My first group found me. They wanted to try this new "D&D" game that came out and were not the most avid readers anybody had ever met, so they came to me as someone who was considered a "gifted" reader in the elementary school we were attending. I was very suspicious at first, because these people had always picked on me. Now they were asking me to read all of these books, which they were going to loan me, and be a "Dungeon Master." I thought they were setting me up for something. Instead, they just wanted me to read everything in the books an dexplain the game to them, as they were having trouble understanding.
I gamed with that group once, then went out and bought as many of the currently available books as I could find. I introduced the game to the person I hung out with the most, then to other people I knew from my neighborhood. We were mostly playing one-on-one games, since that was all we could come up with (my friends didn't associate with one another really). I gamed in a few other games over time, including in a game with an abusive DM, who could have been arrested for some of his activities during sessions, and ran a few games, but never more than 2 players and a DM.
Eventually, I drifted away from the first friend I taught and had a huge argument with another over his cheating. So, I took his character sheet and went home. A few weeks later, he came to my house and sheepishly invited me to DM a game for him and some new friends he had met. Two new families had moved into the neighborhood with children who were gamers and he met them at the community pool. So, that afternoon, I DM'ed my first game with four players. It was great! Since the characters everybody brought to the session from their previous campaigns (and they were attached to them and didn't want to roll new ones, and since they were high-powered PC's), I ran them through Tomb of Horrors. The player whose PC I had taken immediately walked into the disintegrate trap at the beginning of the adventure.
After only a few months, we were playing every day. That group was my first "real group" and I am still in touch with 2 of the original players a little bit (see them at least once a year - they are brothers, 1 in the military, the other games at the FLGS) 21 years later. The membership changed over the years, but it was still basically the same group for 6 years. That is the gaming that I reminisce about now.
Back then, we met new players in school or at the pool (I worked there 2 summers as a lifeguard too).
Then, with the bad taste 2E left in my mouth, the demands of college and then marriage, then moving away from my hometown and getting a teaching job, I drifted away from the game and didn't give it a thought from 1993-1996. Sure, I occasionally looked through my old books, or created a character or two, but no gaming. Then, a funny thing happened. I noticed that some of my high school students were carrying around D&D books. They were 2E books, but still, these were teenagers playing D&D, a game I thought was a fad of the 80's and was now dead. These were the popular kids at the school where I was teaching. In 1997, after a few of them graduated, I ran a game for two of them. Then in 1998, my brother passed away and in 1999 my mom had a stroke. I had to find a teaching job closer to my hometown and ended up teaching at the high school I graduated from. Some of my former students actually game to visit and game with me after graduation. Then Hurricane Floyd hit while my wife was out of town for a few weeks and I was without power for over a week. I found a gaming store and discovered that a new edition was coming out, so I found myself invited to run a game in the store. So, in 2000, I found myself DM'ing again.
This time, all of my players came from the FLGS, except one who worked at the high school with me. One of those that came from seeing my poster at the FLGS was in my group back in the late 80's and another of that group played a few sessions with us. Eventually, one of my former students came to town to attend college and joined my group. After a few years, we moved out of the gaming store and only found players through either students that graduated from the high school where I taught or were players brought in by current players in the group.
Recenlty, when I made my transition to a more mature group (no players under 21), we had trouble finding players. So, I posted on sites like this and met most of my current group from one contact on a messageboard.
I think the ways we find players change with your stage in life and the available technology and resources available locally (is there and FLGS?).
My apologies for such a long post, but once I started typing, nostalgia took over.
DM
