There's been an influx of new folks, and people
are trying to find one another to game here on Roll20. Something I’ve seen repeated
is “How?” There’re three routes that I’ve
taken in the past to find players and games; here’s what I’ve tried before: 1. The
Player Directory. Do a search by game for
people interested in playing. Click on
their profile, if they seem interesting to you, send them a message saying “Hi,
want to play sometime?” I consider this
pretty passive because if the players don’t have any info on their profile, it’s
really hard to know anything. You see
the extroverts that wanted to share a bit.
Could scroll right by a dozen great players. So if you want to be noticed, players,
consider a little something in the profile.
Even minor stuff like time zone and how long you’ve been playing (almost
always among the first questions asked) can help GMs looking for you find
you. For GMs, this is an easy way to
search, though gives limited results and only so much info. 2. Put a listing in the LFG forum, here, where
we are. As a Player, I’ve listed stuff
about me, like time zone, what and how long I’ve played, etc. Eventually, I just moved a bunch of that info
to my profile to have the annoyingly long thing I show now. The more you share about how you like to play
and when you’re able to play, the better chances someone running a game spots
it and replies. As a GM, I’ve described
the game and when I’d like to run and see who responds. This often gets a large volume of responses
that you can review and reach out to the people that seem the best fit. 3. Create
a game and set it Looking For Players.
This is the most involved as setting up a game requires filling out
several fields including a description of the game, what system, when it will
next be played, and how many people you expect.
It is often helpful to immediately set up an application thread with
some structure as people will start replying pretty quickly. I have always been surprised at the volume of
responses, always more than I was thinking.
This takes the most work up front as a GM, but if you do this and put a
structured questionnaire in place, players are often very happy to provide lots
of information and hopefully exactly what is need to decide to play with them. Players can also use the advanced options in the looking for game tool to fine tune results to what is their best fit, like text only or 8AM local time on Tuesday. Recap: 1. Player
Directory: Pro: Easy, player fills something out, GM goes and looks. Con: Very
passive, only so much info shared. 2. LFG
Forum: Pro: Good way to share info by player and good way to request info as a
GM. Con: Lots of activity can bury a
post leading to atrophy without meaningful response; spammers
3. Create
game, flag it looking for players: Pro: Potentially highly detail information
about what is to be played and when allowing both players & GM to see if
this is a fit quickly. Con: More
investment of time upfront by both GM and Players, there’s only so many slots,
and application burnout can be a problem There are
the various methods I’ve used to find games and players on Roll20. My strategies may not work for you, but I
hope they help. Good luck everyone
finding fun games.
