Recruiting
Exciting news from your humble comic creators: We’re moving to Atlanta! I’ll be starting at Georgia Tech in the fall, aiming at a Ph.D. in Digital Media. While I try to figure out my dissertation topic (hint: it’s TRPGs), Laurel will be busy winning bread. It’s sure to be an exciting and no doubt harrowing adventure. Yet never fear, Dear Readers! The move will in no way affect our Handbook of Heroes production schedule. It will, however, affect the living crap out of our ongoing campaigns.
I look at poor Gunslinger there and I see myself a few months hence. Of course I plan to keep up with my current games. They’ll just turn into exercises in play-by-post or go online with Roll20. Insofar as I’ll be at a technical school, they may even go virtual. That said, there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll also be hunting for a new in-person gaming group, and I’m a bit out of practice at it.
I mean, how do the kids manage it these days? Am I supposed to make friends first and then convert them to gaming, or should I find gamers and make friends with them? Is nearbygamers.com still a thing? What about meetup? Am I better off poking my nose into a friendly local game store and sitting down for some organized play, or is it a smarter move to wallflower it up like an awkward freshman in the corner of my new school’s game club? Maybe my best bet is just to spin the wheel and check out the Looking For Group subreddit.
What do you guys think? If you were moving to a new city, how would you go about finding your next gaming group? Sound off in the comments, because I could use the advice!
REQUEST A SKETCH! So you know how we’ve got a sketch feed on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon? By default it’s full of Laurel’s warm up sketches, illustrations not posted elsewhere, design concepts for current and new characters, and the occasional pin-up shot. But inspiration is hard sometimes. That’s why we love it when patrons come to us with requests. So hit us up on the other side of the Patreon wall and tell us what you want to see!
Well,… I am not sure how much my Advice applies, since I am over here in Europe. I usually use the Blackboard in Game Shops, where you either look for People who want more Players, or you write a Card yourself and pin it.
Hm, as desperate as Gunslinger is, maybe he will end up in Team Evil? The poor little Guy XD
He alreadu auditioned in a previous comic, he just wasn’t cut out for it.
Ha! Well that would be some fun continuity. We never saw who he meant to use that love potion on, but it would be all kinds of amusing if he came back to the Evil Party with, “Hey guys. I hope it’s OK that I brought drinks,” and accidentally poisons them all.
The game shop thing is definitely an option. Laurel and I have been talking about Starfinder Society, so I’m sure there’s at least a little FLGS in our future. Is that blackboard thing common?
Well where i live it is, i suppose. There are also some Role playing Clubs, but well i don’t really play in them because, a lot of my RPG buddys told me that there are a lot of well,…. People that were not kindly spoken of.
Insofar as I’m moving to the American South, I believe the phrase for the sort of person you describe is, “Bless his heart….”
If i manage to go to ubc for my PhD, this will be a problem I’ll have as well. I was thinking i would first check if there is any ongoing game within the department, then check the school gaming club and nearby gaming stores. It will really suck stopping with my old group, but while when we did get seperated previously we did do alot of stuff on roll20, and it worked decently, it just wasnt the same, and im not sure if people will feel up for it some more when I leave.
On another note, the adventures of Zook Fnipper were sadly quite shortlived as he died this week. Turns out it wasnt a acid maze so much as a room with a teleportation square to a maze blocked by a pool of acid so my memory wasnt perfect there. After promptly falling in said acid as jumping is based on strength and zooks sucked, i was fished out by our sorlock for heaing, fought a minotaur in a misty maze while our sorlock and cleric invisibly fought a large group of minotaur skeles with lots of aoe and eventually some help form the monk and sorladin who were also trapped in the misty maze for a while with no minataur to fight. Found a magic grandfather clock and after aging he group 10 years while messing woth it with mage hand, found a moon stone. Our sorlading got a magic treasure sensing gold tattoo, which our dn later revealed was unfortunately by far the most boring of the various possible tattoos. Headed into a room with collumns representing the death of every party memeber who had died so far, such as our poor wizard who got swarmed by evil magic swans, medusa queen, and her ghost warrior, our genderbended wsrlock noble who got eaten by locusts, and my last guy, a dino racing cleric of luck who died after being blasted by beholder beams a dozen or so times. After racing past those and finding a secret door leading to a sarcophagus with a frowing sun hanging above and a jewel box cockroach on top, we opened it, stole a old queens scepter, triggered both extra heat from the sun and a mysterious black fog that hurt me and our sorlading and knocked out the sorladin, after heaing him aoowing him to escape, zook promptly opened the jewelbox, found a necklace of fireballs, put it on, and exploded as the curse went off, killing himself and almost killing the paladin as well. As the smoke cleared, a new column was seen with my tiny gnomes body at its feet, and his head painted at the top, with a nice explosion in the middle. Considering the igin possession i guess it was lucky to have even survived that long. I think my next guy will be a bardlock:).
