Finding a local group.

[Ranzear]

Seeing as the last time I played anything tabletop, third edition was just a hint of a flicker over the horizon, my tabletop group is long since dispersed.

How does one go about finding a weekly gathering of strangers potential friends with an established group to unceremoniously crash partake in high-quality tabletopping? I don't suppose theres a craigslist category I'm missing or something.


My last attempt was with siblings and their friends and was sorely beleaguered by both 'by the book' GMing and all but one of the PCs not understanding their own modifiers and complaining about difficulty. However, I did find my calling in playing nonstandard character archetypes, particularly of a "Charisma is not a dump stat! Wisdom is..." variety, and rolled to boast and intimidate on the first round of any battle (all I needed was blue hair and a badass cape).

Seattle-south area, if that helps.

[Knaight]

Some local gaming shops have an organization that could help, but what I've found most effective is getting people who share other interests to try RPGs, forming a group out of friends who already have.

Take the people from your last attempt, GM them yourself, and use a simpler system. I tend towards Fudge, but there are quite a few, and once they all get into RPGs, and understand what is going on, more mechanical complexity can be introduced, maybe by switching to D&D. Though you might find you like another system better in the process and skip that.

[bokodasu]

I've had good luck with finding groups on Meetup.com, and I know some people have found groups on Craigslist. Leverage that internet thing!

[Ranzear]

use a simpler system.
Forgot to mention it was 4e, which to me made 2nd look like a calculus course.

I've tried scratch DM'ing as well as premade scenarios and just didn't find the joy in it. Too often I wanted to railroad PCs into my own solutions.

To be honest, my brother and sister were a little... uninspired. Even in my cliche 'Elven Ranger' days I made interesting decisions like not taking Common as a language without any other elves in the group and roleplaying any disadvantage to the fault it was supposed to be (fear of undead is my favorite), leading to copious charades and passing out at the mere sight of a zombie giant rat. The DM chided us for not having a tank (and rolled up a Warrior of his own to serve the purpose), but my ability to instantly bust the morale* of most anything he threw at us made most encounters a breeze.

*20 Charisma, my only 18 stat plus Tiefling, Rogue for lack of a Bard class, abused the hell out of the 'alternative' CHR mods on all the rogue abilities. Was effectively untouchable to attacks of opportunity.

Giving Meetup.com a try, I think that about nails what I was looking for.

[Knaight]

Forgot to mention it was 4e, which to me made 2nd look like a calculus course.

I've tried scratch DM'ing as well as premade scenarios and just didn't find the joy in it. Too often I wanted to railroad PCs into my own solutions.

To be honest, my brother and sister were a little... uninspired. Even in my cliche 'Elven Ranger' days I made interesting decisions like not taking Common as a language without any other elves in the group and roleplaying any disadvantage to the fault it was supposed to be (fear of undead is my favorite), leading to copious charades and passing out at the mere sight of a zombie giant rat. The DM chided us for not having a tank (and rolled up a Warrior of his own to serve the purpose), but my ability to instantly bust the morale* of most anything he threw at us made most encounters a breeze.
4e D&D. There are a whole bunch of RPGs that are not D&D, including many much simpler. Plus, D&D 4e is very gamist*, for those used to videogames, simulationism is probably easier to swallow, as it makes much more sense. My advice, use Fate 2.0 for a while, see what happens. It also works in a mindset further away from kill monsters and take their stuff, which may well be necessary to further distance tabletop gaming from everything else.

Concerning point 2. Sure, but they have to shift out of the videogame mindset; you can only do what you are explicitly allowed to. It typically takes a few sessions to vanish completely, and its hard to tell what players are really like or really capable of while it is still there.

*I hesitate to use this term, GNS has some serious issues, and has the potiential to muck up an issue. But, provided nobody states that G, N, or S are the best, we should have no issue, and the subject isn't in any danger of moving to edition war, which is what usually stirs things up.

[Ozreth]

Well this site, as well as Enworld.com and Rpg.net all have forum sections dedicated to looking for real life groups. I would start there.

Also, the easiest way is to stop into a few local game stores (there are bound to be a good amount in seattle) and check out the bulletin board there for all of the looking for game posts (and there will be looking for game posts). Again, being in Seattle you are bound to find people looking to play.