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Using this forum to grow Call of Cthulhu


klecser

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I want Call of Cthulhu to grow and thrive and be a welcoming place for the influx of new players. I believe that means that experienced players have a responsibility to do a little bit of PR for the game, whether we like that or not. Many of you may feel inclined to ignore me. More power to you. But I’m posting this because I’m trying to actively grow this game and make sure that new players here get the help they need. There are simple steps we all can take that can help us maximize new players.

Let’s start with what I consider to be a reasonably agreed upon fact in gaming: 

Most new players to any game usually go the official Boards/Forums of the company that produces it to seek out answers to questions and ideas. 

I think that begs the next question: How can we use this board as a vehicle to support and keep new players? 

I think there are two things that we need to keep pursuing.

1)    Veterans of the game need to be active on this board.

There is nothing inherently wrong with lurking. If you don’t feel comfortable posting, don’t post. But how might posting here help to affect the feel of this board? Responses on this board do not come rapidly. There are often very few responses to new topics. I don’t think that helps us welcome people to the game.

“Most people are on Yog-Sothoth. New players should go there.”

Yog-sothoth is a fine thing and I’m there too.  But the truth is that most new players don’t know about Yog-Sothoth and are more likely to come here first when they have questions and need ideas. That means that veterans need to respond just as quickly here as there. There is nothing more disheartening to new or veteran players than to ask questions and be ignored. A new player that doesn’t find Yog-Sothoth and then doesn’t get an answer may not feel inclined to continue with the game.

“You’re saying I should quit Yog-Sothoth?”

No, I’m saying that we should be BOTH here and there! Right now, most of the community is there. The responses come quicker there. And I’m of the opinion that the presence here hurts our mission to attract new players. You can disagree and that’s fine. I just want us to do what’s best, not what passes for ok.

2)    We need to gush a “your game is your game and that’s ok” attitude.

Gamers that don’t curate the image of their game often find that their game doesn’t grow. We can control the attitude towards Keeper and player preference that exists on this Forum. Most people here do a great job of welcoming new people. One of the things we need to keep striving for is the recognition that different people have different playstyles no matter what game we are talking about. And that’s ok. There is no one “right” way to play Call of Cthulhu. And while I hear that message loud and clear from the Chaosium design team (it’s something I love about them), I think we can do even better to espouse “Your Game Will Vary” here. “How well does my post welcome different approaches to the game?” is a question we can all ask. And if it isn’t welcoming, it may not be encouraging people to stick around. You are entitled to your opinion. Your opinion also sets a tone. How can we be sure that tone makes new players stick around?

Please consider ways that we can be part of a positive image for Call of Cthulhu.
 

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1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

I'm not sure it's true that most new players to any game actually go looking for it online though. I think the percentage of players who discuss games online is but a fraction of the whole. 

I agree. I could have been more clear there. What I should have said was: Amongst the subset that go online for more information, official forums are a common place to go. We still have a huge responsibility in curating our local groups/tables as well.

Edited by klecser
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22 hours ago, klecser said:

I want Call of Cthulhu to grow and thrive and be a welcoming place for the influx of new players...

Please consider ways that we can be part of a positive image for Call of Cthulhu.
 

Please also check out the post made by @Ellie Akers in the RuneQuest forum. A lot of what she said is applicable here too:   

 

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Nowadays, the fragmentation is huge everywhere and it is getting our of control - Facebook, reddit, Discord, fan forums, to name a few. It takes so much time if you want to really follow your favorite product and not miss something interesting. I don't like it,  I try to stick to the official forums, but for one reason or another many people and groups stay outside and good discussions happen outside. I am new to Cthulhu and the community, maybe there is historical reason why other forums are much more active.

