Do you find it hard to find games?

[delericho]

On the topic of the thread:

I don't find it terribly difficult to find players, as we have a website that we use to arrange things and we're pretty busy.

That said, we do find that we have limited success turning 'lurkers' on the site into active members - lots of people sign up, visit a couple of times, but never actually play, while we also have about a dozen members who are really busy and all playing in each others' games. We're currently trying some new things to help that, so it will be nice if it works.

 

[saskganesh]

Speaking for myself... no thanks!

Two reasons:

- The amount you'd have to pay me to actually make it worth my while is almost certainly more than you'd be willing to pay. Because either you'd need to pay enough for me to leave my other employment (and, since there's no real job security in paid-GMing, pay contractor rates), or you'd need to pay me enough to give up a very large portion of my valuable leisure time. Either way, we're not talking a few bucks an hour.

- Much as I enjoy my job, I did find that when I started doing it as a job, it was no longer something I enjoyed in its own right. So now I draw a fairly tight division between "stuff I do for money" and "stuff I do for fun". I could probably make decent money playing my bagpipes at weddings (the going rate is £120 for half a day's work), but since that's on the 'fun' side of the equation I would actually rather not. GMing is likewise on the 'fun' side; I'd rather not move it to the other.

Fair points. Now I do some things I like for money: I also do things I do not like. On balance I'd rather do the first thing, i.e something I like.

 

[Umbran]

Do people really not want to DM/GM ... for money? I am astounded.

I wouldn't. If I were running a game with major props or other investments, I might consider asking players to pitch in to defray costs. But I'm not going to move my hobby-enjoyment activity into a realm where I have to worry about it like a customer or client relationship.

Plus, if I asked for the hourly equivalent to what I get in my day job, it would be approaching prohibitive costs.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

The not paying attention thing is probably worth a thread on its own.

Yes we would really need a dedicated site to set up games, like Roll20 of Fantasy Grounds etc have, just without the need to stick to one platform. I do not think EN World could pull this off though as quite a few players only care for getting a game and not in forum discussions, and for some reason they don't seem to manage just to ignore what they don't want to see.

Yep, the platform dedication is a problem. I really want to use iTabletop, but the forums for setting up games there are dead. I've seen some of the other sites this week (spent a bit of time on it) and either they are platform specific, or not very useful.

And for me, add to the fact that I'm not exactly comfortable GMing again when I'm not acquainted with at least one member of the group already. Showing off some potentially rusty GMing skills (especially since I'd like to try to run new systems) may not make the best impression on a group of complete strangers.

 

[Lwaxy]

Never even heard of iTabletop, but then I don't do videos so no big surprise. I would give it a try maybe now that my tablet has a cam.

We could try to EN World the game searches but it is probably not so easy to convince people to search elsewhere than for her preferred platform.

 

[Campbell]

These days I pretty much only play with a tight knit group of friends who like to play a variety of RPGs, although we mostly stick to indie RPGs, L5R, and White Wolf games. We don't really recruit from traditional channels though. We are far more likely to bring in someone we're already friends with and teach them how to play then to test the waters with someone we don't know. It's much more about hanging out, engaging our narrative chops, and drinking some beer than gaming for its own sake.

That being said I would have trouble getting anyone in my current group to play D&D of any edition.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Never even heard of iTabletop, but then I don't do videos so no big surprise. I would give it a try maybe now that my tablet has a cam.

We could try to EN World the game searches but it is probably not so easy to convince people to search elsewhere than for her preferred platform.

iTabletop is worth taking a free look. It's really designed as a virtual tabletop, not an augmented gaming experience. You can turn any graphic into a background map, lay down square or hex grids, play music (either generally or in specific rooms and maps), use FOW, distribute documents and chat. Fair warning: It can be buggy. I think it's still worth it. One of the biggest draws it has for me is that you can individually adjust the audio on each other player in the game. No more of the GM being too quiet and the one guy coming in booming.

 

[WayneLigon]

The thing that has worked for me:
1. Creating a Meetup.com group, and describing what I want to run or play.
2. We start by meeting and playing at a neutral space, such as the FLGS. This gives you the opportunity to 'test drive' your group, and possibly divert any future problems very early on.
3. At some point, you will probably be comfortable enough with each other to move to a home situation.

 

[Agamon]

I'm in 4 groups, running two and playing in two, all friends outside of gaming, with only 1 similar friend in two of those groups, all playing different games. One group is online, the other three are ftf. And the city I live in has only 50k people. We've added 3 new, never played TTRPG people to those groups in the past couple months. So, no, I haven't experienced this problem, personally. Last year at this time, I was not in any RPG groups, and hadn't been for almost 2 years, but that was by choice.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I'd have to say that I'm not really looking, as I've been DM'ing for a group pretty much constantly since 2006. There was a break of a month or two when 2 players quit the group, but I got a new campaign started with 3 replacement players pretty quickly.

If I was looking for a game now I think I'd be able to find multiple games, but would have to turn them down mainly due to scheduling and/or location issues. I've got 2 (soon to be 3) kids. So that means that weekends are pretty much out. That leaves weeknights. On top of that, work, family and other interests really only leave time for a once a fortnight game.

Assuming I can find a group that can play on a weeknight, once a fortnight, I'd also need to play at my house so that I can help the wife out with the kids during the game if needed. So I'd need a group that live near me, or willing to travel on a weeknight to play in my game.

I've got said group at the moment, and finding a couple more players probably wouldn't be an issue, but I couldn't imagine finding a whole group and have them willing to play at my house from scratch.