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Building a Community : Part 1


Strength_Hammer

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Hello everyone!  I wanted to start a sub-series focused on building a community around Miniature War Gaming (particularly Age of Sigmar) by sharing my experiences.  My hope is to speak with other community members during this series, and share ideas to use with local gaming groups.  Part one of this series will focus on developing your local scene.  I will explore connecting a personal gaming group to a larger scene in future articles.

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Before I dive in I want to preface the article a bit.  I had written an article about building the community, but after some friendly and honest critique, I saw how generic and boring the article was to read.  Instead, I am bringing you a fresher and much more personal experience, my experience to be exact, of the challenges in developing a local scene.  Please enjoy.

At the end of Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, my local scene was falling apart.  My friend that was leading it all at the time was out of steam.  The dropping of Age of Sigmar took what little wind he had in his sails away.  I can't blame him either, as he had been playing for over 20 years in the Old World.  Within a few years, the scene went from tournaments of 24 attendants and up to just him and myself showing up.  Thankfully he has returned to the scene and is playing games somewhat more regularly, but he is no longer leading the group.

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I decided to take up the reins and try to regrow the scene shortly after.  I debated with myself “why I had chosen to lead the local scene?”  I found my answer after a bit of thinking.  I truly love this hobby and this game, and I didn't want to see it die in my local area.  So I began taking steps to rebuild.  I began showing up to play and teach Age of Sigmar to anyone who would try, but it was weeks until I managed to get anyone to throw dice with me in a game of Age of Sigmar.  I won't lie in the fact that it was very rough and heartbreaking at times.  My best advice is to never give up and keep showing up to play.  You may not get a game in every night, but eventually, you will be playing consistently with a small group.

Over time I had a few small groups of people playing regular games and it felt rewarding, but I faced a new challenge.  These small groups played only 15 minutes apart from one another, but no matter what I did they simply would not communicate and to this day they still are separate entities with the only connecting being myself as the consistent Age of Sigmar player who leads the scenes.  This has been immensely frustrating, to be honest.  I have tried to set one-day tournaments with prize support, narrative events, and even simple open games days to get everyone together.  Nothing so far has worked, but I have not given up on it happening yet.  I hope to ultimately bring these groups together and get them playing with my consistent group (a scene I happily play with but have no part in leading) of game buddies that are a bit farther away.  I do not know if this will ever happen, but I continue trying.

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There have been very exciting times within the groups that made then take leaps and bounds in a positive direction.  The first was the release of the Generals Handbook.  Many players who were on the fence were finally convinced, as they now had an easier way to set up a game with other players.  Those players who held off for so long found themselves with points and small local groups within reach to begin playing with and we welcomed them with open arms.  Shortly afterward, we had The Season of War, which we all had something to play for in capturing our perspective cities in order to change the future of the narrative.  It was a fun and exciting time.  As scenes grow, more and more types of players will join in.   Occasionally, however, you will attract people who can be harmful to a local scene.  This is a topic I am going to save that for the next installment of my "Building a Community" series.

I hope my honesty won't keep anyone from stepping up to lead their local scene.  It is a very tough and can be thankless work, but if you are doing it for the right reasons (love of the game and hobby), then the happiness you will experience as positive growth happens will outweigh any of the drawbacks.

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Feel free to follow me on Twitter and until Next Time Happy Hobbying!

Edited by @Grudgegamer on Twitter


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Great read, and something I'm working on locally as well. It sound like a very, very familiar story :) My end goal is to create a gaming group that encompasses New England, where we can hold and support each others events while upholding the social contract of being a good sport because win or lose everyone wants to have a good game.

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How many armies do you have access to?

I have... let's just say many.  This has led me to think of ways to introduce people into Age of Sigmar myself.

I've thought about holding "beginner tournaments" for newer people.  The concept is simple - I build 8-10 1000 point forces.  No one need bring models.  Everyone buys in, say $10, to play.  I use the money to award the winner, with the Start Collecting box of their choice. With enough participants, or a willingness to kick in a little personal cash, I could give out 2 - one to the winner, one to the best sportsmanship winner.  Or give out one and some paints.  Something like that. 

If you get a shop to host the space and can show them that beginner events are bringing in more players, you might even get the shop to want to get involved and offer small incentives themselves.

No guarantees it will work, but just ask people on the fence of signing up when the last time they got a day's worth of entertainment and possibly a lifelong hobby for a measly $10.

