Uncommon Preferences & Finding Your Group

[Micah Sweet]

When I read the OP, you popped to mind - I expect your taste for simulationism probably qualifies.

You're probably right. I find the best way to find players that suit your tastes is to make them. Provide a good introduction to your interests, focusing on the positives without ignoring the negatives. It helps if you'd rather be the GM than the player anyway. It also helps if you're willing to be flexible in practice and engage with their preferences sometimes as well. Most folks in my experience are willing to return the favor.

 

[Pedantic]

I should expand further about what I actually do like: my preferred kind of gameplay is presenting a difficult, open-ended situation (ideally several such nested situations, maybe starting at a strategic or political level, and narrowing down to a tactical scope) and then letting players with discrete, specific abilities find some way to string those together to find a way through it. My ideal game is essentially repeated heist planning, with the occasional mistake calling for improvisation during execution.

My players mostly like picking a character game and then playing it repeatedly. They want a variety of environments and situations in which to showcase the thing that their little guy does.

 

[GrimCo]

My tastes run to shorter campaigns, 8 to 12 weeks, not multi-year epics.
I like PCs to be heroes from the start.
I like steady small advancement.
And I still need to have a group where everyone can stand each other.

More or less this.

6-10, max 12 sessions and done. With scheduling conflicts, those 12 sessions can and do strech to 6-8 months of irl time.
Not heroes necessary, but at least capable enough. I also prefer horizontal growth, not only vertical.

I'll run mostly R rated games, and i prefer more grayscale morality and antiheroes or flawed heroes than boyscouts.

Also, i don't play or run games online. In person only, so regular use of water, soap and deodorant is condicio sine qua non (unfortunately, i played with some people who have let's say irregular hygienic habits). And since we are playing in person, there needs to be friendly vibe and some friendly chemistry between people in the group. They need to be people i want to genuinely hang out.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Whether a person has common preferences (say, wants to run D&D) or uncommon (wants to only be a part of GM-less games), I think the key to getting a solid gaming group is persistence. It took me years to form two stable gaming groups that have good players that get along with each other and consistently show up. Along the road, people left the group, or got booted. Sometimes I got frustrated. But I kept going through it all. I kept running my games according to schedule, without fail (unless I was sick or on vacation).

 

[Wendell_Burke]

Not sure what type of "uncommon tastes" you're talking about. Can you provide an example or two?

Ok, For examples, how about these....

"I do not want to play in any game where PvP (Player vs. Player) is happening." (When PvP is a common option in many games.)

"I only want to play with responsible and considerate people who will provide notice to the others in advance when they can't attend or will be late."

"I'm looking to play this specific older game that is no longer in print."


Keep in mind that these are just examples. Some may find them to be common in their experience, but that won't be the case for everyone.

How's that?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ok, For examples, how about these....

"I do not want to play in any game where PvP (Player vs. Player) is happening." (When PvP is a common option in many games.)

"I only want to play with responsible and considerate people who will provide notice to the others in advance when they can't attend or will be late."

"I'm looking to play this specific older game that is no longer in print."


Keep in mind that these are just examples. Some may find them to be common in their experience, but that won't be the case for everyone.

How's that?

Great! Thank you.

 

[Celebrim]

"I do not want to play in any game where PvP (Player vs. Player) is happening." (When PvP is a common option in many games.)

I would think that wanting PvP to happen is the more uncommon preference, in that probably one of the most common table agreements is no PvP and it almost never has come up for me post high school (and when it did it was with a young guy fresh out of college who thought it would be funny to betray the rest of the party).

 

[Wendell_Burke]

When I read the OP, you popped to mind - I expect your taste for simulationism probably qualifies.

I would say it does, though my point was not to focus on what qualifies as common or rare objectively. I'm looking to hear the thoughts and experiences of those individuals who have found themselves in the position of having a strong desire to play certain kinds of games or with certain kinds of groups, and who have been consistantly at a loss (likely for a long time) to find others who are interested in the same kind of games.

 

[Wendell_Burke]

I would think that wanting PvP to happen is the more uncommon preference, in that probably one of the most common table agreements is no PvP and it almost never has come up for me post high school (and when it did it was with a young guy fresh out of college who thought it would be funny to betray the rest of the party).

This, "that wanting PvP to happen is the more uncommon preference" is a subjective observation, and not necessarily true for someone else. This thread wasn't meant to invalidate the individual's preference or perspective, but to hear from them about their own experiences as outliers in the ttrpg community who have had great difficulty finding others who might share some of their preferences.