Quote from: Captain RufusThose of you with hordes of players and waiting lists should count yourselves lucky.

Well, I've not hordes of players and waiting lists. I've just always tried to be sociable, and have short closed-ended campaigns with players rotating in and out. I wouldn't count myself lucky, it took consistent effort over time to get this to happen, not luck.

So you know, I finish up my AD&D Dingy Dungeons campaign with Anna, Charlie, Dave and Erika, and am getting ready for my Traveller Pirates campaign. Anna is getting married soon so she'll bow out of the next one. But Anna knows Bob who has a monthly D&D group and would like a weekly game, she told him about the Pirates and he's up for it. We all meet for a drink and get along, so Bob joins in.

The Pirates campaign happens with Bob, Charlie, Dave and Erika, and we have fun. During that we have a Geektogether, we all go and we see Anna again, and Bob's monthly D&D group comes along with Fred, George and Harriet.

Comes time to wrap up Pirates, Bob was a bit of a drongo, always getting into fights, so we let him go, Charlie is a bit busy painting his minis and a swag of other things and wants some time off, I'm left with Dave and Erika. Well, Fred who I met at the Geektoger seemed nice and not really busy, I ask him if he'd like to join in next time. He asks what I'm running, I ask what he'd be interested in, he quite likes old RuneQuest, I can give that a go.

So Dave and Erika stay in, Fred joins in, we don't want Bob again, we'd love to have Charlie but he's busy. That's okay, we'll be a group with three players for a while.

RQ wraps up, I decide to run a postapocalyptic game. So far I've gamed with Anna, Bob, Charlie, Dave, Erika, and Fred. Anna's had her wedding so she wants to game again. And maybe Bob wouldn't be so bad for a postapocalyptic game, lots of fighting in that one. And Charlie would like to hook up again, we can see he's still busy but he misses us. So I could have six players for this campaign.

Thus, over the course of several of these short-closed ended campaigns I steadily increase my game circle, the pool of gamers I know and who might want to game. None of which even touches on making new gamers.

The short closed-ended campaign with rotating memberships mean I'm unlikely to be without a group for long. Because there's always someone if the commitment is a fairly short one, rather than an open-ended one. For example, one gamer buddy quit a friend's campaign. Two years later that friend's campaign is still going. When I told my gamer buddy this, he said, "fuck, if I'd known it was going to last so long I'd've quit earlier."

If I as GM am open to different possibilities, that widens it, too. For example, at the moment I'm not GMing, I pitched out some ideas. If I want a weekly game at my home I can get maybe just 3 players, if I want a fortnightly game in the city I could have up to 8 players - so I could pick and choose.

I'd much rather a weekly game at home, but accepting fortnightly in the city would open up my choices a lot. That's the sort of trade-off you have to be willing to make.

By contrast, I've known a few gamers who wouldn't travel for a game session, and it absolutely had to be a certain frequency, weekly or not at all, for example, had to be D&D or whatever.

No compromise means no game.

I would be looking for new players pretty quick, I'm addicted to DM-ing.

I don't think it would be hard in my area and I would probably start on Craigslist since I have seen people looking for games there before in my area (I have not had room to add people).

If You Had No Gaming Group Tomorrow...   it would be a lot like today.  

Seriously, this is the way it is for me right now.  It has been for 3 years now.  

Would you call it quits?  Nope.

Would you go out looking for new players?  I have, but I have only found some Serenity Players that I want to play with.

If so, would you know where to look?  Gaming Conventions.  That is how I found most of them in the first place.

What methods would you use to get a group again?  Usually GMing for one or more of them will do it.

How easy do you think that would be to do in your area?  I live in Silicon Valley with more Geeks per square mile than anywhere else in the world.