Good luck to you, sir.  And remember - Only the Faithful will recruit new players.  Only the Faithful will nurture a community that becomes self sustaining.  And Only the Faithful remember that there is no wrong way to hobby. 

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3 hours ago, Ben said:

I'm looking forwards to following this.  Did you catch my post on this topic baddice.co.uk/commnuity 

I went to read and the site is down @Ben I even went around the typo :)

Edited by Dez
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22 hours ago, Dez said:

Great read, and something I'm working on locally as well. It sound like a very, very familiar story :) My end goal is to create a gaming group that encompasses New England, where we can hold and support each others events while upholding the social contract of being a good sport because win or lose everyone wants to have a good game.

 

Thanks!  That is an excellent goal and I would be curious to see your progress so keep us updated!  I have been looking at getting the US scene moving in a (bit more) unified direction and the more people we have growing the scene the better.

I know @Ben has mentioned this before, but I would love to see an App that allows Wargamers to have a small profile, post what armies you play and maybe what list you are currently running to allow more people to connect.  It could encompass what style you prefer (narrative, casual, competitive, etc..) and allow messaging within the app to set up games and have push notifications for events within your preferred travel distance.  Sadly this is beyond my skill, but I hope someone can take this idea and run with it!  I would be happy to help as I could lol.

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13 hours ago, Ben said:

I'm looking forwards to following this.  Did you catch my post on this topic baddice.co.uk/commnuity 

 

I indeed have!  It was incredibly well laid out and perhaps it could be broken up and redone in your new AoS Daily format (which is part of my daily commute).  A lot of the principles and challenges of setting up and growing your local scene crosses the ocean, but I am curious to see how things change as you look at larger and larger scopes.

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You said the old community around you just stopped showing up, did they find other games or just quit for the time being?

I find it very hard to get people committed to AoS because for the most part our club just kept playing 8th first and now it's all basically 9th age with only 3 of us playing AoS more or less regularly.

We did a 3v3v3 battle once, and everyone seemed to have fun, but most of us are in our late 30s or early 40s and people just don't want to commit to learning and getting the most of another game, even if it uses the same minis (another club member tried to attract people to KoW, with the same results). Those who left WH for the most part have picked up Xwing or Infinity which are also very time consuming to be up to date to.

This is a small town so I'm pretty much stuck with this group.

Should I keep trying?

 

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2 hours ago, karch said:

You said the old community around you just stopped showing up, did they find other games or just quit for the time being?

I find it very hard to get people committed to AoS because for the most part our club just kept playing 8th first and now it's all basically 9th age with only 3 of us playing AoS more or less regularly.

We did a 3v3v3 battle once, and everyone seemed to have fun, but most of us are in our late 30s or early 40s and people just don't want to commit to learning and getting the most of another game, even if it uses the same minis (another club member tried to attract people to KoW, with the same results). Those who left WH for the most part have picked up Xwing or Infinity which are also very time consuming to be up to date to.

This is a small town so I'm pretty much stuck with this group.

Should I keep trying?

 

 

Keep Trying.  AoS is getting so much support that I am sure they have noticed and if you continue to try and show them your enthusiasm they will eventually give it a chance.  We lost players to other games as well as people just hanging up the hobby entirely.  Some have returned and others have not, but being consistently persistent is the key.  The group will ebb and flow, but make sure the core group is making anyone interested welcome in joining in.

Maybe ask everyone what kind of AoS they might like to try (narrative, competitive, Triumph & Treachery, etc...).  Emphasize that the game is very quick to pick up, but if they want a challenge they can really dive into the warscrolls to find more depth.  Have them bring a few of their old models and show them how to download the app for their rules, build a list that's comparable to the points they have and do a demo.  Try to do as much as you can for them so they only need to show up with models and dice and have some fun (it can be thankless, but it could work).

Work with your FLGS to set up a  family game day and give Demos.  Maybe there is a group of younger players that are intimidated to come ask to be taught, but an open stress-free event might get them in the store.

Just keep trying!

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Well we don't play at a LGS, we have our own club because the LGS only has two tables and are mostly taken by MtG and Xwing nowadays.

We as a club do recruiting at the LGS.... But the guys who have committed resources (full painted demo armies, even lending full or 3/4 full armies to new recruits) still live in square-base world.

I'll talk to them about doing my own recruit rounds for AoS. 

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