How to Run a Table Top Roleplaying Meetup

#aprilcools #ttrpgs #community

It’s April Cools! It’s like April Fools, except instead of cringe comedy you make genuine content that’s different from what you usually do. This is my very first April Cools post. 🥶

I attend (and marginally help organize) a local in-person monthly tabletop role-play game meetup. It's consistently the extracurricular highlight of my month. Whether you've been playing for years, are just getting into the hobby, or (like me) have had to dramatically cut back the time you spend at the table because you're a parent, it's a great way to scratch the TTRPG itch without the considerable labour and time commitment of a long-term campaign.

Running games at a public meet up on a monthly basis is very different from running a home game. This article talks about some of the challenges you might have and gives some advice on how you might successfully run a meetup of your very own.

What you Need

  1. Players: Before you can do anything you need folks to play with. Maybe you can get started by dragging some friends along, but you should think about how you're going to get the word out, especially if you're trying to include people who aren't already in the hobby.

    Do you or some of your friends have network you can tap? Can you try to grow by word of mouth? Do you want to advertise at local game stores if those exist? You don't need to grow exponentially or anything, but you should think about how to keep your project sustainable and that's hard to do if nobody's attending.

  2. Venue: Next you need somewhere to play. This could be a local game store or pub or café, but these all come with costs either directly to your players (as they buy pints and fries) or to you (as you pay rental fees). If you're lucky perhaps one of your players has a space that could host the meetup. Otherwise, venues like churches or community centres might have space you can use for free or for cheap, especially if you emphasize the community building aspect of your project.

  3. Games: You might be happy to play D&D on a one-off basis for a few hours a month, but I certainly don't. When I'm looking for a good meetup game I try to find something that is:

    • quick and light, so you're spending your time playing instead of learning rules,
    • contained so that you can have a satisfying experience in one session of play, and
    • different, because I like variety in my gaming life, and because it makes for a more welcoming meetup if there are lots of different options for folks to choose from.

The Agenda (or at least the one we use)

Once you've got your players, your venue, and your games, what do you actually do at games night? Here's the agenda we use.

  1. Arrival: Meet at the appointed time, welcome folks in, do a bit of idle chit-chat, and eventually gather into a big circle.
  2. Intros: The facilitators introduce themselves, tell folks about the venue (e.g. where the bathrooms are). Then we go around and have folks give their names and pronouns. Then anyone who has brought a game they'd like to run gives quick pitch describing its premise, tone, play time and player count.
  3. Make groups: If we have enough players we divide into smaller groups based on interest. We usually do a quick straw poll to see which games have critical mass and then sort of Vornoi ourselves into groups by putting those games in different corners and having folks position themselves in space according to their relative interest.
  4. Play! Most games go for 2-3 hours with a short break. Your mileage may, of course, vary.
  5. Debrief: About twenty minutes before we need to close down the venue we re-convene and share something that we appreciated about our game that night.

Then we clean up and close down the venue and wait eagerly to do it again next month.

Games to Play Occasionally and with Strangers

Here are some games that I can personally recommend in a meetup setting: