Large-scale RPG club - Scope and Mission

[Alan]

Hi all,

If we were to start an RPG club, I think we need to clarify the scope and the purpose.  I don't think it'll be helpful to dive into mission statements right away, but elements of purpose might be useful to discuss.

What would the club include and exclude?

Age minimums?

Would the club only encompass all RPGs?  If so, would it provide energy and support to all impartially, or, say, preferentially to small press and independant games?  Should we leave D&D and WoD to their established support groups?

Would there be support for designers in the club, or play only?

Is putting on a con the most important element, or focusing on local, more frequent events?

[Mike Holmes]

I like the local idea.

One thing that I've personally found is that it's not always easy to play at home. In fact, I find that play at Cons seems more organized and focused simply because it's a more formal atmosphere. Sorta. I think most people know what I mean.

If you do theatre, you don't do it at home. You do it in a theatre.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we need theatres for RPGs, but it's often nice to have neutral, formal space to meet it. I was thinking that it would be cool if somehow an organization like this could find a way to provide such space.

Kind of a weird request, but just something that's been on my mind of late.

Anyhow, think of this as micro-cons. Maybe every Thursday night the club rents two rooms somewhere, and people come together to play whatever makes it on the schedule. Might be a pipe-dream, but if I don't put it out there, it'll certainly never happen.

As to age limits, I was thinking that a parent friendly function would be for the organizers to put tags on all events they sponsor like they do on moves and video games. Basically, I think all you'd need would be a Mature rating. And then we just say that no kid under eighteen gets into a mature game. Other than that, the club could organize events specifically for kids. I can see parent's paying a lot of dough to get rid of their kids for four hours at a time (and you can charge at least $10 bucks a kid; might need a liscence).

Mike

[Irmo]

I think the club should not lock out anyone out of principle, if for no other reason as to avoid giving an impression of elitism and being a secluded society. Rather than having a minimum age, I'd on the contrary argue that it would be terrific if the club could actively take care of kids and bring them into the fold eventually by also supporting more child-appropriate games. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean pre-teens. But there are games out there (RPG or no) that are appropriate even for young teens, and can gradually introduce them to more complex and more mature matter.

As for systems, I think for the reasons stated above, nothing should be excluded. As for what is actively supported, I'd leave that to the members. There's no point in saying "We want to promote system XYZ" if you find no one who actually does it. If ten people come together and want to form a WoD task force, regularly submitting WoD material (whether it's reviews, adventure suggestions, or NPC suggestions) to the newsletter, or stage RP rounds at Cons, you'd be nuts to say no. If anything, it's a way to attract people who are less familiar with indie games to the club, where surely eventually they will be introduced to indie games and see that there's more out there than big company games.

As for local vs. large-scale issues, quite probably, for sheer financial reasons, it will at the beginning be quite hard to stage anything truly large-scale. I think it is not just desirable but imperative to start on a local level, and to provide regular, not just annual, opportunity to RP. If people meet at a Con but don't see each other in the ensuing 12 months, there's not much gained. But if you develop a reputation of "Hey, those are the guys where you can go and RP every friday evening", people will get to know each other and develop regular contacts. It might of course miss the target a bit if people eventually start to play at home, rather than at the location set aside, I am not sure how strong the dislike for organized RP is, but given that people go to cons.... In any case, there should be an influx of people who CAN'T RP at home. (Parents don't allow it etc.) Once a certain number of people has been gathered, there will be enough money and manpower to stage larger events.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Luckily, in Alan's area, there is a neutral place to role-play - Cardhaus Games, where our Monday indie game night is played. I think that this night is actually a great first step on the road to a Seattle game club, Alan - you've done a great job organizing it.

To answer your questions, Alan, my ultimate gaming club - at its peak - would have the following:

- No exclusion of any game. However, it would be exclusive to role-playing; i.e., no wargaming, card gaming, or board gaming.
- Weekly game nights where anyone can show up and play a one-shot, or entire groups can come for their weekly game.
- A focus on play. In terms of support for designers, I would most definitely make that a lower priority than play. The only support I can think of that seems appropriate is the ability to bring your game to get playtested on the weekly game night, and the ability to publish articles about your game in the monthly newsletter. (Which brings me to...)
- A monthly newsletter. This would have a schedule of games (and other events), "classifieds" for people looking for a group or a specific game, articles, and adventures that might have been run at the weekly game night.
- A monthly social function. This might be dinner (or a 'revolving dinner,' where you go to five different people's houses, each with a different dish), a night at the bowling alley, a hike during the summer, karaoke, or whatever else.

