Quote from: Spinachcat;941229How do you build your home groups?

I started one with friends that I already knew.

Quote from: Tod13;941232I started one with friends that I already knew.

But then what?

Has it stayed stable? Has it been your only group? How do you deal with turnover?

Quote from: David Johansen;941126Anyhow, I always found the format incredibly limiting and frustrating.  Nothing you do has any lasting effect, nothing, not even that new bauble, a level or two now you'll have another.

That was how playing MMOs got me back into playing TTRPGs after a long dry spell. I enjoyed COH and WOW but kept finding myself comparing them to TTRPGs and how MMOs fell short in comparison.
So I sought out a local group via the Pen & Paper Games Registry.

I've never played in stores... but I did long ago put up a corkboard at a local store for folks to put up LFG notices... still with the intent of playing in someone's house, not the store.

QuoteI think the appeal of a lot of computer games comes from the little rewards you get every ten to fifteen minutes.  There's a sense of accomplishment but none of it will matter a week from now, you'll have move on to bigger and better things because bigger numbers are better.

Is the story true that Blizzard consulted with behavioral scientists when developing WOW? I'd heard than from a few different sources over the years... it certainly felt like that when playing it... and FAR more than COH did. COH was a game my friend and I could drop into and play for a mission or two and then quit... with no pangs. WOW created this feeling that you HAD to keep playing... and kept it up from different angles of the gameplay.

I don't recall looking down on MtG players for liking the game... but I did think the whole CCG thing was a bit of a scam. But most all the RPG players I know were big on it at some point.

Meanwhile, I still sense animosity coming from a number of historical wargamers regarding anything smacking of fantasy or scifi.

Quote from: Spinachcat;941226And that "knowledge" has become the basis of "gamification" being used in many other arenas. It's deeply disturbing.

You see hints of it in 5e. You get a widget about every level now. And some people bitched that this wasnt enough. They wanted to fix the "dead spaces" in classes and stat progression.

Quote from: Spinachcat;941229How do you build your home groups?

Call up friends. Invite them over to try a game. Some take to it, some don't. Pretty much been the same way since junior high.

Quote from: Spinachcat;941237But then what?

Has it stayed stable? Has it been your only group? How do you deal with turnover?

Generally there's a core of 2-4 friends that are always up for a game, others come and go. Synchronizing schedules gets trickier with age, but once a fortnight there always seems to be a time enough people can get together for a game, and in between those times there's wargames.

QuoteSTELLAR CONQUEST
THE YTHRI,
GODSFIRE
STARSHIP TROOPERS
OUTREACH,
SORCERER
STARSOLDIER
GREEN PLANET TRILOGY,
OGRE
MONSTERS-MONSTERS

I own and have played all of these. Some, like The Ythri and the Green Planet series only once or twice.  Others like Orge, Starship Troopers, and Stellar Conquest were played a lot. I just played a game of Sorcerer a couple of months ago -- first time in many years. I've never seen Venerable Destruction. Monsters, Monsters is a lot of fun, BTW.

I keep picking up groups on the rebound from bad DMs. Or in one case a dead DM. I inherited all his stuff simply because I was a DM. :eek:

Quote from: Spinachcat;941237But then what?

Has it stayed stable? Has it been your only group? How do you deal with turnover?

Stable, no turnover yet. One might be going off to grad school soon. We'll probably invite another friend to replace her.

But this isn't a one time thing. I've always played with groups of people I already knew, even when I was a player rather than GM.