Attracting new people to gaming -- ideas and strategies

[DonTadow]

My thing is don't be as prejudice (not talking race) towards people. I believe even us think only a "certain" type play the game. However, in my gaming experience I have found that to be the farthrest thing from the truth. By being open about the hobby and not keeping it as an in the closet thing I've been able to draw in people whom I dont think otherwise would have been exposed to the game. I've dated four women over the last five years and all of them are still playing dungeons and dragons. I have had long time friends who will play in my pick up games. I've gone to six gencons and can bet I've gotten 10 people who would have never gone to go over that time, plus another 5 who plan on going next year.

I think wotc could have relly profited off of the lotr craze by marketing in mainstream media commercials relating the subject. If we the players and dms want the game to run we have to learn how to explain the game, not just teach it, you have to get them interested in it first. The best way to explain something imho is to relate it to something you know they know about and talk about the similarities. I often relate dungeons and dragons to the way cultures used to do storytelling and folk lore. It's a coopoerative story everyone takes a part in. No ones ever died from playing. I then let anyone intereted sit in on a game, alwasy havin an easy npc they can play if they want. I don't get too "into it" because you never awnt to make something so complicaed that it scares the player away.

I dont think the game is for everyone, but I know its for more people than we think its for.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

If you look back to the B/X/C/M/I sets, you see a brilliant way to gradually immerse players in the complexities of an RPG.

I agree that this approach is a good way to sell RPG rules -- and I mourn the demise of the plan to introduce kids to roleplaying with the Pokemon RPG, and then follow it up with a series of age-appropriate rules tied to popular franchises for each peer group, culminating in D&D. But one of the problems is that RPG rules are intrinsically a do-it-yourself kit and thus not the best product to appeal to new players.

Which is more likely to get kids into Britpop: a book on how to play guitar, or concert tickets? To draw out this analogy, concerts offer the immediate experience of live music, show you how you might do it yourself (you'll need someone to learn guitar, someone else on drums...), and are a self-supporting commercial enterprise, not a marketing expense that has to be paid for out of a music publisher's budget (or an industry-wide consortium*).

Gaming conventions can fill this role, and should do a better job of being inviting to newbies. Peter Adkinson is doing some great outreach for So Cal, like inviting school groups and running TV advertising for events that appeal to kids like Pokemon CCG and electronic games. You and I don't have those resources--but if you're involved with a convention or a game day, why not make sure that there's at least one RPG event designed specifically for new players or kids?

The cash tournaments Tinner mentioned could also do this. (I'm not sure if they have the same everyone-can-win appeal as poker, since D&D is a more complex strategic game that's not as dependent on luck and moxie; but they might be a good way to draw in people who've already mastered the ruleset & tactics through computer games like NwN or ToEE).

And Otherworld Excursions is designed to achieve this as well. There might not be masses of people who know that they want to play Call of Cthulu--maybe the complexity doesn't appeal to them, or they have a negative stereotype about gamers, or they tried RPGs and were turned off by a bad early experience. But you can't deny that Lovecraft has been an enormously popular cult author for over 50 years. Some of the people who read him in high school are now in a position where they might not have the time to learn how to play a new game, prepare a session, and get their equally-busy friends to all be in the same place at the same time. But they might be in a position where adventure travel is a good fit for their budget and their schedule.

As a "roleplaying concert", Otherworlds can offer such people a weekend in which they explore the weird, crumbling ruins of an abandoned naval installation, spend the night in a castle/luxury hotel that's supposed to be haunted, and use their imaginations to uncover the eldrich Lovecraftian horrors all around them. The number of people who become CoC players as a direct result of this experience will never be very large -- each weekend excursion can only accomodate six players, and most of them will probably already be John Tynes fans. But it's my hope that having things like this to point to will be very helpful in getting outsiders excited about what gaming is and can be.


* Check out National Games Week, whose "mission is to illustrate, to people throughout the world, that games are positive, social entertainment"; note the link about how to participate by hosting games.

 

[Rel]

Is there an innovation that allows people to peel back that mystery and engage the game.

I believe so

Mini-cam behind the DM's screen?

 

[fusangite]

I have a friend back on the West Coast who has received a number of contracts to run D&D and Mutants and Masterminds games for kids from community and youth centres. He started out running more traditional activities like chess or music clubs or just generally providing supervision and then, once he gained the confidence of the administration, ran quite successful clubs, introducing inner city kids and, more recently, kids on an Indian reserve to RPGs.

