Virtual game play recruitment woes

[Dawgmoah]

Reading the post by Talos, Play or not to play, made me think about my attempts at either finding players or a group to play with myself virtually using a virtual tabletop, mumble, or a site like Roll20.

Three times in the past six months I have responded to 15 posts seeking players or a game. And out of those 45 tries I received 9 replies. And out of those nine I had three actually play in my game at least once (one player participated three times and disappeared) and two attempts at playing in someone else's game crashed before takeoff. I was able to get one player who, though a beginner, is a quick study at mature.

So I was wondering: is this the norm for Internet-site attempts at finding games or player recruitment?

Has anyone had better luck, or just worse horror stories?

[NichG]

I have had much better luck playing online with people that I had previously played face-to-face with, but who then moved away. I think the best bet would be, rather than recruiting blindly, try to actually get to know people before inviting them to your games.

If you actually have some form of existing relationship (even if its entirely online) then I think people will tend to be more reliable. Finding people for that might require a bit of a different strategy than the 'Looking-for-games forum' type things though. Perhaps you could go to a specific game's community (if you want to run Shadowrun, go to the Shadowrun forums; if you want to run D&D, go here or Enworld or Paizo or whatever; if you want to run L5R, go to AEG's forums) and participate in discussion, get to know the regulars, and then invite people based on that.

Another trick you can do is make it clear you're tuning the game to what the players ask for. Instead of 'here is my pitch, want to play?' make a much more nebulous pitch and include questions that try to engage potential players into suggesting campaign elements. I think people will generally have a lot more dedication for something that they helped shape, and having something customized to your tastes is often a strong plus.