Quote from: Omega;814786Conventions tend to cost alot is one problem. They cost to host. And they cost alot to attend, even if it is just travel and hotel time. Unless it is very local.

Clubs don't face the same limitations, as they can often get space from libraries, schools, etc. And very local would be the point, if you're trying to recruit new players, who are only going to go to a local event; or better outreach into conventions that attract other kinds of fans.

Quote from: Omega;814786Conventions tend to cost alot is one problem. They cost to host. And they cost alot to attend, even if it is just travel and hotel time. Unless it is very local.

So start small, be local, be inexpensive, do not invite somebody who will charge you $10000 to attend as a guest, don't charge more than the convention is worth.

Star out with a Game Day at the FLGS or local gamer friendly watering hole. Build it up slowly and regularly.

The problem is not impossible to overcome.

FLGS are the nerd version of the local bar. They often provide a consistent and cheap space. As a store they tend to be open 6 to 7 days a week and often into the night. Conventions by their nature are not as often.

RPGs bring asses into the chairs for hours at a time to drink drinks & eat snacks. Clubs struggle with either dues to rent space or maintain reservations. Buying FLGS snacks (atop any RPG product) helps keep the lights on while avoiding club dues and reservation problems.

FLGS have casual access to consistent and likely interested fresh blood. Conventions are an issue of the right audience being offered too much in too brief a time. Club rented, or reserved, space tends to be consistent but rarely located before the right audience.

FLGS & RPGs should be quite symbiotic. The issue is maybe the socially inept crowd. But that's where you yourself bring "normal" people to the "non-alcohol" bar.

Quote from: Spinachcat;814732Games stores need the industry, and the hobby needs the stores. Good game stores that are community hubs are vital for promoting actual play. [Except for you, my good reader, and your group who has been gaming together twice a week since birth. Sadly, most of us are not as blessed.]

It's not only completely untrue, it's never been true.  

Look: in Massachusetts, west of the Boston suburbs (and discounting the comic shops that have a single shelf of d20 and no gaming space), there's a FLGS in Worcester.  There's one in Pittsfield.  There's one in Greenfield.  There are two in Hadley and one in Northampton, and if you thought that might be in close proximity to the UMass campus, you'd be right.  That's an area 50 miles by 80 miles, about, and has nearly a million and a half people, and anyone who thinks that gaming in this populous area live and fall on six widely scattered stores is nuts.  Hell, metro Boston has only three FLGSs with gaming areas, at this point.

And this is in densely-populated, liberal, gamer-friendly Massachusetts.  I'm thinking that someone dependent on a FLGS in Nebraska or Montana, and living outside the cities is behind the 8-ball.

I've never, in my entire GMing career (and my campaign's up over 175 players over 37 years, counting only fantasy), had so much as a single recruit from a gaming store.  My players have come from word of mouth, from collegiate gaming clubs, from collegiate SF clubs, from friends, from friends-of-friends, and in recent years from online forums and RPG meet-up sites.  I think I've bought two items from brick-and-mortar gaming stores in the last dozen years; everything else I've picked up has been from online.

Quote from: rawma;814738Why can't fan-run conventions and clubs work for the latter?

Running a convention, even a tiny one, is hard work and involves risks.

Sizable non-FLGS game clubs rarely occur outside of colleges unfortunately, though MeetUp has done a good job trying to help with this.

Quote from: Bren;814739We are using Honor+Intrigue a game I learned about and purchased online.

Please start a thread about Honor + Intrigue. I've heard several good word of mouth reviews over the past few years.

Quote from: jeff37923;814780But not all of them.

Anyone interested in starting a small local con should read that thread about Save vs. Hunger and then contact Jeff for more info.

Quote from: Opaopajr;814828FLGS & RPGs should be quite symbiotic. The issue is maybe the socially inept crowd.

The RPG crowd is no more socially inept than minis / card / board gamers. The problem I have seen from stores is RPGers play a long time and don't buy enough stuff to justify their presence.

Magic players are great because they show up, buy cards, play for a couple hours, buy more cards and leave. Then they pay extra money every few months for premier events and store tourneys. Same with 40k players.

RPGers can easily play for YEARS without ever buying a damn thing. They eat no more than the minis / card / board people so they are a net loss compared to those fandoms.

Quote from: Ravenswing;814853It's not only completely untrue, it's never been true.

