Quote from: enelsonHow much are the fees for your (any) gaming club? $5/month?

Approximately how many members?

IIRC, the Adventurers Inn had about 75 members who paid in $10 a month for membership. There was a problem with deadbeat kids coming in who hadn't paid their dues, but the old timers usually browbeat them into paying their dues or buying a lot of snacks to compensate. Nobody paid attention to memberships when an event was going on there, usually a Magic Tournament or RPGA Game Day.

As for creepy types coming in, you had to let people in before you could figure out if they were social retards or not. The really bad ones got banned ASAP.

There is a game club in my area.

It was founded by several people who wanted a place, other than their houses, to play RPGs, miniature games, and to LAN for computer games. They rented part of an old, dilapidated warehouse and were up and running. Over the years they applied for non-profit status, and made a few improvements to the place. There are about 20 members. $50 per month gets you partner status - the ability to make decisions and have a key to the place. $20 per month gets you member status, which means you can show up and use the club as long as someone is there to let you in.

It's a small group and everyone knows each other, so people leave most of their gaming books and supplies at the club. There are tables chairs, a small refrigerator filled with Mountain Dew, gas heat and a bathroom. It's still a bit of a dump, but a lot of members don't really seem to care.

The big draw is for married people, who have a place to go and game other than their houses with their significant others around.

The place could be a lot more successful if it were kept up a bit nicer. Lastly, one or two of the most vocal partners are disliked by quite a few people, and I know of quite a few people who won't join simply because they don't want to be around "Joe" and "John".

So, there are clubs around, but they're not for everyone.

As far as I can tell, most gaming clubs in Australia are centred around the major universities.  Though, depending on the policies of the club (and the university) members will stick around years after they've graduated.  Game clubs that don't have the "foundation" of a university backing them typically don't last very long.

They've had gaming clubs in the states forever. There was (at one time) a national club list, in fact. Most such clubs are centered around Universities (e.g., KUGAR in Lawrence, KS) or other social activities (there was an SCA group in Tacoma that I know of which sponsored a game club of sorts). The life span of the game club often seems to depend upon the social health of the institution that they're attached to.

University clubs are great. But I have had endless exasperation with clubs outside of school. Endless. It's the only aspect of the hobby that's ever let me down. The most obvious organizational structure for finding gamers, publicizing a GM's games, improving scenarios, playtesting rules, or establishing a group discount--just a simple local club . . . I've never seen one go more than 8 months or a year--unless it's associated with a school or a con or the RPGA. Frustrating.

Quote from: stu2000University clubs are great. But I have had endless exasperation with clubs outside of school. Endless. It's the only aspect of the hobby that's ever let me down. The most obvious organizational structure for finding gamers, publicizing a GM's games, improving scenarios, playtesting rules, or establishing a group discount--just a simple local club . . . I've never seen one go more than 8 months or a year--unless it's associated with a school or a con or the RPGA. Frustrating.

There was one in Topkea that did okay, though it was by invitation only and, thus, exclusive by nature. It lasted (as far as I know) about five years, though it consisted primarily of two groups, each of which swapped out GMs on a frequent basis.

Quote from: stu2000University clubs are great. But I have had endless exasperation with clubs outside of school. Endless. It's the only aspect of the hobby that's ever let me down. The most obvious organizational structure for finding gamers, publicizing a GM's games, improving scenarios, playtesting rules, or establishing a group discount--just a simple local club . . . I've never seen one go more than 8 months or a year--unless it's associated with a school or a con or the RPGA. Frustrating.

Organising geeks is like the proverbial herding of cats.

Maybe it's a Kansas thing. When I lived in Hutchinson, there was a general purpose sci-fi/fantasy/comics/games/marijuana club (kidding just a little) that I was able to whip into a brief Arduin frenzy. I moved away. They may still be around. Come to think of it, though, they were tangentially related to the junior college.

