Persuading Players to Try Other RPGs

Thoughts from a guy who refused to play anything but D&D for over 30 years.

I’m writing this from the perspective of a potential GM, trying to find players for something other than D&D (or Pathfinder, or whatever the dominant RPG in your community is). If you’re a player wanting to play something else go learn how to be a GM for it, then follow the rest of this article.

Be careful with D&D players. Remember what happened to Debbie’s father.

1. STOP BASHING THE THING THEY FIND FUN

   I can’t stress this enough. Every time someone tried to convince me that D&D was a horrible game I’d roll my eyes and dismiss everything else they had to say. Maybe their game was better, but if they thought D&D was awful then we weren’t even starting out on the same page.

2. STOP BASHING THE THING THEY FIND FUN

   It’s worth saying twice. Every time I see a video thumbnail or blog entry about how this new game is finally going to be the D&D killer or “why D&D sucks” a D&D player gets more firmly entrenched in the idea that you’re wrong.

3. Save your effort for a more receptive audience.

   I think you can break your target audience into three categories.

   1. Playing D&D but finding it unsatisfying. That’s it, your job is done! Now just figure out what they do want to play.

   2. Enjoying D&D but open to trying other things. You’re halfway there. Stress that you’re not trying to get them to stop playing D&D. Set up a mini-campaign of something. Not a one shot (it’s hard to get a read on an RPG after only playing one session), but keep it short. Maybe propose something like a three to five session arc. But cut it short if it’s not going over well. If you push too hard, they’ll never bite again.

   3. Enjoying D&D and not looking to try anything else. You know … you can throw it out there. Maybe they’ll give it a try as a favor to you. This is literally the story of one of my most enthusiastic Shadowdark players. But don’t go hard sell. If they’re clearly not interested, move on. Go back to player #2.

4. Remove barriers to play. What barriers are those?

   1. Fear of Commitment. Pitch a short run (again, I like 3-5 sessions) and mean it. Don’t start talking about going longer if they like it, because that starts to feel like bait-and-switch. Wrap it up and then if it went well, that’s when you can pitch bringing these characters, or this world, or just the game back another time.

   2. Fear of Characters. Offer to give them pregenerated characters. If all they’ve played are crunchy mainstream games they may look at character creation as a time-consuming project and a big hurdle to get past. Of course, they may view character building as part of the fun, so be prepared for that, too. If there’s an online character builder let them play with that.

   3. Fear of Learning Rules. Keep the learning period as short as possible. I used to work for the company running D&D at all the big conventions, and often ran “Learn to Play” tables. I would quickly teach new players how to read the character sheet, then tell them “I’ll tell you what’s going on, you tell me what your character would want to do, and I’ll tell you how you do it.” That works remarkably well, even for D&D.

5. Don’t give them a choice. What I really mean is, rather than saying “hey, want to play «favorite indie rpg»?” Say “hey, I’m running «favorite indie rpg» and I’d love to have you there!”

   

   “The players are weak?!? YOU’RE weak!!”

6. Finally, and possibly most importantly … STOP BASHING THE THING THEY FIND FUN