Except you proved my point.  You have game stores in a symbiotic relationship with college game clubs which promote word of mouth. As those students graduate into the local area, they continue the gaming scene.

Online sales can displace game stores, but not without a price to the hobby.

Quote from: Spinachcat;814732Games stores need the industry, and the hobby needs the stores. Good game stores that are community hubs are vital for promoting actual play. [Except for you, my good reader, and your group who has been gaming together twice a week since birth. Sadly, most of us are not as blessed.]

Perhaps my naivity, but don't the overwhelming number of gamers play with their friends at home?  I certainly have never had any problems with putting a group together without ever meeting anyone through an FLGS, game club, or convention.  I just ask my friends and see who is interested.  Any particular reason that doesn't work in your case?

Quote from: Old One Eye;814958Perhaps my naivity, but don't the overwhelming number of gamers play with their friends at home?

Who knows? If there is real data on that, I've never seen it. Organized Play is huge, but how huge compared to home based actual play - who knows?

And even if true, where do the friends come from? Grammar school? College? Work? What about people who moved after high school or college?

If a gamer moves 500 miles away into Town XYZ, how does he/she find fellow RPG players?

Note I am talking about Actual Play at home, not reading a book at home or chatting about RPGs on forums.  We know that when people show up to an Organized Play event, they actually play.

Also, if we count the "home group of friends who have played together forever", what does that mean for growing the hobby? Does that group of friends ever really expand the hobby? Is that group a useful metric for anything beyond the group members?

D&D and Magic and Pokemon had explosive viral growth when they hit the scene via word of mouth. Kickstarter has exploded with word-of-mouth. The question for RPG hobby 40 years later is where does word-of-mouth happen now?

Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising. "Hey, try this, its great" is what any successful product / hobby / idea needs to expand.

We know Game Day events at FLGS do great PR for Magic and 40k. That's clear. We don't know if the FLGS can do the same for RPGs, but in theory, it should as a community hub, especially if the store has gaming space.

Quote from: Spinachcat;815001If a gamer moves 500 miles away into Town XYZ, how does he/she find fellow RPG players?

The same way they found people in high school, they talk to people around them until they find someone with common interests or a new friend who is willing to try something new.

Quote from: Spinachcat;815001Also, if we count the "home group of friends who have played together forever", what does that mean for growing the hobby? Does that group of friends ever really expand the hobby? Is that group a useful metric for anything beyond the group members?

D&D and Magic and Pokemon had explosive viral growth when they hit the scene via word of mouth. Kickstarter has exploded with word-of-mouth. The question for RPG hobby 40 years later is where does word-of-mouth happen now?

Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising. "Hey, try this, its great" is what any successful product / hobby / idea needs to expand.

We know Game Day events at FLGS do great PR for Magic and 40k. That's clear. We don't know if the FLGS can do the same for RPGs, but in theory, it should as a community hub, especially if the store has gaming space.

Snoogums absolutely nailed how I meet new friends and get some gaming going when having moved to a new locale.  

As for expanding the hobby; I fail to see how that has any bearing on my gaming.  I was too young to even know DnD existed in its fad phase, and the relative growth or shrinkage of the hobby has had no effect on my gaming for the past quarter century.  Not like there is any danger of society losing interest in fantasy and sci fi, so I will always be able to recruit some for gaming.

It does take the willingness to constantly teach new players.  My current group has a gent who learning the difference between a d20 and a d8.  I will never be able to put back together the great gang from my golden age of roleplaying of my youth, but the only thing that has ever stopped my from Actual Play are the times when I have chosen not to.

Quote from: Spinachcat;815001We know Game Day events at FLGS do great PR for Magic and 40k. That's clear. We don't know if the FLGS can do the same for RPGs, but in theory, it should as a community hub, especially if the store has gaming space.

This is the real challenge with RPGs in my experience: games like 40k or a CCG allow you to have pickup play and get a taste of the experience in a couple of hours maximum. They also have a strong visual component.

RPers seem to rail against this as a concept, however. If it isn't 5 years with a character you carefully crafted yourself it isn't true to the game. Look at all the vitriol expended against the D&D Starter set, a product designed so that a group of novices could sit down and be playing in a few minutes (though you have better results if at least one person has invested an hour or two to read the rules).

