GMs - what is your vetting process for finding new players?

[MNblockhead]

Both of these suggest a good genera follow-on question:

Do you vet people differently for games that are planned to be ongoing campaigns versus one-shots or short adventure arcs, and if so, what are the differences in your criteria?

Very different...IF I'm not running from my home. Before work travel made it impossible, I posted a flyer at my local FLGS asking people to e-mail interest in trying one-shots. I would e-mail the distro list announcing a one shot I was going to run. I did no vetting whatsoever. If someone turned out to be problematic in a session, I would just remove that person from the distro. But that, thankfully, was never needed.

When I ran one-shots from my home, I only invited from my circle of friends and people I've played with for some time.

My work and family obligations prevents me from running one-shots online these days, but if I did, I would just post to a find-player platform and run once I have the requisite number of players. I'm even less worried about online games, because it is so easy to boot someone if that becomes necessary.

Really I only seriously vet people that will join my main campaign or people that I will invite inside my home. The later for I hope obvious reasons. The former because I already have a great group for my main campaign. Why take a risk to bring an unknown into the group?

 

[Dumnbunny]

I don't have anything terribly formal, as it's something that's going to vary depending on the specific system being used, the group and its dynamic, my feeling for the potential player, etc. But, broadly speaking:

1. I'll ask about the player's background, what games (if any) they have played before, what kind of media they like, that sort of thing.
2. I'll describe the game I'm running, my GMing style and practices, the group dynamic, what players can expect from me and what I expect from them, etc, sometimes adding emphasis based on what they've told me in the first part. For example, maybe they talked about playing in low or no death-count games, talked glowingly about playing the same character for years, and I'm running something with a higher lethality. Or maybe they talked about character builds and I'm running a game where the PC can change in unpredictable ways without the players choosing it, such as losing a limb or becoming enlightened. Basically, I want to look for potential areas of friction and make sure they won't be an issue.
3. I'll outline my table policies, such as intoxicants are OK but being visibly intoxicated is not, no bigotry ... basically respect the home, respect the family that lives there and respect your fellow players. And if they start arguing about what "respect" means ... yeah, that's going to be a no from me.
4. I'll arrange a one-shot with them and the full group, probably replacing our usual play day with this one-shot. The purpose of it is to see if they're a good fit for the group, if the group is a good fit for them, and to give them a taste of the game being run. I'll let them know in advance that afterwards the players (including me) will vote on whether or not to accept them, and accepting them has to be unanimous. I can't tell you the problems I've seen when this practice isn't followed.

 

[MintRabbit]

Both of these suggest a good genera follow-on question:

Do you vet people differently for games that are planned to be ongoing campaigns versus one-shots or short adventure arcs, and if so, what are the differences in your criteria?

Hmm, not really? I guess my long-term players kind of vet themselves. The ones who really enjoy themselves make an effort to show up regularly. Those who aren't having fun or find the game less engaging kind of just... stop showing up. I organize short in-person campaigns when I really want to dig into a system, and I'll advertise for folks who have a harder time playing online. I suppose the biggest difference is that I'm catering to a slightly different group of people, but at the core, what I'm doing is trying to make the game accessible for people.

I have two long term games that happen once every few months or so, and two of the players in that game are my room-mates. Gaming with them is less about exploring the hobby and more about just kind of having something to do together that we all enjoy.

 

[schneeland]

I never join long term campaigns with folks I dont know. I start with a series of one shots to get to know one another. If things jell, then im open to the possibility. Thats it. I'll game with anybody once.

Mostly the same here. The only difference is that I don't exclude long-term campaigns right away.
But looking back at the groups I joined in the past few years, just playing a few sessions to see how things go still seems like the better option because it saves the effort of aligning on campaign preferences and the like only to see the group fall apart shorty after.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Nothing formal.

F2F in meat space, usually new folks are friends of someone already in the group and they get an automatic pass. However, if it becomes clear someone isn't great, then the person who brought them gets to let them know we don't want them back... We had an "evil Chris" and we left it to the person who brought him to let him know he wasn't invited back (turns out evil Chris was evil in real life too, eventually got arrested for trigger warning sexual assault charges).

In another of my games, 3 of the 4 of us knew the person, but even then we said to her that we'd try the first short campaign to see if she liked us and unspoken - if we liked her. She's turned out to be great.

I run a lot of games at cons, so no vetting really possible. Just try to have robust safety tools at the table.

Online, don't vet much either, since it's pretty easy to ghost someone who isn't working out - although I've not had that happen tbh

 

[Golden Bee]

For new groups, I enjoy this:

The Same Page Tool

(Hi, if you’re first encounter my site through this page, which is my most linked post, welcome! I’ve recently summarized the whole point of the Same Page Tool to counteract some of the…

bankuei.wordpress.com

 

[Eyes of Nine]

For new groups, I enjoy this:

The Same Page Tool

(Hi, if you’re first encounter my site through this page, which is my most linked post, welcome! I’ve recently summarized the whole point of the Same Page Tool to counteract some of the…

bankuei.wordpress.com

Oh, I had heard of this before, but never actually read through it. So, you use this when you are onboarding a new player to an existing group? Can you say more about that, if that's what you do?

 

[John Dallman]

I've been organising the same home group since early 1998, and hosting it until it moved online during the pandemic. I was in my late thirties when it started and I'm now in my early sixties. Two other people have lasted the entire course; various others have come and gone. Having seen the struggles of many other groups, I set some rules at the start:

1. Start time is 7:30 pm Wednesdays. Always. No variations. If you can't make it, you miss the session.
2. Two campaigns, running alternate weeks. Swaps can happen to accommodate predictable GM absences, but they are short-term, and we always revert to the established pattern; we never do a long-term swap-over.

The initial people were picked by me from people in the area I'd gamed with. Some of them knew some of the others beforehand.

We've recruited people by word-of-mouth, via the old Usenet group uk.games.roleplay, and at conventions. I don't think we've ever recruited anyone under thirty, and certainly never any teenagers. We've never thrown anyone out, although I came close once.

We've only had one person who was unreliable about attending. He has joined twice, and dropped out both times; his life does not seem to allow fixed commitments and he's not good at communicating, although he's good at playing a role and thinking of things to do once he's in a session.

Our recruiting criteria have been something like:

• Do they seem like an interesting person?
• Are they reasonably organised and sociable?
• Are they interested in doing long-term, challenging games?

 

[Professor Murder]

Honestly, it's more important for me that the other players at the table approve any new additions to their number. My players do the heavy lifting for vetting.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Honestly, it's more important for me that the other players at the table approve any new additions to their number. My players do the heavy lifting for vetting.

Yeah, the whole table really has to be happy with each other being there or most likely no one will be, sooner or later.