Finding in-person games

[Retreater]

Our FLGS doesn't hold any D&D events anymore. Not Adventurer's League, not a game night. Everything ended with the pandemic and they never started again.

This is what happened with mine as well. I tried starting in-person organized play recently. It has been met rather ... lukewarmly? And by "lukewarm" I mean I've had my wife and two other players show up, and no one at all came to the last session. No one has even expressed more than a passing interest in it at the store.
I'm starting to accept that maybe we're just not ready to do this yet - if we ever will be.

 

[Blue]

This is what happened with mine as well. I tried starting in-person organized play recently. It has been met rather ... lukewarmly? And by "lukewarm" I mean I've had my wife and two other players show up, and no one at all came to the last session. No one has even expressed more than a passing interest in it at the store.
I'm starting to accept that maybe we're just not ready to do this yet - if we ever will be.

In my part of the US, there's still heightened levels of concern about the pandemic. For all my memories of playing at my library when I was a teen and later at my FLGS, you may be right that we're not ready - we don't have the critical mass - to move back to public forum D&D.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

In grade 7, My son wanted to play D&D so he spoke to a teacher and asked if he could start a chess and gaming club during lunch. Within 2 weeks he had two tables of 6 players playing D&D. Sadly, for the chess lovers, nobody actually played chess.

On their first 40 minute lunch-time adventure, they burned down the tavern. Classic.

 

[Retreater]

In my part of the US, there's still heightened levels of concern about the pandemic. For all my memories of playing at my library when I was a teen and later at my FLGS, you may be right that we're not ready - we don't have the critical mass - to move back to public forum D&D.

In my part of the US, most don't care about the pandemic. However, maybe the people who would be interested in playing D&D would be a part of the tiny fraction of people who took it seriously. Or maybe everyone found other hobbies during quarantine so their free time is already spoken for. (For example, my wife started construction projects; I started playing music again.)
I've been online posting in my town's board game and RPG groups, and there's no interest - both groups go weeks/months without posts of any sort.

 

[Mannahnin]

I suspect you may be right that gamers, as a whole, probably include a higher percentage of folks likely to take a pandemic seriously (all those jokes about knowing what it's like to roll a 1 on your save). We also probably have a higher rate of general computer literacy and ability to move activities online, as well as often having other hobbies we could switch to.

 

[Jmarso]

In grade 7, My son wanted to play D&D so he spoke to a teacher and asked if he could start a chess and gaming club during lunch. Within 2 weeks he had two tables of 6 players playing D&D. Sadly, for the chess lovers, nobody actually played chess.

On their first 40 minute lunch-time adventure, they burned down the tavern. Classic.

That is awesome. I had already been playing DnD for a few years at that point, but in 9th Grade my first experience playing Gamma World was at school during the lunch break. (Back in the stone age)

 

[5atbu]

Our FLGS doesn't hold any D&D events anymore. Not Adventurer's League, not a game night. Everything ended with the pandemic and they never started again.

Then ask them to...