Introducing new players and finding groups?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all

Bit of a more... nebulous thread. Is anyone else having REAL trouble finding games with new groups? As in, IRL games?

I moved to Cardiff, UK about 6 months ago for a PhD, moving away from the city I did my undergrad in. In doing so, I left my well established group of 7 people (8 including me) who loved 3.5e. They were part of the Uni Game Society, and of the 2 other RPG groups, 1 more was 3.x, while one played different systems.

Well, got here, with a world and a plan. DM for a group for a year, then rotate out and have one of them DM for a bit so I can play. Solid. Cardiff is a bigger city than my previous, and the Uni is bigger too. I should have no trouble finding a 3.5e group, especially as BRAWL ( the cardiff game soc) is supposed to be the biggest in the region.

NOPE.

Took me 2 months to form a small group. Lots of people were interested, but when they heard I wanted to play 3.5e (which was, in fact, the first line of the advert...) they just flat out said no. 5th is newer, better in their opinion.

The few I got were very green and... well... turns out, 3.5e is REALLY hard to teach to new people. Especially if they have seen 5e before in any capacity.

It didnt work out. It failed HARD. Im certainly partially to blame, but I cant shake the feeling that 3.5e is just difficult to teach, not because its complex (its not really any more complex than 5th for the players. Actually, arguably less complex with the archetype system to consider), but because they perceive it to be complex. Because character creation takes more time, or there are more numbers to add together. The fact that once its all set up, its just roll and add, and thus is identical to 5th seems to be ignored.

So I ended that one. I wasnt having fun, and if I am not having fun, well, its just not worth it. Tried to change a few things, but no. Reevaluated, asked some office friends, and they are up for a game. Great. Lets try again with people I know. "Right, its gunna be 3.5e" "oh, we dont want to play then" "uh, ok? Did you have a bad experience with it?" "No, its just too complicated"

Soooooo, Im running 5th. A system I have tried before and just... dont get on with. I really cant narrow it down, but its somewhere between not liking the bounded accuracy and chancyness of combat, the current lack of options, and the changes to spells and action economy. Also skills. Ok, so theres very little I enjoy playing with. But at least I give it a go. So much so, I am running a game. Yay me.

But, I cant find ANYONE in the area who has actually played 3.5e, let alone wants to keep playing it. And its driving me insane. Everyone hates a system I love to pieces. All the time. Ive become "That guy who likes 3.5e" just because I stand up for it when Im with my friends and they are on a rant about how bad it is despite never trying it. And they refuse to try it at all. Not even if I cut it down to Core only. Ive offered to pregen characters, play a preset campaign, even try to build characters for them individually to their requirements. Nope. They will never touch it. Nor will the gaming society.

The local gaming shops dont seem at all helpful, and asking in them has gotten me no information on local 3.5e groups. Just told to "Admit its dead. Join the weekly 5e league or leave."

And I miss it. Both DMing and playing. I have so many characters ready to go. So many things I wanted to try. Almost all of them impossible in 5e.

Is anyone else noticing this? Is this just a cardiff thing? Is this just a me thing? I just dont know what to do. I like IRL games, I really dont want to play an online skype game, but I am getting the feeling I am going to have to if I ever want to see 3.5e again.

[Mendicant]

I mean, 3.5 is pushing a decade since it was retired by WotC, it's going to have a slowly shrinking userbase.

Have you tried selling people (including yourself) on Pathfinder? I've found it infinitely easier to introduce to new players as everything's online and the third-party SRD comes with pictures.

It isn't 3.5, but it's far more amenable as a place to port your 3.5 stufffto than 5e is. Much more shared syntax.

[Azoth]

I know your pain man. No one near me plays 3.5, and those I have tried to convince to try it refuses. They usually site some outlier TO builds as examples of why not to play.

I eventually had to suck it up and start playing Pathfinder. Even that is running dry for me as I have developed a reputation as a "munchkin" in local circles. Funny part is that it is hardly for the builds I bring to tables, but instead theory builds I discuss.

Just remember forum standards are often worlds apart from most people's standards. Here a mount that can trip big T on a 2 and give it's rider +10 AC always is par the course, at most tables it is OP before putting a Wizard in the saddle.

[Darth Ultron]

Is anyone else noticing this? Is this just a cardiff thing? Is this just a me thing? I just dont know what to do. I like IRL games, I really dont want to play an online skype game, but I am getting the feeling I am going to have to if I ever want to see 3.5e again.

Well, people are people.