At KU, there was the aforementioned school club, and a tangentially related wargamery/grognard club that met at the comic shop on Mass St on Thursdays, when everything stayed open late (They used to let the Indians off the reservation on Thursdays--back in the old days). They were always good for some Space: 1889/Sky Galleons of Mars.

But since I've moved out here to sunny Colorado Springs, chock full of students, GIs, high-tech geeks--a gamer's paradise--I have seen rpg clubs come and go, leaving no evidence they were ever there. Wargame clubs have been more successful, but definately no where near as successful as they should be. I really don't get it. I outlined my frustration more specifically on the downtown flgs's forum a while back. I'd love to start a club in town, but I don't know what the problem was with previous, failed clubs. I don't have time to tilt at windmills at the moment.

Quote from: stu2000. . . a tangentially related wargamery/grognard club that met at the comic shop on Mass St on Thursdays, when everything stayed open late (They used to let the Indians off the reservation on Thursdays--back in the old days).

Hehe. I think you refer to the somewhat erroneously named "Champions Club" (they did play Champions, though they played a lot of other stuff, too) that met at the old Battlezone site, do you not? This was, at least to the best of my knowledge, the other Lawrence club (Jack and Don being the Game Masters by default, it seemed, though I think in its later years, a guy named Sam was also running stuff).

Champions club actually sounds right, but Battlezone doesn't. :confused:
Was it called something else before? I left Lawrence running in 89.
I was fed up with it at the time, but I remember it fondly.
A Yellow Sub and a few cold ones at the Crossing. Quarter schooner night at Louisa's. Man--sounds like that "not 16 anymore" thread, doesn't it?

The cool part was that I could arrange most of my classes on Tues & Thurs and have hours and hours to play. Social networking was never an issue. Now I run games and help others with games and get players to the games they need, and I'd love to network with a club. I'm not the only guy in town doing the networking. We should at least have t-shirts or something . . .

Quote from: stu2000Was it called something else before?

Yes, I believe so, though heck if I can remember what. Battlezone came later, then became a chain of stores in KC and Lawrence (owned by a guy  named Stu, ironically). Last I knew, the Lawrence Battlezone had moved way out West and then, about a year later, closed.

QuoteI left Lawrence running in 89.

Champions Club was still going strong when I was there in the mid-1990s (well, actually, I was in Topeka but games in Lawrence most of the time), thugh (as mentioned above) the FLGS had started to slide downhill toward impending closure. Gatekeeper Hobbies in Topeka gave it a sound drubbing at the end, there (I once commuted to Lawrence just for the FLGS but in the end, it couldn't keep pace with Gatekeeper).

QuoteI was fed up with it at the time, but I remember it fondly.

I sympathise, and truth be told, I'm not sure that my gaming has ever been as rich or plentiful as it was in the Topeka/Lawrence area.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkAs far as I can tell, most gaming clubs in Australia are centred around the major universities.  Though, depending on the policies of the club (and the university) members will stick around years after they've graduated.  Game clubs that don't have the "foundation" of a university backing them typically don't last very long.

That's my observation, too, which also comes from being in a few clubs over the years, and from helping to run a club... into non-existence.

As I see it, clubs compared to gaming with one little group at home offer three main things: a physical space to game, the chance of a variety of players, and the chance of a variety of games.

A club's first issue when forming is its venue. Is it a permanent rented space, like a shop? Then you need a good deal of money to start it up and keep it going, more than you can get just by passing the hat around to geek buddies. Is it a temporary space, like a neighbourhood house or church hall? Then it's cheap enough for a couple of geeks to keep going, but the membership will also be temporary, and the facilities not as good - people can't drop in just at any time, the "snack bar" and "games counter" will be carboard boxes with a smallish range.

In either case you have to ask yourself, "why will they come to my club rather than go somewhere else?" The easiest answer is "a physical space to game." Uni clubs do well partly because students at university are usually either living with their parents, or with non-gaming flatmates. So they don't have a good space to game in, and the uni club offers them that. But those not at university have their own places to live in, and spaces to game in. So what you often get is that people come to the club for a bit, then form a game group and say, "hey, let's just game at our place, why pay membership fees just for a table here."

