There's not much of a D&D scene to speak of in Tampa. I have plenty of trouble myself finding people interested in playing. My best luck has been finding people who have never played before.
It's been my experience that D&D is fairly unwelcome in Tampa. Most local gamers consider it too munchkin or too simple to rate as a "real game". Traditionally, there has been a fairly hostile social atmosphere towards gaming as well. The few gaming stores we have are pretty poor quality. They're more dabblers than anything else, making their money from whatever hobby fad is popular. Miniature games seems to have some popularity locally, but the most active group of gamers are the LARPers.
There's a huge White Wolf/World of Darkness following in Tampa. This is one of the larger factions that contributes to the D&D is for middleschool camp. It's nowhere near as popular as it was in the mid-nineties, but it's still probably one of the largest gaming interests in town. (Remember the Saturday Night Live sketches with the goth kids? They were supposed to be from Tampa. My favorite line? "Orlando is way more goth than Tampa." It's funny cause it's true.) I'm told there's also a pretty good Fantasy LARP crowd, but I don't know much about it.
USF has an
Adventurer's Guild that meets semi-regularly on Wednesdays at the campus. The club seems to ebb and flow with the tide of students. From what I've seen, they're more into strategic board gaming than RPGs, but I'm sure some interested folks could be found there.
There's also a
Tampa Bay Gaming Association that sometimes has a newsletter and has fairly regularly (mini)conventions. They also meet on Wednesdays at a local gaming shop,
Arena Games. Arena Games is new so I've never visited. I hear they're more of a Warhammer Fantasy oriented group.
Supposedly, there are two RPGA groups in Tampa (according to Poly), but no one from either group has ever returned my messages.
Tampa tends to catch onto trends pretty late in the game, so I suspect that in a few years there will be more interest in D&D. For now, your best bets are probably trying to pick up individuals out of the USF group or the TBGA or just find new gamers.
Of course, this has just been my experience. You may have better luck.
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