Goddamn you’ve got some wacky adventures. I’m reading this massive thing at the moment…
https://www.amazon.com/Playing-at-World-Jon-Peterson/dp/0615642047
…and you’re reminding me a lot of the original Blackmoor game.
Any tips for a roll20 noob?
Remember that you can now send private messages to the dm easily instead of having to do something like text them or pass a note that other players can more easily notice, meaning that if you want to do a sneaky campaign with other players its easier since all that can be seen is that a certain player is typing, which is annoying often on even if they aren’t so its not that much of a sign unless it happens very commonly. Besides that not much besides try to learn how everything works because its easy to accidentally create problems in it from simple mistakes. Sorry that I didn’t give much, it’s been a long time since I used it.
You can https://roll-dice.com and see how it goes, so far the best virtual dice roller out there.
Use your local game store as a way to meet people, and then scoop the good ones for a private game. Offer to GM at the store, you’ll attract the table to you. You’ll deal with a lot of the reasons gamers have bad stereotypes associated with them, but you’ll meet plenty of nice people too.
So what are these bad stereotypes you’ve met at the local game store? Any archetypes to look out for in particular?
Many variations of “That guy”. Edgelords, Munchkins, rules-lawyers (Of the variety who want to argue the rules in their favor rather then ones who simply believe the game is best played by the rules. If they ask “This gives me disadvantage right” they’re probably not the bad kind) setting obsessives who get mad if you deviate from the Forgotten realm’s bloated lore, people who are “Lolrandom” or “Lolmemes”, people who are bringing their fetishes into the game, people who don’t practice personal hygiene, people who are racist, (To real groups, hating Elves is fine) other miscellaneous social disorders, and any combination of the above.
Grit your teeth, you’ll probably get one. Hopefully the good ones will come back next week, but the bad ones won’t. Give people a month to show their bad sides, and if none appears, get their contact info and invite them to your home group.
You make it sound so glamorous, lol.
Plan for the worst, hope for the best. That’s the Paladin life-philosophy.
I had to do this almost exactly a year ago. My local meetup is pretty active, but the tabletop games one was pretty unmitigated garbage. They posted recurring events for groups that were 100% full and not accepting new players, so after that didn’t work out, I just put it on the back burner.
Cut to several months later, and I’d established a friend group through a different meetup. I spoke with a few people who I felt would be receptive, got a group together, proceeded to have the party size balloon out of control, lost a ton of people who couldn’t commit, and then had a second group start with a different DM. It’s pretty stable now, and we actually have a sizeable pool of players to pull from now.
TL;DR I recommend converting friends into gaming friends, not the opposite
I wonder if the dudes in my department will be into trying it out… I imagine it will make water cooler talk a lot easier if they know what the hell my research is actually about.
You’re going for a degree in Digital Media… just keep your ears open in class. 😛
Seriously though, that will be where you are likely exposed to the most people for the longest amount of time in a day. When I moved for college, (I know, it was a tech school but) we also had a DMD program and nerds is nerds yo. Someone is likely to bust out a DnD comment at some point (though I admittedly don’t know about the typical classroom composition of a Ph.D. Course).
I myself did not join any DnD group (as I wasn’t super into it yet), but I made friends with others from one and still keep in touch to this day.
