A growth strategy

nzLARPS
#41

When I was having discussions with gaming stores around auckland when I was on the exec of AMERICA a few years ago, I was informed that about 50% of the TT gaming products bought were by current or ex-members of the club and the rest were the odd “high school” gamers (which we often recruit if they come to uni)…So it represents a large percentage of the gamers in Auckland…

-Maybe we should hit other Uni clubs? Victoria Gaming Group, ORCs etc If they are anything like AMERICA they could be a good source of members.

-Hit events such as Cap’Con and Buckets of Dice

I beleive that there are posters up for Mordavia in the medieval store but do we have any for NZLARPs in general?

#42

What percentage of TTers buy stuff from those shops? Personally I buy my TT stuff on Amazon or from the publisher’s website, and a lot of old grognards just don’t buy anything at all. I haven’t purchased anything from a game shop… ever. I never realised that until now.

There are still people out there playing old games that they’re happy with or homebrewed games and not feeling any need to buy more stuff. Those grognards are more likely to be the older crowd, who are harder to get in touch with in general.

A lot of Aucklanders don’t go to Auckland Uni. I went to Auckland Uni but never joined AMERICA because my older brother said it was full of people who had no friends to roleplay with so they needed a club. I’m not saying that’s true, it’s just what I was told. :wink:

#43

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]
What percentage of TTers buy stuff from those shops? Personally I buy my TT stuff on Amazon or from the publisher’s website, and a lot of old grognards just don’t buy anything at all. I haven’t purchased anything from a game shop… ever. I never realised that until now.

A lot of Aucklanders don’t go to Auckland Uni. I went to Auckland Uni but never joined AMERICA because my older brother said it was full of people who had no friends to roleplay with so they needed a club. I’m not saying that’s true, it’s just what I was told. :wink:[/quote]

The only shop I’ve ever brought anything from was Mark One when they were in the basement of the BNZ Tower (Showing my age here…)
I haven’t been inside a gaming shop for more years than I can remember.

Likewise I’ve never had anything to do with America - slightly different reasons though. When I was at uni they were a clique bunch and really up themselves.

#44

With all the discussion of AMERICA and Auckland Uni, this seems like a very Auckland-centric thread to me. Nothing against Auckland, but I for one would really like see ideas from some other centres.

I am a D&Der; I personally do look in gaming stores - but usually only once or twice a year; dice do eventuallty wear out, people. I have only ever been to one convention (Hamilcon in the early 90’s), and I was dragged there by my LRP mates and the opportunity to play ‘Call of Cuthulu’.

I got into LRP at Uni - our guys used to practice sword play in the Uni car park at lunchtime - just swords, no costumes; you would be surprised by the number of people this pulled in. Of course, I am talking strictly about Fantasy LRPing here, but the key is visability.

One word of warning, however, we (Quest Waikato) used to do regular poster runs, and encountered the following issues at uni:
1/ our posters were too nifty and people were stealing them to brighten up their dingy student digs.
2/ after we sorted the solen posters problem, christian groups on campus went round behind us and removed our stuff - we saw this happen :angry: Grr - apparently fantasy LRPers are satanic.

Finally, regarding young LRPers, many young LRPers make friends in the organisation, and grow up to be mature LRPers - just be vcareful that your game does not run overtime and get half your club grounded :wink: .

#45

Keen to hear ideas for other centres. I was just giving Auckland examples because they’re what I know about.

#46

Exactly. Gamers will get the rules of the games much easier than sports or actors. I think it is who we should be targetting.

#47

I hear two views. One is that you run larps with lots of rules, and people who that like that will be attracted to them. The other is that you run larps with few or no rules, and people who grok that will be attracted to them. And some people will be happy with both.

I don’t see why we can’t run larps at both ends of that spectrum and everywhere in the middle, and aim to attract people who like all ends.

#48

One of the issues is that you seem to run such a diverse range of LARPs (which is a good thing!). The problem being that people get hooked into their favourite campaign, and if it goes away they often don’t even consider a different LARP style. Not everyone is interested in crossing genres. If you really want to maintain your Mordavia crowd, I would suggest running something similar, and then running some crossovers. The key is to introduce the players to the ‘new’ format before their old format disappears.

We saw this in Hamilton when Masquerade the gathering was first being intorduced - up until then the only game in town was fantasy LRP. To get the interest of the existing player base, there was one or 2 x-over games in controlled venues which kind of combined Masquerade with boffer combat. I don’t know how well this worked in the long run, as I only ever went to 2 games; because it was being so poorly run.

Note: I am talking about a decade ago here - my experiences should not discourage people who want to try what looked like a game with potential.