[Ozymandias]

I like the local idea.

Anyhow, think of this as micro-cons. Maybe every Thursday night the club rents two rooms somewhere, and people come together to play whatever makes it on the schedule. Might be a pipe-dream, but if I don't put it out there, it'll certainly never happen.

One things to consider in terms of frequency, is if the club is going to be it's members primary or secondary source for gaming. If you're doing stuff weekly, you run a much bigger risk of club events competing for people's time with their home or events from other clubs. The Camarilla for example is it's members primary source for gaming so they do events weekly (at least) on the other hand the RPGA seem more to running one weekend long event each month.

In terms of a venue, the absolutley cheapest places to meet are at RPG stores or utilizing student centers at local college. (Which actually makes me think of another side note, a lot of colleges do have RPG-related clubs, which would for a great place to meet and recruit potential members.)

As to age limits, I was thinking that a parent friendly function would be for the organizers to put tags on all events they sponsor like they do on moves and video games. Basically, I think all you'd need would be a Mature rating.

Another caution is that we'll need some definite rules concerning player behavior in non-Mature rated game as well.

[M. J. Young]

Re: Age:

I'd suggest three levels of membership. The ordinary "adult" membership would probably be from about 18 up. (There is a note in the back of my mind that it might be better to record adult members at 21, or whatever the local drinking age is, because I know that there are gaming groups that drink a lot of beer--never been in one, but have heard it--and if that's going to be part of it, you want to be sure that it's a closed game.) There should be a teen membership that excludes from adult games but otherwise is open to anyone. There should also be a youth or child membership, which is available only with parental permission. I'd suggest that this is cheaper if purchased with an adult membership; that is, there will be some people who need a place for their kids to be while they're gaming, and others who think it would be good to drop off their kids there.

It also suggests that it might be worthwhile to provide a nursery, if the facilities support it. People could pay for babysitting services (it would be cheaper that way than paying a sitter at home), or could volunteer to watch kids once every so often as credit toward having someone else watch them on other nights.

Top Down or Bottom Up:

Actually, it might work well to work top down. The Christian Gamers Guild has several times been asked whether we had any rules regarding sponsoring local chapters (which we don't). If the people here created the framework for such an organization and then individually implemented it in a couple of local areas, it could spread as an already national organization. It would also lend some credibility to the efforts to start the local game groups, something like "Member, Forge International Gaming Society" (O.K., maybe FIGS isn't a good anagram, but you get the idea).

Location:

To some, this will sound crazy, but I'd wager most towns have at least one church that would be willing to permit use of their facilities for such a group, provided the group took care of the facilities and cleaned up afterward. I've had a good chat with the Methodist minister up the street from me, who use to play D&D back in Seminary. I know that the Presbyterian church I attended in High School had many years before insisted on letting the local Jewish congregation meet in their social hall on Saturdays while the synagogue was being constructed. Roman Catholic churches often open their facilities for community organizations. This would be a very cheap (often free) option, and would generally provide a lot of space. Boy Scout troops often use churches, as do many other groups.

You might also investigate a local Masonic Lodge; they might be open to it.

Volunteers:

They use to say in radio you get paid in prestige. In some of the successful civic organizations (Masons brings this to mind) members increase in position in the group not over time but through working within it. Hey, we've got our legacy of experience points--members could advance to higher levels by working to keep it going. All that really matters is that these bits of information are published. Note that the boy who earns his Bobcat badge (lowest rank in cub scouts) gets honored as much as the one who gets his Arrow of Light (highest rank) at the moment he achieves it, but the AoL boy has more respect generally. That is, if there are levels, posting the announcement of who "advanced" this past month would give them the attention, while keeping a record of level would reward those who have reached higher levels.

It may seem like a silly idea, but it's probably quite workable.

