Gamers Plane Needs YOU!

"Ask not what your community can do for you, but what you can do for your community! - John F. Kennedy" - KCC
What are some ways that we can really get our claws into some of the people that pass this way? I don’t think PBP (or even GP) works for everyone, but we can make it work better for some, surely!

For myself, I could climb out of my hidey hole a little more often, and interact more on the Discord and the Forums here.

I could even be coaxed into running a beginner’s game, but their first brush with GP should maybe be with someone more reliable!

What can YOU do for Gamers Plane?

Awesome message, KCC. I should run an OSR game for beginners / those new to the community who have interest...

When I run a game, I insist on having some new players

In my opinion, the primary challenge here lies in the relatively small number of active games compared to platforms like Myth-Weaver and RPGCrossing. Furthermore, many games that do start on GamerPlaner are private, invite-only, or have spots reserved for experienced players with existing commitments to the GM.

As @runekyndig suggested, it would be highly beneficial for existing players to include at least a couple of new players in their games. This is crucial for fostering community growth and attracting new members if it's the goal.

I agree. But that's precisely why I also tend to include a couple of reliable players in my games. PbP and GP aren't for everyone, and if the turnover is too high, the game is over before it even starts. The GM also needs to have fun with their games!

What I miss here are more multi-GM, newbie-focused games like Tiny Intro. I think Psybermagi is doing a fantastic job in that regard. We should have more games like that, for other systems and settings...

I don't know RPGCrossing, but my experience on MW has been pretty much the same. In fact, I think it would probably be easier to find a not DnD/PF game on GP than on MW.

As for me. I definitely want to try running a game. No idea when I will have the time and energy to set it up, but it is going to happen. While I was never planning on excluding newer players, I guess I will make it abundantly clear, that they are welcome.

Good idea. RPGcrossing employs a similar system. It helps onboard new players by familiarizing them with the basics of PBP (play-by-post) gaming. This allows them to get their feet wet and experience PBP firsthand. Second, it provides an opportunity for GMs to assess a player's commitment and suitability for more serious campaigns.

Back to the topic though, I believe the question is what can we do for GP, not so much what you'd like to see.

I try to run games, I try to be a positive player in the games I participate in, I try to engage in some of the conversations here, I try to welcome new members.

You're absolutely right. One of the strengths of GamerPlaner is its diversity beyond just D&D games.

While I might have been fortunate in my experience on Myth-Weaver, can't compare with the smaller pool of games here on GP. I estimate there are fewer than 20 games advertised per month, and a significant portion seem to be private or never actually begin.

Sounds one and the same for my personal answer.
Host more game, and be more inclusive and not always invite the usual suspect who are already spreading their time between 5+ games.
Same

Before joining GP I used to go to IRL D&D club games. IRL you can't be expected to sit around for weeks waiting for a new game to open up and be invitited. New people are assigned a random table, they either create a character or pick up a pregen, and they're suddenly with the party in the middle of a random adventure. If you don't turn up one week, the adventure moves on without you. It relies on suspension of disbelief, but it works (for D&D).

Adventurers' League has a similar drop-in-drop-out mechanic.



The adventures were one-shots, and we used Sigil to explain the diversity of adventures. But it can get mad. One week there were LOADS of new people, and we had a party of eleven(!) heading off to fight an ancient green dragon. The next week, we arrived at the dragon's lair and there were only three of us, and my character was only a level 2 monk. That session was us begging a dragon not to eat us.

Are these ensemble cast games as satisfying as ones where it's the same tight-knit party throughout? Not quite, but people who are invested in the story keep returning so there's often a consistent core. So it'd be easy to be all snobby about how those sorts of games are less immersive or somehow shallower than the classic campaign format, and maybe that's true, but they're still good knockabout D&D fun, and that's good enough.

I've often been curious to see if I can recreate that drop-in-drop-out club feel type of game on GP.

That's actually genius @adam

I've been trying to encourage more conversation on the Forum! Granted, it's only been a few days of it, but it was a good point that we had moved so much discussion to the Discord. I haven't been a new member for years, so it's easy to forget that we need to make a good, active impression.

So let me combine Adam's suggestion with my own observations above and try to recruit some people to co-GM a Roll for Shoes game. We would use Tiny Intro's or similar meta-rules as an inspiration for our welcome thread and explanations of how things work.

Is this the place to ask other GMs to join me, or should I put an IC in the Game Tavern? I need to finish one of my games before I have any time to commit to GMing it, so it might be a few months before I can actually do that. But I'm here for the long haul, so...

I want to chime in again to speak my appreciation for those of us who are genuinely thinking of:
- ways to offer up more games (since one of the observations has to do with the relatively fewer number of games on this site, but then that's commensurate with total users I guess),
- ways to involve new/newer members (one of the most concerning statistics I believe is the significant percentage of the newly arrived who join a game but disappear just as quickly, not because there weren't available games to join),
- ways to have more established/private games, or more established members, provide the foundation for more people to be involved (we can't and shouldn't gatekeep a bunch of friends from turning up here to play a private game, but I hear us saying we hope to engage these people to open up their tables, meet new people, etc)

That's how I ended up on this site really. With a bunch of online gaming acquaintances. We were looking for a new platform because Rondak's Portal closed, and settled on this. No one was thinking to join other games, or even mingle. We just need a spare 'table' space, so to speak. I think some of them might still be playing that one table only. I've tried to expand and maybe give back.

So keep the altruism coming, and thank you in advance for it! I myself have not yet run a newbies-only game, in my mind a good mix of old and new is the perfect means to socialise newer ones into the community. I shall certainly think hard about how I want to run a new member initation game. (Obligatory call out to Psybermagi! Thank you!)

I intend to continue to run newbie call of Cthulhu games to introduce new players to the game and advertise off site to bring in more players on GP

My Hero•Girl•Sprite and B☢️MBSHELLS in Mullet Hell games are meant to be like a game of Gauntlet, where you have four character-specific controllers. When a player drops, another player can join as that character (archetype).

That said, my #1 goal as a GM is to entertain my players, so you won’t ever hear me complain about having little or no turnover.

Maybe something like... "every Monday a new mini adventure" run by a group of GMs sharing a world and using a simple ruleset. Give people priority based on newest users first. Get a game going, run it to completion for however long it takes, while yours is running another GM starts theirs the following Monday, and so on. Then start up another when that one's done. We'd need people dedicated to running, a system everyone can agree on (preferably something light and easy to run that doesn't require a ton of prep), and then to see if anyone actually bites.

I would be willing to co-GM this =)

I tried creating a Westmarch style game but to be honest it basically grew to big for a single GM to run attentively.Having a couple GM co-running a Westmarch game might work best. Each GM runs a story arc, then can take a break before starting a new one for available players.

One down side of Westmarch games is the flood of posts once they get bigger. Using permissions to isolate each active adventure group helps alleviate that. Just keep the recruitment and common staffing areas open.

One of the necessary factors getting players to work together is pacing. Perhaps a couple games with various pacing to allow various lifestyles to ask have access.

I migrated to the Intro format for newcomers and actually handed off the original game that had accumulated several players who wanted to continue playing their characters. I created a new intro game and the plan is to feed players that wish to continue playing to the older ongoing games. However as mentioned this does need support. I run the into and handed off Tiny Shattered to another GM but we could always use more help.

The basic idea of into games had been used before and there are discussions on how to run them from years back. I, or others, could add other genres and other GM could create additional "graduate" games that pick up players who wish to continue after finishing the intro story arc.