16 thoughts on “Hey guys.”

  1. As gaming is a social activity, it’s usually not something that’s easy to agree to do with strangers. Finding online groups to play games with usually means joining online communities and making e-friends first.

    tl;dr if people don’t know you, it’s hard to commit to sitting down with you for 3-4 hours a week.

  2. There are so many games now, and so many game systems, one problem I know I’ve had is that the four people who have heard of what I’m trying to run and/or are willing to try something new are scattered across too many time zones to ever agree on a day and time.

    At the same time, it seems like attention spans are so short that I can’t solicit for interest in one post, then poll about scheduling in another, and work out details in a third. One tactic I’ve seen is to solicit interest and create a group composed of those who respond. My usual tactic is to pick the best day and time for me, announce that like it means something, then say I can be flexible depending on time zones and schedules. Doing that across Google Plus and some Discord servers, I’ve put a couple of games together.

  3. 1 – Don’t say “let’s meet 4 hours a week!” Say “let’s play this game ONE TIME and if we want, we can keep going”

    2 – Diversify your ask. Did you ask your Facebook feed? Did you ask on Twitter? Did you Instagram your book and ask who wants to play? Did you try NearbyGamers or http://www.envoygateway.com/ ? RPG.net forums (if you’re not banned like me) or others? Did you ask people you know who are nerdy but don’t play RPGs? For US you might even try urban fantasy message boards, blogs, discussion groups or even romance fans!

  4. Jason Corley for many games I’d agree with your #1, but for most PbtA games the session zero defines so much about the game that’s difficult to do. Are you suggesting essentially running a one-shot and then doing session zero for those who stick around?

  6. I don’t disagree in principle, but I’ve found that people’s responsiveness pre-game-session varies a lot. Doing session zero by email runs the risk of leaving someone feeling excluded from defining the world and therefore less invested in play.

    Not that I have a great solution to this, mind you. Even when I’m successful getting an online game started, I feel like it was more luck than any skill of mine in making the pitch, promoting excitement and buy-in, or reaching the right people in the first place. Let me temper this discouraging revelation by saying I’ve gotten three reasonably successful online games off the ground in the last couple of years. Even when life intervened for too many players and we had to reset one game recently, everyone agreed we’d been off to a good start and having fun.

    Don’t be disheartened even if you get no response at all, and definitely don’t give up. At worst, wait a month or so and post again – new people may see it, or somebody’s circumstances may have changed.

  8. Ahh, that’s good analysis. My finding is that in any PBTA game worth playing, once you’re done with session 0, everyone is SCREAMING to play and will turn their lives upside down to do it.

  9. Yes it is true there are not many PbtA game listings on Roll20 or elsewhere.

    For that reason you might need to put on MC hat. A friend of mine recently collected a party of cool players for his game (within a week or so) so it is possible.

    I’d say you have to make some recruitment process, at least talk with people who want to join up, as there are people on Roll20 that have problem to learn that not everything is D&D.

    Be honest that you are new MC and plan short campaign, play, gather feedback, learn.

  10. Hey Jacob, coincidentally, I’ve also been looking for an online game to join.

    Did you find a group looking for players/GM? If not, would you be interested in starting one with me? I’d be happy to share GM duties with you or someone else if it helps.

    Let me know if you’re interested. (By the way, I’m in the US EST time zone.)

  12. Jacob Cool! I think some of the advice posted in this thread has been spot-on (e.g. starting small, keep it simple).

    I think if we can find 2 more players, that would make for a manageable online group (i.e. 3 players + 1 GM). To begin with, maybe a focused 2-3 session problem or encounter would give everyone a good opportunity to get a feel for the “fit” or “play-style” in-game.

    In the long run, it would be great if we could build a group with recurring meetings. In addition to Urban Shadows, maybe we can mix in some other PbtA or Indie games as well. Sort of like binge watching 3-5 episodes of your favorite show on Netflix; moving onto something else for a while, then coming back (and so on …)

    What do you think?

  15. Mike Espinoza Thanks for the interest! I’m still here looking for a few more positive responses.

    Generally the weekend is best for me – specifically Saturday nights (EST), although I have some flexibility; what does your availability look like?

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