So I gather that you fall into the “make gamers out of friends” camp…?
I do.
But I have always been a bit more outgoing, albeit a bit shy at first.
I know that’s not for everyone though.
Hope ya find a good group lacking in “That Guy”.
Roll20 all day every day :V
Is there a best way to learn? I’m going through the built-in tutorial at the moment, but I’m scared to death that I’ll bore my group to tears with all the “Umm…wait. how did that work again?” when I actually try to implement it.
Best of luck to you in finding new players. Sadly we’re not in Atlanta, or my wife and I would definitely be numbers 1 and 2 in your group.
Well hey, we’ll be right there for Dragon Con every year, so I’m hoping I’ll have more chances to grab a one-shot with folks in future.
For me, I got into my groups using my uni’s Roleplaying Society, so it pretty easy. The bigger problem was my hometown, which seemed to possibly have a negative amount of gamers… and I have never found r/lfg very useful, tho maybe that’s because I’m not in the US
How does a large gaming group like that work out? When you’ve got 20 players, how do you decide who makes the cut in the next game?
I got lucky and joined a group on a whim on a roll20 lfg topic. Now it’s been 2 years and these guys are the best friends I’ve got.
All the options above can work but sometimes it’s simply a roll of the dice to see if things go well.
Alrighty then. Here it goes!
https://rollthedice.online/en/dice/1d20
3
How’d I do? Good group?
Leprosy… I don’t.. .. umm… yeah, great group!
I got in one game by suggesting dnd for a game at a local comic book shop game night. They taught me Pathfinder. I’ve been with that group for two years now.
Another game I got into was because I suggested the anime Made in Abyss would be a good setting for this kinda game online, and someone messaged me saying they had a campaign like that.
The third one is the one I run, with players from both groups
Crazy how distinct gaming groups tend to morph into one huge uber-group over time.
Good luck with your adventures! Both in the real world and in your games.
Cheers, Tim!
Good luck, if your quest is successful you will be rewarded with 1D6 new fellow players, at least one of them will be +4, make sure they are not cursed and dont spend all of them in the local inn.
Regarding today comic, lets feel pity for the poor gunslinger it is not his fault of the kid for being lame, dumb and naive. Luck to him that team evil always needs cannon fodder.
I’m detecting a certain desire among my readership to pair Gunslinger with The Evil Party. I may have to do something about this….
So… he will turn in cannon fodder? Well, in his case that is a improvement.
Remember: No gaming is better than bad gaming!
Well, I’ve only ever played on roll20, so unfortunately I have no advice on finding groups IRL.
I can help if you are getting into online TRPG, though. If you’re inviting new players to the table ALWAYS have session 0. Learned that the hard way.
Having macros written down on a text file helps a lot as well. Check the forums for that…
Finally, although character and monster tokens are nowhere as cool as the plastic miniatures, they’re a lot easier to make. There’s a site called Token Stamp for that.
Token Stamp… Ima be checking that out. Cheers, Doge Archon!
I think I’d look for a group by asking coworkers if they know anyone that is interested in playing roleplaying games. If I’m looking for an in-person game, that’s my easiest option. These days there are so many people playing tabletops that it is hard to go to a workplace and NOT find someone interested. And it helps that it can break the ice with a coworker or peer and get to know more about them.
Aside from that, there are always options on forum sites and the lfg-subreddit, like you offered as one way to find people looking for games in your area. I feel like that would make a great targeted advertisement actually: “Lonely gamers in your area looking to party up – click here”.
Sadly, I think I’m going to have to be without games for some six-months or so: when you’re in a field where people prefer to be off the grid (no pun intended) and outside, it’s hard to get people to sit down for hours at a time for a game. Maybe I’ll be lucky though. I dunno.
Given your username, I’m going to assume that you’re set up in a firewatch tower monitoring the health of some forest or other. If my guess is near the mark, then I suggest you drop a level in or two in Druid and teach the woodland critters to play.
Nah, I’m starting (finally) as a guide for an Outdoor Learning Center, and after a full day of hiking most people want to either read a book or relax, you know… things that don’t require much effort.
