A Zero Compromise Community: Invasion Strategy

Yesterday, as part of the RPG Blog Carnival, we explained the current state of the gaming community, and our idea of it’s future. But how do we get there? Well, like any good invading force, we have a plan:

Be more active at your local game store.

Being a game store is difficult. While it’s the local gaming Mecca, most gamers don’t hang out there. More roleplaying specific events should be held in game stores. There is not need to wait for our yearly excursions to game cons such as RinCon and PAX to meet up and play. Why must we wait?

How to get there:

Events should be organized and highlighted in a public fashion–blogs should talk about events in their local game stores, forums should create rally points around their events, and game stores make it easier to find these events on their page, adding a place for people to comment and organize. Facebook and Twitter can be used to make the these rally points easier for people to find. Finally, GM’s should take it upon themselves to create more one-shot adventures for the games they love and host them at local stores. Play for a couple of hours to get people interested in a new style of game. All of these steps will not only increase business for the industry but get more people interested in different games.

Roleplaying tools need to be intuitive and complete.

The local gaming store is a great place to game face to face, but some groups have members that live overseas or in different parts of the country. Online tools must be easy to use and emulate the tabletop experience. Map tools need vast amounts of textures and many easy to make tokens to allow customization by the GM and the player. These tools should be collected and organized so that products may ship with them, or readily install them without much player effort.

How to get there:

There is a lot of good software out there, but it needs help. People with software and interface skills need to lend their help to programs like MapTools. Map and Texture packs need to be consolidated and made readily available. Guides need to be written for using this software, and for combining other tools with it, such as Wiki’s, Skype, and Google Wave when it’s widely available.

Get together outside of the gaming table.

If we are to develop as a community we should spend more time outside of our hobby. Friendships are developed on and off the table, and it takes interaction to solidify these relationships. New people are needed as well. The community needs to be broadened. Interacting with non-players and different players will not only build friendships but strengthen the community as a whole. Think back to the first time you were introduced to games who introduced you and how did they do it? How did you meet them?

How to get there:

Monthly parties. Throw a party invite all of your gaming friends and non-gaming friends to allow them to interact. Setup activities that are accessible to everyone. Don’t plan the party around playing games, but plan it around meeting new people. If you do require a game, plan one that requires interaction and talking. Get people active and mingling with everyone. Try to avoid watching movies or having a visually distracting environment. Do some searching for tips on throwing a a great party.

Blogs as the Face of the community.

As hyper focused as blogs can be, there is more to our community then just new content and ways to improve games. Blog authors should be diving in to web forums, and spending time in game stores. As an aggregator, they can find the best content from all sources, and bring it to light. Blogs can direct people towards interesting conversations, even if it’s buried in a third party web forum.

How to get there:

Blogs need to be scouring the forms for what the community is talking about and then making posts about it. Furthermore they need to link back to the posts that sparked discussion. This drives people to where the conversations originated. This is also valuable because credit should be given where credit is due, and it gets the information out where people can easily read about it.

Discuss design philosophy.

Creators and players of games should be discussing design philosophy behind the games they are playing. This conversation should spark ideas on how to not only run games but how to design new adventures and arcs that fit into the scope of the game. As a negative example, the OGL for d20 suffered from a lack of scope. They never discussed what powers and abilities were appropriate for each level. How do you build a monster at a specific CR? How do you build a new race that fits in the prebuilt race?

How to get there:

Discussion of these topics, and publishing of materials that will aid community creation. Pinnacle Games, Inc should be saluted for their efforts on their forums to answer all questions in relation to their games. They discuss their design philosophy and share their thoughts on how the games should be run, and how to create the proper threat level for the games in design. If more game companies took this to heart, GM’s would be able to better create the worlds in which they play in.

Call to action: What ideas do you have for making the community better?

http://spyderzt.blogspot.com/ Spyder Z

I agree with throwing a “Game Night”. I used to run one a few years back. I’d found a local 24HR restaurant that was cool with a regular group meet up (So that there was a local “Safe” meeting place that stayed open late enough to be useful) and made an open invitation to my friends and their friends, and their friends friends, etc. :P. It eventually grew into a weekly event that brought quite the diverse crew together to talk, eat, game, and generally have a good time.
I kept it to Board Games, and generally only stocked my library with the ones that worked in large groups, and provoked interaction. There were quite a few people there that had never even heard of most of the games we played, but in no time they were having a blast with everyone else. By offering this in a safe environment, people were more likely to come, and as friendships grew, the outliers were as involved as the original group. I know that before too long, I wasn’t the only one brining new and interesting games to the table. ;P
The wonderful tie in to RP Gaming rests on the fact that the Original group was a Role Playing Group. So as new people came to play and socialize, Conversations about recent games inevitably came up, and having been brought into the group “Comfortably”, new players to be were more open to asking questions, and learning about another type of game that beforehand would have scared them off. You can almost say Board Games were the Gateway Game at this point. ;P
http://spyderzt.blogspot.com/ Spyder Z

I agree with throwing a “Game Night”. I used to run one a few years back. I’d found a local 24HR restaurant that was cool with a regular group meet up (So that there was a local “Safe” meeting place that stayed open late enough to be useful) and made an open invitation to my friends and their friends, and their friends friends, etc. :P. It eventually grew into a weekly event that brought quite the diverse crew together to talk, eat, game, and generally have a good time.
I kept it to Board Games, and generally only stocked my library with the ones that worked in large groups, and provoked interaction. There were quite a few people there that had never even heard of most of the games we played, but in no time they were having a blast with everyone else. By offering this in a safe environment, people were more likely to come, and as friendships grew, the outliers were as involved as the original group. I know that before too long, I wasn’t the only one brining new and interesting games to the table. ;P
The wonderful tie in to RP Gaming rests on the fact that the Original group was a Role Playing Group. So as new people came to play and socialize, Conversations about recent games inevitably came up, and having been brought into the group “Comfortably”, new players to be were more open to asking questions, and learning about another type of game that beforehand would have scared them off. You can almost say Board Games were the Gateway Game at this point. ;P
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