What are your recruiting standards for your F2F games?

[John Dallman]

For the group I hosted before the pandemic, it was best if someone was known to me, or another group member. I've also recruited people off Usenet (once it fell quiet, interesting people still sometimes looked at it). The group has been going since 1998, and we're mostly in our fifties or sixties. We do want people to turn up, or let us know if they'll be missing, and to have some degree of sanity and a sense of humour.

 

[Alexander Moonbeam]

"Hey, this is [name], a friend of mine from [work/college/the military/another gaming group/Fetlife]."

"Hi, [name], have some pizza."

 

[Mercurius]

It is pretty simple for me: either I know the person or someone in the group knows the person, and vouches for them. No further vetting is necessary. If the person comes and is a bad fit, further steps can be taken, but to get in the door, just being someone known by somebody in the group is enough.

Now in the case of recruiting someone unknown to flesh out the ranks, probably a few emails and a phone call are fine, just to get a sense of the person. I might say something like, "it doesn't matter what your political or religious affiliation are, but just so you know we like to have a few beers and make some off-color and occasionally non-pc jokes, but racism, homophobia, bigotry etc are not cool."

To be frank, I'd be very leery of joining a group that asked me to take a background check. I understand the reasoning of the OP, but it does set a tone of mistrust and is rather unfriendly. Further, emphasizing some kind of "probationary period"...that doesn't have to be spoken, but is generally understood that it has to be a good fit. I wouldn't want people to feel like they're on trial, even if the reality is that the first few sessions are an unspoken audition.

 

[pogre]

They have to be a decent human. That's pretty much it. Having said that, I let them know if their style does not mesh with the group - I owe it to them and my standing group to be honest and let them go. Never an easy conversation, but I have never regretted telling someone they will not work for the group.

Fortunately, I have not had to recruit for a long time. I am blessed to have lots of folks around who want to play in my games.

 

[jasper]

I am an AL DM I have no standards. Ok, you have to accept me butchering monsters names, your name, and occasionally forgetting rules. For the games at my house, it is generally first dibs when I announce the game on Facebook. But prior players have double dibs. Wife veto is automatic get out. But wife has not use her veto. But a few people will not come over due to not being able to handle my wife back talk, or my personal view points.

 

[dragoner]

F2F was pre-pandemic, at a pub, with a group of ~30 members; vetting is usually seen you around, or somebody knows them.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I think you quoted the wrong person. I'm not the one with a spouse who says I can't be trusted with women.

Its not a trust issue. Like I said, I'm not sure if it was even serious in each case; I just included it for completeness. In 18 years its never actually come up. IIRC, we've had about seven replacement players over the 18 years (counting guys who left and later returned as two), and around two failed prospects (one of whom later murdered his wife and then killed himself, which was a bit of a shock, to say the least).

But the truth is that we are exceptional catches, and the simple truth is that all men want to be like us, and all women want to be with us.

 

[aramis erak]

How do you pick replacement players for your regular face to face games?

This came up in another thread, and I think it warrants its own thread.

Until lockdown, "whomever shows up at my table and isn't a total «bleep»."

The joys of running at a store table. Still, I've gotten players for a variety of games.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

No weirdos. but then I ended up disqualifying myself and I went home alone.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

We have a couple of ground rules
1) No smokers. 2 members of the group have severe athsma and even 8 hour old smoke in clothes in an enclosed space can trigger a major attack.
2) No drinking at the game, and no imbibing right before - which isn't a big deal as 4 of the 5 in the group are teetotalers and we have found that any kind of altered state of consiousness (not including Mt Dew) to be detremtal to the fun.
3) unless they can control it at the table no people who swear a lot. The group finds it annoying.
4) No anti heroes or the like - if the game is D&D all alignements are good aligned. We all play to be heroes - our primary genre is supers. We like to be the good guys.

Yes, our games tend to PG or PG-13 level games

The new played gets a test run of a few session to see how they fit with the group; and the groups style.

My wife is one of the rotating GMs in the group, and the GM of current running game. So gender mix isn't an issue.