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How to Find a Gaming Group for Tabletop RPG Games

Hey folks Nerdarchist Dave here to talk about the age old question: how do I find a gaming group? This can be super easy or a Herculean task especially among us tabletop RPG gamers. Let’s face it, inside the gaming community there are more socially inept people than you can roll a d20 at. I feel like can say that, being one of the inept. I personally have always gotten anxiety when placed in large social gatherings with people I don’t know.

RPG gaming group — How the hell do you find gamers?

One of the things that has helped me was being in a relationship with someone who comes from a giant size family. I mean it’s more of a tribe or clan than a family unit and they like to get together for everything. But enough about me how do we help you find more gamers?

Fear not reader we are here to help. I feel Nerdarchy collectively has a lot of experience to draw on, especially Nerdarchist Ryan who has moved around a lot. For the rest of us we’ve been involved with the same group for between 17-19 years. [NERDITOR’S NOTE: At this point it’s been over 20 years!]

That being said the group has almost completely fizzled out on several occasions. Only through luck and Game Masters willing to run RPG games with as little as three players have we managed to hold out until reinforcements could arrive. And oh man did they! I think we went from about three gamers to three different gaming groups. How does that even happen?

I’ll tell you how, by going where the people are who are doing what you want to be doing. That is how. If you wanted crack you’d go to a crack house and guess what you’d find, crack. If you want to eat doughnuts go to a doughnut shop and you’ll find doughnuts. Want to play games? Go to a gaming shop or a comic book store that also sells games and you’ll find gamers.

What are some other ways of finding a gaming group?

• Comic book conventions or gaming conventions
• Meet up groups
• Putting a flyer up at a community center or library
• If you’re open to it check out a LARP
• Find online resources such as:
  • NearbyGamers
  • Role-Playing Games Meetup Groups
  • Tabletop RPG One Shot Group
  • Nerdarchy the Discord

Nerdarchy has personally found gamers for tabletop RPG and tabletop board games from several of our recommendations. Recently we started hanging out at nerd hang out spots far more than we had been. Most of us Nerdachists have wives and kids so our nerding out time had gone way down. In all honestly a driving force in creating Nerdarchy was to spend more time doing the things we enjoyed doing. With YouTube, the Facebook fan page, and right here at Nerdarchy the Website we feel like we are being held accountable to being as nerdy as we can.

This new way of nerd life for us has been a breath of fresh air. It’s not that we are being anything different than what were before, it’s just that we’re embracing it to the max. This has different meaning for each of us. For Ted, Nate and myself we were spending all of our time being fathers and husbands which caused us to neglect who we are at our core. For me there was another consequence. I used to be a closet gamer, but not anymore. I’ve fully embraced what I do and don’t care who knows about it.

Anthony Amato of Cardboard Fortress became a great friend and stalwart part of our own gaming group.

For some us it really is a matter of coming out of our shells and interacting with people who do what we like to do. I’m not even talking strictly about gaming either. Chances are if you have other nerdy interests you’ll find other people enjoying those same interests.

One of our recent recruits was Scott and we found him at Tiki Tiki YoYo Club. This snowballed into him running a game of FATE Accelerated for Nerdarchy and him joining us for Ted’s 5E D&D campaign.

We picked Ken and Ivy up from a play-by-post Facebook game. Pete was an old friend we hadn’t spoken to in 15 years who happened to be doing a nerdy podcast That’s Life Podcast. Pete brought along Allan, who he records live plays with on their Forge Dragons YouTube Channel.  Anthony and Nicole of Cardboard Fortress are indie board game designers we met at local con called South Jersey GeekFest.

Then there is Todd who is affiliated with Enter Shaolin.com that a buddy of mine runs. He knew Todd was designing a tabletop game and was into D&D so he introduced us to each other.

Six new players for our gaming group from sources that don’t have anything to do with RPG Games. Some food for thought. So until next time my friends, stay nerdy.

[NERDITOR’S NOTE: In the years since this post was first published, the RPG community has experienced tremendous growth! Following the conversation and engaging with the community on social media opens up the possibilties for discovering a new gaming group and making new friends through the tabletop RPG hobby. My very first contribution here on the website was about forming and keeping your gaming group going. Since then I’ve experienced the best RPG games experiences of my life with new friends and fantastic games.]