What do you do at your Meetup?

I'm trying to get the Wichita Roleplayers Meetup off the ground (i.e. more than three attendees) and I've been struggling with figuring out just what to do. And asking myself, "just what need does this Meetup thing meet in the roleplaying community?"

So I ask you... what have you been doing in your Meetups, and what needs do you feel your Meetup meets in your roleplaying community?

Lately, we've been playing! We still socialize on the front end (i.e. meet and greet, introductions, sometimes discussions), but then we break out the dice and the rulebooks.

The Dallas-Plano Roleplayers Meetup Group does lots: heads up on cons, helps groups find members, provides a very specialized kind of peer community, supports on-line communities, supports local gaming stores and coffee shops, exposes members to various systems, play styles and industry trends and provides opportunities for actual play.

The NE Tarrant RPG Design and Playtest group does what the name says. It's about the same size as your group. I'm still building it!

Size matters. Ron's group (the first I mentioned) is around 100 members. They collect two-to-three new people a month. I know he posts on the Ghosts of Dallas (a local website that a lot of us use) and games with several different groups. So, at least some of that group's success I would attribute to networking. Plus the DFW metroplex is fat.

BTW, go Wichita! That's where I learned to play D&D. I bought my redbox from Prairie Dog Comics in '82.

Lately, we've been playing! We still socialize on the front end (i.e. meet and greet, introductions, sometimes discussions), but then we break out the dice and the rulebooks.

I've been butting heads with that idea... it requires a much longer meeting than what I've envisioned, but it's looking like it's the thing that attracts people to roleplaying meetups. (Or, at least in the very small exposure I've had. I think I'm going to run around and start contacting individual Roleplayer Meetup Organizers, since this board doesn't seem to get much traffic.)

The Dallas-Plano Roleplayers Meetup Group does lots:

I've been talking to Ron for a few months, before they started actually playing games. And it seems like playing games is what has really worked for them.

While the "find gamers" function of the Meetup is good and something I want, I want something more than just "find gamers, play games". I'm more into the "narrative" end of roleplaying and I'm not much into rules, but I like to talk about ways to improve the roleplaying experience (often, by how to reduce the number or "visibility" of rules). I've been thinking roleplaying workshops of a sort would be kind of neat. An environment in which people could try out new things without being in an ongoing campaign.

Plus the DFW metroplex is fat.

And Wichita is kind of skinny. We basically have two game stores that are comic shops first, and neither of them has been overly supportive of roleplaying... cards, click-base minis, and Warhammer are what get the space in their stores. Wichita has never supported a very visible roleplaying community.

BTW, go Wichita! That's where I learned to play D&D. I bought my redbox from Prairie Dog Comics in '82.

I was living in Russell, KS then, but my dad lived in Wichita, and I bought my first Car Wars pocket-box at PDC around '83 or '84. Later formed the first Kansas American Auto-Duel Association chapter and played at PDC every weekend. PDC was in the old mall on Central and Ridge back then, and we played triple-scale (Hotwheels) in the hallway, with our arenas laid out in masking tape. It was very cool. Those were the days.

I think the reason why this board has seen little use is because we sometimes forget that it's here, plus I've been having a lot of PC trouble for the past three months.

At our regular monthly meetups, we mostly socialize and talk about what we can do for additional meetups because not everyone can make it to the monthlies and if we have more than one meetup a month there's a chance others who couldn't make the regular can make it to the additionals.

I also offer to post on-going game events where GMs are looking for new members, which a few GMs have done.

I'm trying to push for volunteers to commit to running demonstration one-shot games. It seems a lot of my members are extremely busy and may not be able to sign up with a longer-term campaign that may be available. I started a series of threads on where we get inspiration and one dealt with possible demonstration games. Have had five volunteers, but no committed run-times at local gaming shops. I think the fee has people scared. On the other hand, if we commit to running demo games at two of the seven shops in the Minneapolis/St Paul Metro area to develop a track record, it could be possible that the two shops (plus the ones that we expand to) may sponsor us and pick up the tab just in time for the subscription increase Jan 2006.

Will have to see what happens.

Thanks,
Lea

Our first meetup was to organize into groups but ever since then our meet ups have been our games. (We have approx 8 different games going on a month and growing.) I would like to have a meetup where we picnic and such so all the groups can get together and meet each other.