Neverborn Til I Die

This is part 3 of my interview with Jim Dyson (The Other Coast) and Jesse Ellis (Boring Conversation), check out their podcasts! How do you go about getting a game store on board with hosting events and stocking product? James : For context, in Michigan (around 2nd edition) there was a popular game store with a weekly game night and leagues, but we’ve had trouble getting going with a new store. We had one store that tolerated us but never stocked Wyrd product.   Jim : It’s tough, and we’ve all struggled with it. If the store people are not interested in stocking product, are they ok with you playing? When you show up do you buy stuff?  James : That’s something I have encouraged, to at least buy a pop or some paint or something.   Jim : Showing up at a store, they’re businesses and need income. A lot of stores have concessions. Not shaming people who don’t, but try to make it a habit, that every time you show up, people in the group all get something. The store will eventu...

This is part 2 of my interview with Jim Dyson. Around the halfway mark, Jesse (from Boring Conversation pod) joined in with some of his thoughts. Theres a lot of people who reach out and say “nobody plays near me”. How can we improve communication to try and help people stuck between thriving metas to find a group? Jim : To those potential players: look for people on Facebook (“A Wyrd Place” group), or on Reddit. We have a regional discord, so if we meet them, we’ll invite them. We try to keep it fairly active, usually at least one conversation per day.   Host events: big tournaments, but also grow leagues, like our New Year, New Crew grow league. Each event is a series of weeks, with some nominal organization, but mostly they are regular opportunities to get games. Once people are in the physical space, we can figure out the regional hubs and meet there. After that, you can pick a person in the area’s Discord and play them, you don’t have to meet in a certain store. In the Discord...

Spread The Word will be a series of posts interviewing people who have had success growing a local gaming community. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Jim Dyson (from The Other Coast pod) on this topic, and we had so much to talk about that I will be breaking it up into 3 parts to keep things digestible. We talked about Malifaux, but most of what we discuss could easily be translated to any miniatures game. What type of person is attracted to Malifaux? Jim : The folks who play Malifaux are not much different from people who play any tabletop skirmish game. There’s a degree of complexity that can turn off people. Malifaux does not appeal to a very casual crowd. If you show up to a board game night, Malifaux is too much for that kind of player. Malifaux is for the   kind of player who doesn’t mind having a little bit of homework before you play. Because you having to build and paint before you play, that’s the threshold.   Mechanically, it rewards players who enjoy non...