--M. J. Young

[Matt Wilson]

Based on the success of the Monday indie game, and building on Clinton's comments, I'd want to take steps to make sure that the Monday game doesn't become a campaign of any kind, and that it's a constantly different game. I think it's less awareness building if people plan on showing up for this week's D&D one-shot.

It would be great, on the other hand, if through the weekly Indie games people were able to find other gamers they enjoyed gaming with and start new games on other weeknights. And those success stories go into the newsletter as well.

But as long as the weekly club game keeps itself interesting, people won't show up just to find new players and then disappear when they fill their upcoming game.

[Irmo]

Re: Age:

I'd suggest three levels of membership. The ordinary "adult" membership would probably be from about 18 up. (There is a note in the back of my mind that it might be better to record adult members at 21, or whatever the local drinking age is, because I know that there are gaming groups that drink a lot of beer--never been in one, but have heard it--and if that's going to be part of it, you want to be sure that it's a closed game.) There should be a teen membership that excludes from adult games but otherwise is open to anyone. There should also be a youth or child membership, which is available only with parental permission. I'd suggest that this is cheaper if purchased with an adult membership; that is, there will be some people who need a place for their kids to be while they're gaming, and others who think it would be good to drop off their kids there. [/b]

I'd assume the drinking issue is one that could be handled locally. Depending on the location, it might not be an issue at all, e.g. if the location does not allow the consumption of alcoholic beverages on its premises.

To some, this will sound crazy, but I'd wager most towns have at least one church that would be willing to permit use of their facilities for such a group, provided the group took care of the facilities and cleaned up afterward. I've had a good chat with the Methodist minister up the street from me, who use to play D&D back in Seminary. I know that the Presbyterian church I attended in High School had many years before insisted on letting the local Jewish congregation meet in their social hall on Saturdays while the synagogue was being constructed. Roman Catholic churches often open their facilities for community organizations. This would be a very cheap (often free) option, and would generally provide a lot of space. Boy Scout troops often use churches, as do many other groups.

You might also investigate a local Masonic Lodge; they might be open to it.

I actually know several groups in Europe who play on church premises. However even with the normally somewhat more tolerant churches there, they are treading a fine line depending on what type of game they play. It's one thing to play LotR-RPG, another to play Demon:The Fallen or In Nomine...even otherwise tolerant ministers could take issue with those.

They use to say in radio you get paid in prestige. In some of the successful civic organizations (Masons brings this to mind) members increase in position in the group not over time but through working within it. Hey, we've got our legacy of experience points--members could advance to higher levels by working to keep it going. All that really matters is that these bits of information are published. Note that the boy who earns his Bobcat badge (lowest rank in cub scouts) gets honored as much as the one who gets his Arrow of Light (highest rank) at the moment he achieves it, but the AoL boy has more respect generally. That is, if there are levels, posting the announcement of who "advanced" this past month would give them the attention, while keeping a record of level would reward those who have reached higher levels.
[/b]

I dunno. While it would of course encourage people to contribute more than just gaming, since the latter is the purpose of the club, even just gaming fulfills a purpose, and people have different amounts of spare time available. People who carve a few hours out of their workday to guide a weekly game later that day shouldn't feel penalized compared to schoolkids or people with a very flexible work schedule, IMO. On the other hand, since gaming is the purpose, I'd say that free or reduced entry for people who will set up/GM a game at a con is perfectly ok, and to keep local rounds going, one could for example have people in the local chapters vote on that chapter's "GM of the year", published in the newsletter. (Of course, GMless games make that a bit more complicated) and maybe "player of the year". That would also encourage people to keep a variety of games going, playing with more than just their regular buddies, since that would prevent other people from knowing them, and thus voting for them....just an idea, though.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

The idea of being paid in prestige is one that is currently in use by the Camarilla (White Wolf's Official Fan Club), with the twist that the more prestige points you accumulate, the more powerful a character you are allowed to play. This makes for some strange social dynamics.

It does seem to motivate the most Gamist players to participate in more charity work than they otherwise might (as that's one of the possible sources of prestige), and it might even reduce the degree to which dysfunctional players use powerful characters as a tool to inhibit the fun of others, though I would have to make a larger study of the organization than I have so far to determine that.