How did you find your tabletop opponents?

kinshi · Post by **kinshi** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 8:06 pm

I face the classic SFU problem..lack of face to face opponents, and would like to hear how folks worked through that.

I know about the Starlist, my name has been on it for years, but only been contacted once in all the years my name been on the list, and my my inquiries to names on the list have been met with silence. SO I don't think I can count on that.

Now I do live in a semi-rural area, but we do have one game shop, and they have gaming tables, and whatnot, but they seem to have ONLY the Warhammer 40k type of players, and all they stock/sell is War 40k and Magic cards. I did put up a 'players wanted' notice on their bulletin board and public forums, still waiting for that bear fruit.

How have some of you folks managed to drum up new players, what has worked for you?

FCOL is cool, but I REALLY want the tabletop experience and am willing to go to some lengths to get it. I already spend too much time at my PC, so don't want to give myself an excuse to spend MORE time at it. Can't help it, I am a tactile feedback sort of person..like the feel of counters, paper
and dice.

so anyway, what methods of generating tabletop opponents have you tried, and what worked? (and what did not work)

Thanks (and yea I will play FCOL too

..just got to save up a bit to get Klingon Border)

EDIT: oh, and will I be mainly trying to pitch the game to 13-year olds? (Not sure I want to be the creepy old guy trying to get kids to play games) Just wondering how hard it is to present and pitch the game to an older crowd, as I do wanna play FC but not run a boy scout troop in the process)

Krellex · Post by **Krellex** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 9:24 pm

Ask your FLGS if you can put on a demo for FC in their store on say a Saturday, and be sure to have them put up announcements for it, email it, etc. Be sure that one of the very recognizable ships is on the announcement somewhere, like the CA or D7. If there are any gaming guilds or groups in the area, you can ask them if they will let you demo FC on one of their game nights. Heck, ask family members to come over for a game night and show them the ropes. I got my sister in law hooked on FC this way. (And she HATES Trek with a passion, so go figure.)

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 2:01 am

Back when I taught middle school there were quite a few 8th graders (all boys) who wanted to learn how to play (and at that time there was only SFB). I became sponsor of our school's "Strategy Gaming Club" and we had loads of fun.

I had to come up with ways to shorten the length of the game so we could finish a game in an afternoon from when school got out around 3:30pm until the boys' parents picked them up a couple of hours later. There were three ways we did this:

1) I wrote a BASIC program that did all the dice rolling and damage allocation.

2) We used "mega-impulses" of anywhere from 4 to 8 regular impulses grouped together before firing/action opportunities. This turned out to be much like Federation Commander's system. (I even typed up a summary of what we did and sent it in to the company, but never heard anything back about it.)

3) We pretty much only used the basic rules.

What I found was that most of the boys had no trouble picking up on the complexity of the rules and the game system, but there were always a couple every year who just could not seem to get it down.

When I moved to the high school I continued with the club and had even more students involved because they were there for more years. Some of those still play today and they are around 30 years old.

I had a local adult come to my house once to play SFB, but the experience was so bad and he was so weird that my wife pretty much put a stop to anything like that ever happening again.

pinecone · Post by **pinecone** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:57 am

I met him on the day of my birth. He just happened to be in the hospital that day, and we immediately shared a close relationship that has lasted to this day. He showed me Star Trek when I was four, and I became an instant fan. I got so into it that I found the SFU, and in turn showed him! And then we played it together.

He is a good, good friend.

Oh wait, that's right. He's my dad.

Hod K'el · Post by **Hod K'el** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:28 am

'The problem, dear Jane, is in ourselves.'

Look at your profile. No location, no email address, no occupation, no website, no interests listed, no MSN / YAHOO / AIM addresses, nor ICQ number.

I think it is not that you can not find an opponent, but rather, you are making it difficult for them to find you.

Old man? How old is old? I play against myself; I'm so good, sometimes I actually beat myself!

Additionally, ever think about forming a general club where Warmaster, Napoleon's Battles, and FedCom are played on a given night? Or a FedCom campaign is implemented? Or have one night for historical gaming and another for science fiction gaming?

kinshi · Post by **kinshi** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:05 am

I dont put public contact info out on ANY gaming forums on the web too many bad experiences with committing personal info on forums given how shoddy security on gaming forums tend to be, and how PhPBB forums are prime fodder for bots to harvest contact info for use in spamming.

however I will concede its not a bad idea to put my city and state in the profile.