At least half of all people will, automatically, like whatever is ''new''. They don't overly judge the material, and just like it as it is ''new''. And though many say they would not just like something as it is ''new'', they would also be the first person to like D&D 6E if it was released today.

It might take a bit more work to find them, but 3.5E players are out there.

[GilesTheCleric]

I think the other posters have it right -- 3e is now a lot like 2e and older editions. There's probably plenty of home groups that have been playing it for ages and won't switch to anything else, but those are stable groups that see little turnover. Our community doesn't have a whole lot to help it grow besides our own efforts to recruit.

I think the problem might be in the folks you're asking to play -- even grad students are relatively young, and may not have been interested in 3e when it was in print. You may have to find a set of slightly older players. To do that, you have a couple potential approaches.

First, ask around here/ other 3e boards. There's probably at least one person online that's near you. Second, try extant club/ group meetup websites. I use Meetup.com here in the USA, and I imagine that it or a similar website exists for the UK. Third, keep hanging out at your FLGS and around campus. Eventually someone will be interested. It could be someone that's had to "settle" for 5e like you, or it could be someone that now plays MtG or Warhammer or something else since they couldn't find a 3e group. Both of those games are pretty deep, and probably draw a similar type of crowd as does 3e. Fourth, find an online group instead of an IRL one. Roll20 still has plenty of 3e/ 3.P games.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

I was able to make friends come to 3.5e with an index of half the base class("man, see what you can do").

Anyway you can try and search online.
We are looking for a DM if you are willing to play online(we are using roll20).

[Das_Tabby]

I know your pain
After I left my first group it took me a bit to find a new one playing 3.5, althoug I think that isn't 5e's fault, it was never released in german (ok, most 3.5 books weren't released too, but at least there were some)
I think DSA ("Das schwarze Auge" -> The Dark Eye) is the bigger "problem" here.
It's low fantasy and there are some people I know who play it and don't like D&D because Characters are so much more powerful... And they prefer DSA's realism (I hate it, fights take ages and the whole system is way to complicated for me xx)

Then again, if I found someone playing D&D it was almost always 3.5, never 5 and not even Pathfinder (although there is even a german srd online and a publisher in germany...)

[Zombimode]

Is anyone else noticing this? Is this just a cardiff thing? Is this just a me thing? I just dont know what to do. I like IRL games, I really dont want to play an online skype game, but I am getting the feeling I am going to have to if I ever want to see 3.5e again.

In short: nope. I'm currently in two 3.5 groups. The one I've started about 3 years ago, and the other I was invited to just last december.
And I'm sure that if I would suddenly loose both groups it wouldn't take long to find another 3.5 group - either starting one including introducing new players or finding an existing one.

And thats just Oldenburg, a not really large city in northern germany. I've made similar experiences in other cities. I was living in Köln (Cologne for those of you who get confused by Metäl Döts :smalltongue: ) for just 5 months. It took me less then a month to find players for a new 3.5 group.

So at least from my experience D&D 3.5 is still running strong in germany.

[Fizban]

I haven't had any trouble finding people interested in 3.5, it's getting them to commit and make time to play that won't happen. I'm not coordinating four people's random schedules and then pushing them to actually show up on the day and time that everyone happens to be available, but the only guy who I know would show up is the guy who was already in two other games.

I was actually thinking it'd be easier to convert people from 5e to 3.5 than it would be from Pathfinder, since Pathfinder is so glutted that 3.5 automatically looks weaksauce. While 3.5 isn't significantly more complicated for basic character creation, it is in fact more complicated. If these people can't even handle the idea of something more complicated than 5e's rpg hp and arbitrary skill checks, well I wouldn't really want them in a 3.5 game anyway. I'm here for tools and mechanics, and if you sneer at a system than can do more than final fantasy with a narrator then you can get out.

[Mendicant]

Also, have you tried recruiting any brand-new players? A few of my players for my last campaign had zero or almost zero experience with *any* pnp RPG, and thus came in without any preconceptions about which games are good.

[Albions_Angel]

Also, have you tried recruiting any brand-new players? A few of my players for my last campaign had zero or almost zero experience with *any* pnp RPG, and thus came in without any preconceptions about which games are good.

