Converting Non-Players to Players

Role playing gamers are not easy to come by for me. Maybe it's the years of staying home instead of going out that made it difficult; although if stereotypes mean anything the gamers I am looking for are probably doing the same thing, so even if I had gone out I wouldn't have found them. I am working on converting non-gamer friends into gamers. I accept that none of them are coming to my games as out of the box gamers, but I don't know that I was quite knew the amount of work I was setting up for myself.

Now I accept that my limited social sphere puts some constraints on who I can recruit to my world of imaginary adventures and dice rolling. There is a social stigma for RPG gamers. The phrase brings images like this to mind:

When in fact real world RPG players are not like that at all. They are much more like this:

Okay, okay, they are basically the same group of nerds. just older. There are a few key difference: the adult nerds can buy alcohol, know members of the opposite sex, and can actually afford the game books. This helps a bit to dispel that idea for some of the hesitant friends that one is trying to convert. I found that luring people with promises of pizza and beer to be a very effective way of convincing people to give it a try.

The biggest problem with converting non-gamers for me has been finding a time people can make it to game night. Trying to get a group of adults together on a set night that works for everyone is like trying to ask a group of people out on a date and if even one of them doesn't want to go then no one gets to go on the date. I've heard that just telling people a specific night is game night hasn't worked yet. I think I need to get more people hooked before I can just put it out there and expect a big enough turn out to have a decent game.

There is also the fear of newbie foibles to contend with. Those hesitations that prevent people from reacting as the character. I can see it on their face: that spark of a react that gets squashed by the part of their brain that is convinced they will never understand all the rules and don't want to make a mistake. That is a terrible horrible very bad no good part of your brain. You should kill it with alcohol or better judgment, either way just don't listen to it.

Sometimes a player will have played some RPG video games and believe the idea is essentially the same. It is not. In a video game for example, fighting a big baddy is usually just attack dodge attack dodge etc. That is not how it works in tabletop RPGs, or at least it shouldn't. Big monsters aren't necessarily meant to be defeated, running away from one won't ruin the story's progression, and just because there is a big monster someplace that doesn't mean it's the direction you need to go. Video game RPGs involve killing your way to someone who you can't attack that tells you which direction to aim your killing efforts next. If you wander off you find other places to kill things that lead to you getting things that help you kill things.

Fighting can be part of a story, but doesn't have to be the driving force of a story, at least it shouldn't be. It takes time for new players to understand that they are telling a story, if the story includes a retreat from a fight, or changing their plans to avoid fighting, or don't find anything at all to fight for an entire gaming session, it doesn't mean they've someone lost the game. It's a story, how it gets told depends on the player's idea of what the character would do in a situation and how well they succeed in doing it based on some some random dice. It can be the violent killing spree you want it to be, but that sort of play style should have consequences.

Changing the minds of people to get them to embrace a hobby you're passionate about is always a labor of love. Working to make my players embrace the idea that they are creating their character's role in a story, and not waiting for me to tell them what to do step by step, is rewarding when I see them understand their role in the story after the world reacts to them. It usually happens when the consequences of acting like brash dickheads to everyone comes back to bite them in the ass, but it's still rewarding when they see the world react to them instead of sitting passive before them.

The way the world reacts to character actions is what tells the story and prompts the characters to further action. This is what collaborative story telling is all about. The games only get better when the players understand. It only gets interesting when they understand the dynamic between their own actions and the world around them.

Poking things with sticks is cool.