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Grognardism isn’t all bad.  Many of your fellow posters here are Runequest, Stormbringer, Pendragon and Cthulhu die-hards who kept the faith when not much was happening officially. They can not only help you with rules but give you good advice on how to create interesting monsters and NPCs, and how to write and run a good scenario.  The cross-pollination of games is a good thing, too.  There’s no reason your latest Mythos beastie shouldn’t be a Bronze Age Gloranthan holdout or that cult leader shouldn’t have cribbed a spell or two from Magic World.  

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6 hours ago, Valyar said:

Nowadays, the fragmentation is huge everywhere and it is getting our of control - Facebook, reddit, Discord, fan forums, to name a few. 

Agreed. I'm regular both here and on Yog-sothoth, but the post rate for both sites combined seems less than say, the MoN-Keepers Facebook group (which is very niche, closed and supposedly small). Unfortunately: Facebook's UI doesn't serve my purpose compared to forum UI's (it lacks formatting, hypertext, quoting, search, threading, etc.)... but that's where people post.

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Let’s be honest about the back catalog, though.  While there are certainly piles of scenarios and supplements for the game, including lots of titles in PDF form, there is not 40 years’ worth of material readily available to a new player or GM.  Much of that product is long out of print, selling at outrageous prices online if it still exists at all.  This isn’t a slap at Chaosium’s marketing department but a plea to reprint the stuff, 7th edition conversion unnecessary.  We’ve had lots of threads here listing and discussing the best or favorite  or classic scenarios and campaigns but a lot of them are as gone with the wind as Scarlet O’Hara’s estate.  Let’s resurrect them.

(But don’t resurrect Scarlet!  She’s clearly a Mythos entity of some sort.)

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Many of the older scenarios, that may be out of print in their original form, were reprinted in future publications that are available as PDFs. So I don't think it disingenuous to say that there is 40 years worth of material to draw from. Just because something isn't in print doesn't mean that it doesn't exist in updated forms.

The idea is to communicate to new Keepers that there is LOTS of material to draw from. If the goal is to grow the game, you highlight the positive.

Edited by klecser
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On 4/24/2019 at 8:30 AM, Valyar said:

Nowadays, the fragmentation is huge everywhere and it is getting our of control - Facebook, reddit, Discord, fan forums, to name a few. It takes so much time if you want to really follow your favorite product and not miss something interesting.

Yes, this.

On 4/24/2019 at 2:59 PM, mvincent said:

Agreed. I'm regular both here and on Yog-sothoth, but the post rate for both sites combined seems less than say, the MoN-Keepers Facebook group (which is very niche, closed and supposedly small). Unfortunately: Facebook's UI doesn't serve my purpose compared to forum UI's (it lacks formatting, hypertext, quoting, search, threading, etc.)... but that's where people post.

I have an account and post here and there but FB is useless to actually follow a topic.  I do not FB every hour of every day, instead I may check my feed once or twice a week.  Trying to find posts relevant to me as opposed to the garbage FB wants me to see makes it worthless.    If the information is on the companies site in a format that I can search and read, like a forum, then I follow it.  If I have to dig through social media feeds to painstakingly excavate small grains of news, then I go find another game.  

The only thing that screams "do not buy our products" louder that over reliance on social media is defaulting to PODcasts.  If I don't have time to search and skim through pages of social media streams, how can anybody think I have hours to listen to people babble about minutia just in case they actually mention a usable piece of information.

I may sound a bit harsh, but I work full time with a hour+ commute.  I actually love my job, but my gaming time is very very limited and I absolutely refuse to squander it digging for information that should be being pushed to me.  

The social media and PODcast craze masquerades as methods of easy communication, but the reality is it makes product information virtually impossible to easily access.  

Quick, in less than 5 minutes tell me if the 50 minute PODcast gives a release date and price. 

Quick, jump on FB and in 5 minutes or less find that post from sometime last Wednesday. 

Pretty much the only companies I really bother with are the ones that maintain active forums with an actual company presence or they maintain and actual updated website with a news page/blog. 

Well I guess I should end my rant now 😳

 

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