Probably gonna have to go Ranger for the Favored Terrain. And maybe I’ll pick up a trusty Trail Goat or Dog along the way.
First off, welcome to Atlanta! I’m sure you’ll love it here. It’s a great place.
I’ve never yet had to have the issue of finding a new game/crew in a new location, but I have had to do recruiting to replace players who have left. Fortunately, I could lean on the local board game club to find people, but I also used my collection of friends and other player’s friend groups to find people open to the idea (most of them had never played before). What I find is the more interesting challenge, actually, is helping the new player to find a character build that they both want to play and that fits with the party’s current dynamic and needs. (Being mostly Pathfinder rookies, they need some help in character creation anyways.) Since obviously we want something that synergizes with our strategies, compensates for our weaknesses and replaces the capabilities we lost when the previous player left about as much as we want the new player to enjoy their character.
You’re in Atlanta? Nice! Any local game stores to recommend?
As for filling out party roles, what do you most often find to be the missing piece that needs filling?
Unfortunately, I don’t go to game stores very often, so I don’t have a lot of suggestions there. Challenges Games and Comics seems pretty cool, though. (I bought dice there once.) http://www.challengesgames.com/
As for recruitment, well, usually it’s for non-damage-dealing-focused roles like healing and utility magic (not so much because no one wants to do them, but because 90% of builds naturally focus on damage). We’ve really never recovered from our Cleric moving on. At the moment, though, we are in the market for a healer/anyone capable of using a CLW wand without UMD, a 9th-level caster (we currently have 1 6th level caster and 1 4th level caster) and/or someone willing to put 3-5 levels into a class/archetype that lets them grant a teamwork feat (specifically Escape Route) to their allies. Stealth would be an added bonus. Fortunately, one of my potential recruits had previously expressed interest in a magic-focused class (specifically Witch), so that one, at least, might be taken care of.
(It has just occurred to me that over the course of this three-year campaign, the party has gone through (listing primary class only): 2 Monks, 1 Ninja, 1 Cleric, 2 Sorcerers, 1 Magus, 1 Samurai, 1 Gunslinger, 1 Inquisitor, 1 Bloodrager, 1 Cavalier and 1 Barbarian. 13 PCs, 10 players, 1 GM. Only 1 PC death.)
That’s some pretty crazy turnover! Are you guys doing a west marches style game or something?
It’s a weekly Rise of the Runelords, actually. What happened was this: First off, after the first year there has always been 6 players in the party (makes it easier when someone can’t come, as the DM can make enemies tougher easier than he can make enemies weaker). Secondly, we have one player who likes to switch his PC a lot (the Samurai, 1 of the Monks, and the Cavalier were all him). Thirdly, the player turnover is fairly well scheduled (1 player moved on after Year 1, 3 moved on after Year 2 and 2 after Year 3), and can be largely planned for in advanced. They also tend to happen around advancing from book to book, so there are natural shifts in storyline and location around there. Still, it does mean that we once ran into an NPC that the original party knew, but none of those PCs were around anymore, and that my character is now the central character of the story, as she is the only one who has been there for all of the plot parts and met previous bosses.
What’s interesting is coming up with in-story reasons for character departures. 1 left because she’d only been working with the party to escape from captivity (she was one of three PCs who were introduced having been captured by goblins, and so left once the party had secured that fort). 1 had as his primary objective the reclamation of a captured fort from ogres, and so left to maintain control of that fort once that was done. 3 PCs who all left at once when the plot shifted from hunting a cult in the city of Magnimar to following leads up into the countryside were left in town to continue hunting the cult there, in the ultimate example of splitting the party. Lastly, (and the one I’m the most proud of), our Fey-bloodline Kitsune Sorceress left right after we discovered a fey-heavy marshlands that was being driven mad because its Fey Queen had been violently murdered, and so the Sorceress stayed behind to calm the fey and eventually become the replacement Fey Queen for that area. It was a really nice ending for her, especially since her story had been that she had been a fugitive for many years and had no home to go back to.