Once you have hooked them in with some Space Marines vaporising some Orks, only then do you explain army creation and the need/desire to paint everything yourself...

Quote from: dbm;815042This is the real challenge with RPGs in my experience: games like 40k or a CCG allow you to have pickup play and get a taste of the experience in a couple of hours maximum. They also have a strong visual component.

I have yet to see 4ok or a CCG with a pick-up-and play factor. In fact its taken me longer to grind through some CCG rules than it did to learn BX D&D. And with non-RPGs pretty much everyone needs to know the rules to be able to play. Or one person is explaining it all. Which is just like what can happen with RPGs or any game.

Quote from: Omega;815051I have yet to see 4ok or a CCG with a pick-up-and play factor. In fact its taken me longer to grind through some CCG rules than it did to learn BX D&D. And with non-RPGs pretty much everyone needs to know the rules to be able to play. Or one person is explaining it all. Which is just like what can happen with RPGs or any game.

I don't know where you are, but here in the UK Games Workshop had a store in every sizeable town with tables set up for skirmishes with both 40k and WHFB so people could walk in and try them out, with minions paid to be there and lead them through it. I use the past tense as things have dropped back over the last few years and GW stores are mostly in life support now. But it worked until the price gouging drove people away.

I'll agree that Magic is fairly impenetrable to me, but the principle still holds. Maybe it's more of a 'win condition' thing? You can explain how to win in 40k or a CCG and play a small game to completion in a timely fashion. With an RPG winning is much more nebulous and is a journey, not a destination.

Maybe we should try to convert anglers to RPers? It seems the most comparable hobby by that standard!

Well gaming at the FLGS is a low buy-in social thing with high aggregate of people with shared interests.

Libraries can be social, too. But usually you have to reserve a Quiet Room to game without disturbing other patrons, which then isolates.

Reserving public or club halls costs over time, unless you have a reliable in. And then there's set up time, bringing food, etc.

Restaurants and Bars and such are dependent on their grace, which isn't too hard. But it also bleeds into space with others who are either disruptive to, or disrupted by, your game.

Gaming at homes are nice, usually comfortable and quieter and controlled. But there's more planning and scheduling, more investment from the host, less serendipity of drop-in acquaintances, almost no pleasant curious stranger, etc. It's nice but insular.

There is a reason why public houses exist, for all sorts of interests. People like public places with low social obligation or investment, but reliable neighborhood mixing. And there's a useful grapevine news effect in them to spread along the fresh new thing.

Haven't you all traveled the club circuits in youth? It wasn't all about listening to top 40, or having the coolest speaker setup, or cheap alcohol with cushier seats, or that one special concert/festival. It was about that place where everyone got to know your name, or at least recognize you, that public space to relax, amble, check out the new blood, dish, swap the latest freshness & tips, walk in and walk out without people making a deal about it, and so on.

Maybe it is hard for Americans because we really are starved for public places. We got no real pub or plaza culture, unless you call the malls of the 80s & 90s the same. Maybe church and sunday brunch? No, still too insular than neighborhood. Pool halls? Applebees/Chili's/TGIFriday's/Sports bars? Dive bars?

In my experience, the main factor of gaining new players for RPGs is via already established players; those who already are involved in the hobby and recruit new players for their groups. In this context, products targeted directly at completely inexperienced players aren't that useful - rules that can be explained quickly and which are quite intuitive already fulfill the need of accessibility for most inexperienced players, but the mostly repetitive basic stuff à la "what is a roleplaying game" is mostly a waste of space.  

Other than that, I think that publishers and players have slightly different intersts. For the publishers, the qunatity of players is a main factor - the more there are, the more products can be sold, and the ideal is the collector guy who buys everything published for the game - it doesn't matter however if he also uses it.
For the players, the quality of the available players is much more important. You are not going to play with more than 5 to 8 people anyway, and for a good gaming group it is much more important how well each player contributes to the game (and how reliable they are). A small, dedicated pool of enthusiastic fellows who care a lot about their games matters a lot more than a large number of less motivated casual players.

Quote from: Spinachcat;814939Anyone interested in starting a small local con should read that thread about Save vs. Hunger and then contact Jeff for more info.

Yes, please do. I will help however I can.

I truly believe that tabletop RPGs need more advocates to show interested but inexperienced Players the fun and enjoyment that can be found in our shared favorite hobby.