Besides I am looking for those LOCAL to me, not on the other side of the planet, as such forum profile contact info is of little use, especially when using the PRIMARY means of finding opponents (like the Starlist and heading to the local game store, making postings and setting up demos)

at any rate..My name, location and email address in on the Starlist (like I said previously), and I am using the SFU and ADB Facebook page as well where I put the same info forward. I don't think I need to put any more info out there than I have and if I do, it will be in the form of trying to advertise locally, and yes forming my own group, even it it means I wind up sitting in the public library by myself doing demos)

pinecone · Post by **pinecone** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:14 pm

Just ignore him, he loves to start flamewars over silly things

. I understand your concern for internet safety, and I share it. To be honest, I don't know if he was talking to you or to me.

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:46 pm

Now, now. Let's play nice.

It is perfectly acceptable to share however much or little you wish. PHP boards are indeed notorious spambot magnets. Taking care is completely reasonable.

Post by **Jean** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 12:03 am

It sounds like you have tried most, but not all of these suggestions:

http://federationcommander.blogspot.com ... nents.html

You might try the remaining ones. For security purposes, the Commander's Circle one must be logged into prior to accessing the database and I haven't gotten any weird hassles from it.

kinshi · Post by **kinshi** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 3:48 am

ahh now that is a nice resource. Thank you for pointing me to it.

I have been working on some of my online friends I have played Eve Online with, talking them into trying FC via PBEM on Facebook figure if one can get into Eve, FC should be a snap.

I hadn't really thought about community bulletin boards, certainty worth a shot.

gar1138 · Post by **gar1138** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 4:55 pm

Kinshi, I'm down in Eugene, Oregon. That's a bit of a drive, bit it's nice to see someone else in the Pacific Northwest. I think there are some players in Portland, Oregon as well (that's probably a little closer to you).

Due to the complete lack of players here in Eugene, I've been using FCOL exclusively. With Skype (for voice chat) it really does come very close to a face-to-face experience. Hope to see you up there sometime.

Garrett

kinshi · Post by **kinshi** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:08 am

gar1138 wrote:Kinshi, I'm down in Eugene, Oregon. That's a bit of a drive, bit it's nice to see someone else in the Pacific Northwest. I think there are some players in Portland, Oregon as well (that's probably a little closer to you).

Due to the complete lack of players here in Eugene, I've been using FCOL exclusively. With Skype (for voice chat) it really does come very close to a face-to-face experience. Hope to see you up there sometime.

Garrett

ya know I am a big enough SFU nut to actually consider something in that driving range on a once a month type basis LOL..specially over the summer months if I weave it in as part of some family camping trips

HappyDaze · Post by **HappyDaze** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 5:50 pm

kinshi wrote:I dont put public contact info out on ANY gaming forums on the web too many bad experiences with committing personal info on forums given how shoddy security on gaming forums tend to be, and how PhPBB forums are prime fodder for bots to harvest contact info for use in spamming.

however I will concede its not a bad idea to put my city and state in the profile.

Besides I am looking for those LOCAL to me, not on the other side of the planet, as such forum profile contact info is of little use, especially when using the PRIMARY means of finding opponents (like the Starlist and heading to the local game store, making postings and setting up demos)

at any rate..My name, location and email address in on the Starlist (like I said previously), and I am using the SFU and ADB Facebook page as well where I put the same info forward. I don't think I need to put any more info out there than I have and if I do, it will be in the form of trying to advertise locally, and yes forming my own group, even it it means I wind up sitting in the public library by myself doing demos)

OK, since you did put some contact information in, let me offer this:

There is a board gaming group that meets weekly (Tuesday nights) in Tacoma at the Game Matrix. They play Fed Com infrequently, but more often if interest is expressed. I'd love to see more interest, because I can't take too many more nights of Euro games...

Also, there are occasional games at Olympic Cards & Comics (actually in Lacey, not quite Olympia), but you need to advertise there to get people to gather.

I live midway between the two and am up for playing whenever my schedule allows (I'm a nurse, so my schedule is sometimes craptastically haphazard). I know it's a fairly long drive from Port Orchard, but I also know it's doable - one of my Army buddies lives up there and still makes it to JBLM every day.

PM me if you want to set up a game.

kinshi · Post by **kinshi** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 7:25 pm

That sounds worth a shot..PM sent

kirbykibble · Post by **kirbykibble** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 2:48 pm

funny thing is, i have a friend who lives in my area and taught me to play FC. we meet up at least once a week.