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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spectre72" data-source="post: 1575846" data-attributes="member: 18885">My 2 CentsWell since I come from Vermont which is one of the most gamer unfriendly areas I know of I will give you my 2 cents, and describe how we went from nothing to a group of 20+ MATURE gamers playing every month.It all started like ten years ago.I met a couple for the first time at a convention and we hit it off right away.Next year saw them again at another convention, and started talking about home and where we lived.  Found out we lived in the same town of 2000 people in Southern Vermont and started talking about how we wanted to play more often than conventions a couple of times a year.    It took about 6 months before I started making calls and planning to start a game as I was tired of not being able to play. We started off with 6 people. As it turned out, each of us knew one or two other people who played at some time or other and asked them to join us.  Each of them knew one or two other people and so on...After about a two and a half years we had gained through word of mouth about 20 players and our once a month game was split into a Saturday and a Sunday session because a single game had gotten way too big.Due to the play style of most of the people we do not keep anyone who I would consider a "Munchkin" for long as they really hate the type of game we play but for us old farts (30+ age range, married, and most of us cut our RPG teeth in the Red Box D&D days) it is what we want to play.Since most of us have been around RPG's for so long we have some exceptional DM's and many of us have experience playing almost anything you can think of.  Many of us also run events at local conventions and are known to play RPG's, Card Games, mini's, and board games.So now for my advice...1)  Attend local conventions and meet people there.  If the con doesn't have a player locator board out suggest that they put one out, and add your name and phone number with a description of the type of players you are looking for.2)  Set realistic expectations for mature gamers.  Gaming every week with a wife and children is not possible.  We have a set schedule of the third Saturday of the month for Group A, and the third Sunday of the month for Group B.  This way we can all schedule our hectic lives so we can game at least once a month.  Sometimes even this is hard, and I know many older players who will be turned off by a game that tries to meet more often than is feasible.  People also get fed up with ad-hoc scheduling and missed sessions so beware. 3)  Listen to people you know or work with and when they say they used to game in college make a mental note.  We have found that almost everyone knows people who have played RPG's and may be just as desperate as you too play.  This is the only way we have gathered more members for our group, and at points we have had close to 30 members in Rural Vermont.4)  Find a group and start small.  Add more people as you get settled in to a groove.5)  My final piece of advice is that if you can't find a group that already exists don't be afraid to start making phone calls yourself.  I had to do this and will never regret it, especially after several years playing with a dedicated mature group that has given me some of the finest gaming in my life.  A piece of me wishes that I could play 5 nights a week like I did in college but with work, home, and being an assistant fire chiefin the town that I live in that is something I would never find time to do again. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />EDIT: Forgot to mention we have no FLGS within a couple of hours drive from our area, thank goodness for ecommerce <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /></blockquote>

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