The Foot of Blue Mountain

Introduction

Games are going crazy over on the big purple OSR server, but not all is good in Camelot. A few people have expressed interest in running or playing games on the server but not being able to muster the playerbase for a game. I'm a pretty prolific gamer on the server, both as someone who runs games and who plays in them, so I wanted to type up a lightning fast guide to get games and people to play them!

1. Participate in the Community!

The NUMBER ONE mistake people make when they're recruiting in Big Purple OSR is neglecting the channels that aren't #looking-for-game. I like to compare it to a local game store. If you walk in and nail a poster to the corkboard without chatting with the people in there, no one's going to give a hot damn what you put up. If you're a local legend, you won't even be able to make it to the corkboard; people will be trying to get into what you're running on their own!

It's frustrating to want to play games and have to participate in a community beforehand, especially one that's digital and not physical, but it's counterbalanced by the fact that the community tends to be pretty good. Step One: Stick around and get to know folks before jumping into a game!

2. Walk Before You Run, Play Before You... Run

We're in a rare spot in the Purple OSR server where we have more referees than players, almost. Everyone runs games and wants to run their own thang. What is needed more than referees, then, are a bunch of elite gamers who like to play. That's where you come in!

Playing in people's games is fun (because you get to develop skills you wouldn't otherwise as a referee) and easier than running your own game (because all you do is show up) so it also serves as a nice test run for what you can handle when you eventually start to referee.

In the vein of self-interest, playing in games also gives you the opportunity to make friends and connections that you can't otherwise. I play with people on the server who never venture into the text channels; if I didn't play games, I'd never have met them!

4. Start Simple

Rome wasn't built in a day and neither should your table of elite gamers! Part of getting a table of people is getting people to show up in the first place and if you're running the weirdest setting known to man with a bespoke character generation procedure that takes an hour and a half you won't get nearly as many hits as you will running some D&D-Shaped thing with a handful of pregens and a classic module.

My advice? Take one of the modules you've bought but haven't run yet, grab a dungeon from that, and prep it. Then pick a retroclone you bought but haven't played yet and read it through. That'll be the basis for your game at first.

5. Timing; East Coast is the Beast Coast

When I said we had more referees than gamers, I was sort of lying. The Continental United States timezones (UTC-5 through UTC-8) have pretty good coverage for players and referees (as well as their 12-hour cousins UTC+8 through +5) but Europe and most other timezones suffer greatly from lack of players and lack of referees.

If you're running a game in a US-friendly timeslot, make sure to check out the #games-directory and the #looking-for-game channels to see if you're stepping on someone else's time. If you're competing with an open table that's been going for a while before your game, you probably won't get as many players (or any at all!).

If you're running a game in a Europe-friendly timeslot, make sure to have a few Europeans on your roster already (if you've been following rule 1 you should be able to name at least 2 Europeans)

Now of course, if you've got a few players who expressed interest in the game and the timeslot, you can ignore this and go ahead and start playing. This mainly applies if you're a fresh ref with no street cred trying to fly into the scene and start a game. I'm a pretty big figure and I still don't think I could muster up a table on Antarctic Tuesdays (because it's an awesome game!).

6. A good LFG post and how to use the @pickup gamer role

First, let's talk about the pickup gamer role. It's supposed to be for impromptu pickup games. Some people misinterpret the role as a "looking for game" role, and this can lead to problems because they'll ping it for a paid game or an ongoing campaign in another server.

Generally, best practice for the pickup gamer tag is to use it 12-24 hours before the game begins and then immediately before the game starts. This gets two groups: the people who are generally free at the time you specify but might need to make arrangements to attend, and people who are bored and on Discord at the moment the game starts and are thus free to game.

Neither of these groups will care if your LFG post sucks donkey nuts. Here's what you need in your LFG post to keep those nuts out of your mouth:

  1. A specific Hammertime timestamp (if you're on a computer, you can type @time and then whip out a relative time, something like "2 hours from now" and achieve the same effect as a Hammertime, but I prefer the hammertime website for the UI)
  2. A duration for the game. No one cares if your game starts at 5pm if you play for 12 hours, because that's too damn long! Try running for 2-3 hours. Anything longer makes the gamers SQUEAL.
  3. A short, direct pitch. Don't lorepost, post about the activity that will take focus in the game. Here's a bad example and then a good one:

Bad Example
Four score and seven years ago Abarham Lincoln Triumphed against the Zombie Hordes of Gettysburg. His lieutenant John Brown, broken and bleeding from the Charge of the Brute, called out to the Angels above for succor and in their grief they answered him, lifting him and the earth beneath him into a great tower made from the soil of Hallowed Pennsylvania that stands like a boner in the earth. John Brown was carried into heaven and with him went the spoils from the Zombie Hordes. The President called his Secret Service, who will be embodied by the players, to ascend into the tower of earth and rock to retrieve the spoils of the Zombie Horde for the sake of the union.

Good Example
A dungeon crawl in a huge rock tower that erupted after the Zombie Battle of Gettysburg. You play the Secret Service.

  1. A system. Just say "B/X" or "OD&D" or something along those lines, don't explain your houserules or anything. You don't have to justify being a system pervert. Bonus points if you have pregens; elite gamers love pregens!

7. Take Failure with Grace

Sometimes, there simply won't be anyone free to play. That's okay! It's not a reflection of your moral worth as a player, just a reflection of the material reality of a bunch of tabletop gamers. Try again the same time next week (consistency is key!) or reach out to specific people you know and ask if they'd be open to scheduling a better time for you.

When I run pickup games sometimes there's always a chance that no one shows up. Them's the brakes, just like scheduling games in real life with your friends.