My own strategy: I lure my friends into playing RPGs by making gaming my main regular social interaction and designing games that might play to my non-gaming friends' interests.

 

[francisca]

Sadly, the RPGA seems to be doing little to attract new people. The companies themselves don't really see it as a collective issue. This leaves the individual gamer and to a lesser extent the FLGS.

I know of more people who have been driven out of D&D by the RPGA than have been recruited. It's only one man's experience, so frame it as such.

What to do to grow the hobby? My question is: Why? To what purpose? The cynic in me says, "Why should I be an unpaid salseman? So Hasbro can profit?" Seriously.

As was pointed out by Mearls, we don't need them, or any other publisher, for that matter, and I don't feel any need to go out and evangelize the game, just to make sure Wizard's little piece of the pie stays profitable.

I also can't help but think that many feel a need to bring in more players to assuage their own feelings about playing the game. Personally, I like playing D&D, and I'm perfectly fine with that. As long as I can find other people to play with, and I have no doubt that I can, I don't care if my group is the last D&D group on earth. I don't need mass-market acceptance of RPGs as a pastime to validate all the time and money spent on this hobby.

Now, having said that, since 2001, I've brought 3 people back to the game who haven't played in years and pulled in 7 more who never played before. One of the guys in my group spun off his own game, and pulled in another 5.

Why did Eric and I do this? Not because we felt some duty to keep the game on life support. We did it because it is a hell of a lot of fun, and we knew some people who we'd like to hang out with a couple of time a month and share the fun with.

That's the reason to recruit new players into the game. Recruit because it is a fun game, not because you are afraid that fewer players will lead to lower demand for new gaming material, thereby drying up that steady flow of new books and pdfs you are addicted to.

Actually, now that I think about it, there is one other reason. Support your local gamestore. There are exceptions, but most of the folk who run these stores are good people. In addition, many gamestores are locally owned, and it's always a good thing to support your local economy.

(wow, that came off grumpier than I expected. need more coffee....)

 

[DonTadow]

honestly in hindsight we need a good cartoon to attract chldren.

 

[nothing to see here]

Mini-cam behind the DM's screen?

Depends on how good looking the DM is...

I posed the question thinking more along this line...poker has always been a fund game to play (like D&D) if not a particularly fun game to watch (like D&D)...somebody somewhere came up with the genious notion that, in poker, if you could know what every player knows...the the bluffing and gamesmanship becomes far more compellinng...and they were right.

Now...what is the opperational barrier of D&D. I don't believe it is primarily rules based any more so than I belive Texas Hold 'Em is successful because it is 'better' poker than Omaha Stud. Neither do I believe that it has to do with lack of market presence. D&D is unique among RPG's in that it has good market presence (I reckon a brand recognition survey ont he subject would show a stratospheric gap between D&D and the rest of the pack).

The barrier that keeps outsiders from becoming intriguied with watching and/or playing D&D is it's reliance on imagination. To an outsider it's 5 or 6 people sitting around writing little notes, (possibly) talking in strange voices, and throwing dice. Without the context of imagination it is not hard to see why a non practitioner consider it socially aberrant behaviour...just as a non poker player sitting blind to everybody's hole cards would find that came horrifically boring.

Some people just don't have the natural imaginative capacity to immerse themselves in an RPG (though it can be learned). Some fear the 'letting go' that such leaps of fancy entail. What they need is an imagination aid.

Mass marketed minitures have been a step in the right direction. However, as far as I can tell, mintitures can only go so far as their fundamental 'toy' appeal -- while an imagination aid also carries, for some potential gamers...a relatively high social cost (it doesn't feel very adult)

we've been sitting on the technology for such an imagination aid for quite some time. They're called computers. Even relatively basic computer games in today's market place carry the kind of graphic and simulation technology that readily makes up a creativity gap. For reasons I cannot completely explian, computer games have also become acceptable as an 'adult' social passtime for large segments of the population.

The problem is that up to know computer games, while fun do NOT replicate the social interplay and creative diversity of a roleplaying game. Computer RPG utilities, conversely, strive to replicate the basic pen and paper experience without doing a lot to bridge the imagination-gap.

I believe there is a middle ground -- both in technology and market. A game/utility that allows people to construct the kind of characters they want, in the kind of world they want, with decent (not necessarily ultra-expensive cutting edge) graphical representation of each. The game would be designed to be run completely by an independant group either in one location or online. The appeal for users would be "make your own computer game/ make your own movie" and you could actually see the results on your action in more than numbers on a page.