I remain jealous of ongoing Rulenlords players. We made it to Hook Mountain before the game collapsed. I miss my hapless half-orc’s hopeless attempts at romancing Shalelu.
So far, I’ve found new groups in one of 3 ways:
1 – Find new friends that are also into TRPGs. This one is the hardest one for me, as it requires making new friends. Ones that I likely don’t find through my existing social friends, as those are unlikely to be interested.
2 – Browse through the metaphorical swamp of uninviting waters that is Roll20/Reddit until you find a group that clicks. This one is pretty discouraging and time consuming, but in the end has yielded great results for me.
3 – Persuade your existing friends to try it and hope they like it. This one entirely depends on your friends. It has not worked well for me in the past.
I wish we had a decent gaming store where I live, that would make it easier to find people for IRL games. Though even if there was, I’d probably be too shy and awkward to go alone.
The downsides are many it seems. The swamp is what I’d like to avoid. Sometimes it feels like going up to some random people in a bar and asking, “Hey, do you want to co-write a novel for the next year?” It’s trying to find chemistry, and that’s something that you just can’t force.
I started looking for my first group on r/lfg – there weren’t really enough UK based players on there for that to be helpful, but it did lead me to a local group on Meetup where I found my first campaign. It also lead me to a Facebook group for local gamers where I found our current Rise of the Runelords game – Facebook is actually pretty good for getting some idea about people before you meet them.
In both cases it was a good way for me to meet like-minded people and make new friends. We’ve had the odd player that hasn’t worked out, but generally it’s been good.
With regard to your questions on online gaming, remember that you don’t have to use every feature of every technology at your disposal. I played a one-shot recently over Discord, where we just all rolled our own dice and the DM sent us photos of a physical map she’d prepared. I’ve not tried roll20 and some of the stuff it does looks great, but if you have a physical character sheet and a bag of dice as a backup that can’t be a bad thing.
I almost wound up doing this PhD in the UK. I was curious what the TRPG scene is like over there. Is 5e still the top dog, or is there more German and Swedish influence?
Despite the fact that I seem to have a website, I’m something of a Luddite. Just old enough not to feel like a tech native, you know? In consequence, every time I start using new software I feel this weird compulsion to study it thoroughly before using it. You’re right though: A couple of webcams and a headset are all that’s really necessary.
Mostly I see people wanting to play 5e (I’m guessing thanks to Critical Role), and most GMs seem to want to run Pathfinder, 5e, or an obscure system for a one-shot or short campaign. There’s definitely a lot more players than GMs around at the moment, I think because a lot of new people are coming to the hobby and don’t want to GM before they have some player experience.
I’m in Atlanta, and one of the two gaming groups I play with is composed primarily of GA Tech grads. I write D&D and PF products (the ZEITGEIST and War of the Burning Sky adventure paths, among others).
I’m an alum of Emory University, and among the friends I went to college with I know there’s at least another three gaming groups. I play Magic at Challenges and know they have one or two D&D groups, though they’re pretty casual. Hell, we’ve got Dragon*Con here. It’s nerd central. You shouldn’t have a hard time finding a group in this city.
It was kinda by chance that I noticed your post, because usually I read the comic and not the comments beneath it, so I don’t know what style of gaming you’re into: highly immersive roleplaying, beer & pretzel hack and slash, narrative-focused, gonzo weirdness. I might be able to introduce you to a group that would appeal to you.
If you need any suggestions on game stores to check out, or if you want to meet some gamers at the bar My Parents’ Basement, shoot me an email.
Another comment gave me the heads up about Zeitgeist a few weeks back. Loving your campaign trailer. Rock solid marketing right there.
As for my style, Gonzo weirdness tends to be more up my alley these days, but I’ll play damn near anything. And yeah man, that bar looks cool as hell. I’ll drop you an email shortly.
I had pretty good luck several years back on finding a group of compatible weirdos on nearbygamers.com… Oh wait that was you guys! 🙂
Seriously though, it took a few hits to work but ultimately landed me the best group of friends I could have asked for.
Heart you, bro!