What a club offers that a game group often doesn't is a variety of people to game with, and variety games to play with them. Game groups have more steady memberships and games played. But the fact is that most gamers prefer to game with the same people and stick to the same game for a while. So what a club offers they don't want. You do get them coming in when they don't have anyone to game with, but again - they form a group and leave the club.

Obviously clubs do exist and do well, but most I've seen here in Australia and also NZ fall to these problems, that what they offer - space, variety of players, variety of games played - most adult gamers don't need or want.

Quote from: Kyle AaronObviously clubs do exist and do well, but most I've seen here in Australia and also NZ fall to these problems, that what they offer - space, variety of players, variety of games played - most adult gamers don't need or want.

It also doesn't help that such a huge number of gamers are cheapskates.  When I was at uni, the campus gaming society was mostly subsidised by the Student Union.  And their facilities were provided free of charge by the university itself.  They charged $5 for yearly membership, which was the absolute minimum allowable membership fee as dictated by university by-laws.  Your $5 gave you a place to play every Friday night, access to the library of game books, and an outlet for meeting new gamers.  You were also entitled to a discount at the local game store.  It was a bargain.
 
And yet, collecting membership fees was always a pain.  People would lie and cheat in order to avoid paying their membership fees.  The management committee would have been happy to drop the membership fee altogther, but as I said it was mandated by university by-laws.  Clubs and societies were expected to do a minimum amount of their own revenue raising.
 
Poor university students struggling to pay rent and feed themselves?  Not really.  The majority of the members lived at home (rent free) and held part-time jobs earning plenty of money.  There was also a healthy cohort of non-student members who had full-time jobs.  They were cheapskates, pure and simple.
 
Trying to run a society for people like that, without subsidies from the university?  A nightmare.

Based on my experiance here in Knoxville, I'd say that a lot depends on the personalities of the owners/founders to determine whether or not the club is a success. This is very similar to the reasons why FLGS sink or swim based on their management, and how there will always be some unsuccessful FLGS owned by trust fund baby fanboys. My opinion on this is heavily weighted by witnessing the self-destruction of a couple of gaming business ventures that had everything going for them except for the attitudes of their owners.

First thing, don't be a jerk to your customers/members. I know that is obvious, but it happens too often to not be mentioned. The customers/members bring in dues and money to keep the place afloat so it behooves the owners to not go out of their way to piss them off.

Second thing, your business is not an island. Be nice to the neighbors in the area of the club. If your surrounding fellow businesses think that you are a good neighbor, then they will want to keep the club around instead of wanting it gone - and that can make a lot of difference.

Third, even though it is a club - treat it as a business. If you can afford a location than stay there, don't move to a location that you cannot afford (one of the reasons why the new co-owner of the Adventurers Inn ran it into the ground was that he insisted the club get renamed and moved to a location where the rent was five times more than it was originally). If you are being a business (even a non-profit), then obey the local laws on business procedures (another screw-up of the new Adventurers Inn co-owner was that he decided to not put aside a portion of the profits to pay the city and county sales tax, which ended up bankrupting them when the sales taxes came due).

I can think of some more lessons learned the hard way, but right now I'm hungry for breakfast.

One last thought. There used to be a game store with club space known as the Gaming Connection in Maryville, which was about 15 miles away from Knoxville. The owner was totally cool with the gamers who ran regular games at his store and helped bring in business. Often, if a game was being run, he'd give the gamers free sodas during play - a small gesture, but greatly appreciated by us. It helped to bring in customers who lived a few blocks away from the Round Table, who would then drive 15 miles out of their way to spend money at another store in another town for games. If you want to keep customers or club members, then provide good customer service.

Quote from: RPGPunditDoes anyone know of any place like this in North America?

Like these?

NerdNYC (see the links to the Gotham Gaming Guild and Recess event)
NerdSOCAL
The Game Loft