Yeah, thats not a bad idea. Not really sure where to start though. Everyone I know is either part of the game soc or part of my work group. The game soc guys all hate 3.5e, even if they have never played it. So cant go to them. Then there is my work group. I almost had them down for a game of 3.5e, before one of them swooped in and said "Oh, Id love to play, but it HAS to be 5th". Shes played before, and shes fun, and I couldnt really think of a way to say no. I tried. I said "well, I dont DM fifth. I Dm 3.5e. The campaign is all ready to go and I have vetted all the books. I know the system and understand it. And I have tried 5th and dont get on with it. So sorry, its 3.5e." Or at least, I got like 3 words into that when the greens looked up and said "Why 5th?" and she comes out with "Oh, its just so much better, so easy to understand, and the casting is great and all the classes are really well fleshed out and work right out of the box. And you can do ANYTHING. Rule of Cool is a big part of it. In 3.5e you were tied down with all these rules and it was so bad, just like 4th (shes never played 3.5e, and played 5 minutes of 4th...)"

I tried to stop her with "Its not like that at all" but I got told I "Love 3.5e too much and always bring it up when they are talking about 5th". Uh.... isnt that what you are doing in reverse?

But, by then it was too late. 7 more people who think 3.5e is too complicated. AND now they expect a lot of social encounters and using NPCs and actual weapons (like picking them up and swinging them), or getting their cart horses pregnant with druids. And either I am going to shut them down and make them unhappy, or I am going to have to think up everything on the spot because, yeah, shes right, 3.5e did stop you doing a ton of stuff with its rules, which was good because I didnt have to try and make up rules for wielding a halfling 2 handed. Instead I could go "point me to the feat you have that allows you to do that." and that was typically the end of it. And 5th is a lot more "Uh, well, WotC doesnt care about making the DMs life easy, so go jump off a bridge if you arnt prepared to run things off the cuff."

Sigh. They are all SO excited to play. I dont want to let them down. This is going to suck.

[Darth Ultron]

Sigh. They are all SO excited to play. I dont want to let them down. This is going to suck.

Well, when you play 5E and have to ''make up stuff on the spot'', you know you can just ''make up'' the 3.5E rules.

Really, if you *have to*, you can just homebrew any 3.5E thing you'd like into 5E.

I find it odd that people somehow think 3.5E has ''so many oppressive rules'', but people will be people. And I guess a lot of players came to 3E with the ''we must follow the Almighty Rules idea''.

5E did make the big swing back to 1/2E of ''not too many rules'' and ''DM's make up your own stuff as needed." You did this in 3.5E too, as despite what many people oddly think 3.5E does not have ''a rule for everything''.

In 5E you can stop ''crazy stuff'' in the awesome, classic way: just say it does not work. It is so beautiful. A player can whine and cry and say whatever, and the DM can just say ''nope''. And with no ''Almighty Rules'' the jerk player can't say ''you DM-player must follow the rule on page 43!''

So, you should be able to have tons of fun.

[John Longarrow]

Hmm...

If you are not having fun, don't do it.

If anyone wants to ask why, just look them in the eye and say "Because 5th edition is too complex, too hard, and won't be any fun! I just know it because I heard all these horror stories about 4th edition and 5th is going to be even worse!".

Then smile and say "Hmm.. isn't that what you said about the version I know? so if you want to run a game I'm up for learning it as a player. I'm not going to DM a system I don't know though."

If that doesn't get through I'd just drop it. Next time someone brings it up just say "Hey, I don't have a few weeks free to learn a new system right now. If you do, go for it and I'll be a player in your game though."

Hopefully they realize that it takes a lot of time to learn not only how to DM, but how to DM a given system. Kinda like learning how to program, then learning different languages.

[Mendicant]

If they want to play a "halflings as weapons" game and you don't, that seems like a disconnect in tone and style rather than system preferences.

There's no more system support for halfling chucking in 5e than 3.x, so far as I can tell. Probably less. If you're using the system as a way to enforce a playstyle you're doomed. Especially with adults. You'll only compound the frustration on both sides with a poisoned view of the system.


Anyway, you've got a couple issues here with your prospective work crew.

A: It's big. (7-8, right? Plus you?) That is asking for trouble with a squad of newbies. A lower-stakes game with a looser rules set like 5e might be a better bet here anyway, preferences be damned. This doesn't have to be forever. Which leads me to

B: as far as I can tell, it's made up of people you met fairly recently, yes? No more than 6 months ago? I suspect it'd be better to let this develop more organically. You won't get a dynamic like your college group right away, and a good-faith attempt to run a 5e campaign might let you get a feel for the players who would be willing to try 3.5, and who'd be willing to try something tonally different. More important, it lets you actually make better friends with them. "Albion my good friend who ran a fun campaign" is a lot more likely to pull a player than "Albion my coworker who mopes about some system that's a decade out of print."

You mentioned a 3.5 game that failed hard. What went wrong with that group, exactly?