For goodness sake we're almost there now. Neverwinter nights (while I never took to it) did a pretty good job of blending certain game experiences...and the explosion of mass-multiplayer games (also not my cup of tea) demonstrate the basic technology as well. Imagine a utility that, instead of plugging you in to the World of Warcraft allowed a group of friends to create and run their 'own' World of Warcraft...albeit with not nearly the glitz, glammer and bells and whitles.

not only would it be fun. It would be a hell of a bridge market into other roleplaying games. It could be your camera behind the cards.

 

[Buttercup]

The library isn't necessarily a great way to meet new gamers. I know when I tried to weasle in on a game as a kid, the college students I was introduced to let me roll up a character and killed it in the first round. Sometimes the problem is the gamers, not the video games.

Generally, I agree. But the After School Adventures program assumes that librarians will hand sell the program to kids they already know, and believe are a good fit for the hobby. The program assumes that a library staff member is DMing, which guarantees some control over behavior, membership and the like. In our case, the game is for middle school students only, requires registration, and is strictly G rated.

While I'd be happy to allow independent groups to use our meeting facilities, and in fact I already do, that's not what the Afterschool Adventures program is.

 

[Shadowslayer]

I've been reading this thread re: library programs for D&D and I think thats a cool idea. To go one better though...how about having WOTC sponsored demo days at some of the large chain bookstores that actually sell the books? I'm Canadian, and the only real "big" bookstores in my area are called Chapters, and all of them (or at least most of them thet I've been in) have a Starbucks attached, as well as a fairly large area of tables to sit and have your coffee. This would be great place for in store demos or contests. And the Chapters stores here seem to do pretty well with the D&D line, miniatures included. Anyway, I'm presuming that the chain shops in the States, like Barnes and Noble etc, are built from the same mold and would be able to do it as well.

I'm also of the opinion that, for RPGs to take off even more that they have, they'll need to focus a bit more on basic rules and visual representations like minis, dungeon tiles etc, just to increase the "cool toys" factor.

What I'd envision really is a meld of the miniatures game and the basic game. SOmething like what they've got, but with some nice dungeon tiles, and a cd full of additional PDF dungeon tiles that players can print off and cut out to create their own dungeons.

I think they need to do a "basic" game, as someone already pointed out, that goes all the way up to top levels, rather than the current one that is intended to feed them into the main game. If I didn't know anything about RPGs already, and someone handed me a PHB, Id probably take a look at the size of the book, then run the other way. Gimme the instructions on a couple pieces of paper or a small booklet please.

Also, I think if they came out with that basic game, they'd need to present it with the express notion of "this is how this particular game is meant to be played"

To expand on that, one of the problems I see when I'm surfing the boards is the "roll playing vs Role playing" argument. I think, and this is in my opinion only, this is one of the major problems in RPGs today...so many varying styles of play, even in one game, can be confusing for newcomers.

I think the core assumptions of the game, any game really, need to be stated plainly.
ie "either a player IS required to speak in character or he is NOT"
"either the player is required to act out a bluff attempt or he isn't"
"either the player is required to provide backstory or he isnt"

Understand, I'm not advocating one style over another. I feel however that the core assumptions cannot merely be assumptions...it should be stated plainly.

Hey, groups can toddle along and play any style of game they want, and are free to make up their own rules. But I've seen and met so many folks that believe the way they play is the only true way to do it. ANd even if they don't say it outright, they still believe it and it shows. And that's just wrong.

Game designers need to be clearer as to what the game experience is intended to be. This way new players just finding their style can say "well we added a rule saying you need to act out the Bluff attempt" rather than "Real roleplayers act out the Bluff attempt"

Kinda like saying "when we play Monopoly, all the Chance card fines and payouts go to the Free Parking square and whoever lands there gets it" I know lots of folks that play that way, but they'll freely admit that its not in the instructions, and they just added the rule to spice up the game.

Anyway, hope I'm making sense. I'll stop talking now.

 

[The_Magician]

I dont know if you guys know a cool marketing story about how a company (I think it was Wal Mart) studying its database realised that a good number of the people that went to buy beer also bought diapers. So they started displaying diapers together with beer to enchance sales. So I think they should do something similar with RPG products. Put some D20s inside the Cereal Box, a battlemat attached to a 12 pack of beer, a DM screen inside a Playboy magazine, a Planescape novel together with some Mountain Dew and a Monster Manual together with the Cheetos.