealers room which is what you seem to be suggesting.
But that's not relevant to the problem discussed in this thread. locations with small gaming populations aren't going to be hosting cons for the most part.
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I have to admit, I sort of wish Paizo (or a licensed 3rd party) had some sort of "store kit" for store coordinators to use for PFS.
I ended up basically building one myself when I was a store coordinator.
hardcopies of generic reporting sheets, pregens, a copy of the most recent guide to org play, a copy of the rebuilding rules, current faction sheets, pen, pencil, extra dice, blank paper, a copy of First Steps part 1, some extra PFS #'s, and a "welcome to Pathfinder" blurb.
All contained in an accordion folder that could sit behind the desk at the game store, mostly out of the way. That way if individual GMs ran games that I wasn't there for or needed me to do something, they could just drop the reporting sheet or a note in the front of the folder and then I'd drop by later in the week to report or respond.
Pocket CRB
Pocket Bestiary
Dice
Custom Pawn Box
An initiative tracker
A set of wet-erase markers
A "Welcome to PFS" guide, which would include all of the CORE character traits and explain the difference the two campaign types.
A "How-to" Guide on registering and setting up characters on Paizo.com
A "How-to" Guide on Reporting for the GM/Coordinator
A custom repeatable scenario with it's own flip-mat map
A "GM cheat sheet" for running the included scenario with some examples of what a GM can do to mix things up a bit.
A "Retailer's Guide to PFS" which could explain the advantages of hosting PFS at the store (including new product quests / chronicles, assuming Paizo continues to do this).
As Paizo already has a beginner's box and a strategy guide, I doubt my ideal Paizo kit would ever happen, but it's nice to think about...
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Venture-Captain, Minnesota
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We make up little red "new player" folders. Each contains:
It also provides them a place to store those pregen sheets and chronicles!
Hmm
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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I've not seen a con produce a new player - cons are something you generally hear about and attend once you are already into the hobby.
I have. At PacifiCon, we saw a significant number of new players. It's too early to tell how many of those will translate into regular players at our game stores but I'm sure some of them will. And it doesn't really matter whether they are new to the hobby or not - they are still new to PFS.
In fact my wife and I were first introduced to PFS at a convention getting on for five years ago. We had almost no luck in the lottery the convention used to seat players at RPG tables - I only got a seat at one game on Saturday, while my wife got a seat at one game on Friday. So while my wife was playing that game I wandered the floor looking for something else to do. In one hallway I spotted a group of people clustered around what I later learned were muster sheets for upcoming tables. While I was trying to work out what was going on I was buttonholed by Painlord, and almost the next thing I knew I was seated at a table and playing "Black Waters".
The next morning I turned up bright and early with my wife by my side, and she spent the whole day playing through all three parts of "First Steps". I didn't join her at that table as I was signed up for a non-PFS game that day, but I did manage to play parts I & II. In fact by the end of the convention I had played at six tables, while my wife had played at eight (including the whole of the "Quest for Perfection" series where we played together).
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Define what you mean by 'intro kit' - a starter pack for PFS players?
I'd see it more for cons and events where PFS/Pathfinder could have a display stand and a couple of tables type deal.
A quickstart guide and a character, the sort of thing that covers off how gameplay works and a sample character - could easily bastardise one of the Beginner Box sheets.
The idea would be that said person could be greeted at a stand, be given the sheet ("Would you like to play a Wizard, Rogue, Fighter, or Cleric today?), then taken through a quest/encounter with a couple of other people and see how gameplay works.
Along with that:
A PFS Number
A Welcome to Pathfinder Boon
A Sheet with email contacts for the VOs and a page on where you can find our Meetup.
(Like HMM mentioned above)
You could even go all out and make a pile of the four minis required (Wiz/Rog/Clr/Ftr) and let them keep their mini as well.
The Magic:The Gathering crew uses a similar approach, and along with the bag of information (locations times etc) they give you a starter deck.
As I say, these stands are usually held at Comic or video game conventions, the aim is to build local growth.
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But that's not relevant to the problem discussed in this thread. locations with small gaming populations aren't going to be hosting cons for the most part.
Err, the cons I was mentioning weren't 'Gaming' conventions, they were more aimed at what I'd describe as 'associated hobby' conventions (Comics, video games, cosplay events).
The FLGS's have worked out that a lot of the con goers have an interest in roleplaying and boardgames, hence they have their stands there to drum up business - but the only gaming taking place is MTG at present.
No actual RPG's are being represented (with the exception of a handful of hopefuls trying to get a LARP going or something)
If you were running the con, then no, it wouldn't be relevant - as I mentioned - they'd already BE hobbyists.
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Define what you mean by 'intro kit' - a starter pack for PFS players?Along with that:
A PFS Number
A Welcome to Pathfinder Boon
A Sheet with email contacts for the VOs and a page on where you can find our Meetup.
(Like HMM mentioned above)You could even go all out and make a pile of the four minis required (Wiz/Rog/Clr/Ftr) and let them keep their mini as well.
At the Southern Lodge in the UK which has only been running a few months now, I have started putting together a "New Player" pack based on the journals from Lucas.
It includes:
Laminated New PFS number card - so it looks special and has my contact details and lodge meetup details on the back as well as paizo and PFS UK websites
A welcome to Pathfinder boon, which I sign and date on their first game played.
A pathfinder character sheet.
an ITS
A crib sheet of what to do after the first game.
magic item slot sheet
a map of Golarian
I am working on to improve this with Lucas' help.
Any thoughts?
Chris
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Many Venture Officers already do similar things i think, but it´s really expensive, because we print stuff on our own and takes a lot of time.
Now doing that for every Con and especially larger Cons is a bit out of scale for single individuals.
Like you describe it, it would be something Paizo has to do and they can´t be on every Con either or just send tons of stuff around like that to VOs.
Magic and similar Games like YuhGiOh are a lot more expensive i think.
And having a place on a ComicCOn is very expensive as well, that´s not something i would do. In fact, i didn´t even go to the ComicCon here for price reasons.
Something that so far has helped me most to attract new players is mouth to mouse propaganda. No matter if "hobbyists" or completely new people.
Positive feedback from friends and someone telling "i play that game, come try it as well, it´s awesome" is the strongest pull in factor.
In that sense, creating a positive atmosphere is most important. Wether at your gaming table or here on the board.
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Yeah it probably is out of scale for individuals (past a certain point) which is why I suppose Paizo would have to have a look at pitching in - but hey it's their business to do with as they please :)
I would concur that it would have to go to VO's as a central point for distribution.
Magic and YuGiOh can be expensive hobbies, granted, and the margins are pretty tidy no doubt, but it would appear the strategy of getting space at the cons (such as comiccon) works out for them - I am unsure of the pricing of getting a section to play with, and how that goes bang for buck (not something I have had to look into).
D&D have seemingly had success hooking into local public libraries who have been hosting events for them, which is pretty encouraging (for the hobby).
Word of mouth is always awesome, and I think that if you could match up the word of mouth with the kits described above, you'd probably get a good strike & retention rate.
I'm not a VA/VO, so just observing from the sidelines.