Spread The Word: Attracting New Players

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-linear play styes. Warhammer is the infamous one right now; your objective is shoot those dudes, and probably stand here. In a tabletop minis game, it’s the extent of what you can do: be here, do a thing here, or remove those enemies there, that’s how you interact with pieces on the board. It’s model and board, model and their model, thats how you interact with the game. People who interact with models on the board, thats who Malifaux will attract.

James: That makes sense to me. There’s a heavy buy-in, and the game rewards people who are willing to put the time in; the more you play, the better you become.

Jim: There’s an exponential element to it, with the exponential complexity of the game. If we played a game with core box triple minions, comparable crew cost, and bog standard crews, we’d be comparable with mechanics back and forth. The familiarity with models: you hire this tech piece here and this here, it rewards a player (all things being equal) for bringing counter tech, or answers to opponent’s tech.

What is the best way to attract new players to the game? People who have, or have not, played minis games?

Jim: Analogies to sales come to mind: the job is to sell product, but, in a less cynical way, your job is to recognize that when someone enters a camera store, they’re already interested in buying a camera. Few people enter a shop with no interest, so it’s about talking to people, finding out why they came in, and building on that. 

It's best to have a regular game night to get people interested and show them: you’ll have a lot of people come up and ask what you’re doing, they can see us having a good time and laughing, they can see the cool models, they see the card mechanics in action (which is different from the usual dice). It’s not about aggressively telling people you should play this, just have a good time, and it will naturally pull people in. 

What advice would you give someone who has never built or painted models in their life?

Jim: “I’m glad you’re coming up and asking, whats your comfort level?” We have a couple in my area who are brand new to building and painting. The sculpts are at a point where they’re relatively easy to understand (for the most part). People who don’t like assembling might struggle, but I’d caution folks on getting worked up about it. It’s a hobby that building is a core element of: you’re playing with minis, not paper tokens. There are people who love building; half the reason I have a problem with too many keywords is I love building the models. If people have no experience, tell them to try it. If they hate it, give it to somebody like me. I won’t paint them for ya, I go in spurts, in “manic episodes”, and then go for months without. There are also people who will paint for money, and love that part of it. 

James: My first crew that I built and painted was a dreamer crew. I happened to buy the new sculpts from early 3rd edition, so I gave that crew away for a newbie to start with, partly to motivate myself to finish the new stuff.

Jim: I love that idea, giving new people stuff to start with can take that obstacle away.

How can we tackle the problem of how long games take? And have you experienced it?

Jim: I’ve experienced it, and it’s especially true for newer players. A lot of it comes down to analysis paralysis. Have a crew of X number of models, there’s a lot of decision fatigue: that’s the nature of it being alternating activations. Each model has (at a minimum) 2 decision points (or AP), and a lot of models have a relevant bonus action (up to 3). If you add in duels, with maybe cheating (up to 6), if any are attacks (up to 12+). There’s a reason why people talk about being exhausted on day 3 of a tournament. 

Some tools for getting away from analysis paralysis: If both players know what they’re doing, you can knock that out in 2.5 hours, we’ve both done it. With clocks in MWS, my time usually ends in under an hour; not a brag, I’m just saying, it is possible. I know what I’m doing because I’ve thought about my models, I have familiarity with them, I know the tools I have and what to do with them. It’s not always the best choice, but you have to accept that you won’t always make the “best” choice, so instead make the “good enough” choice. Especially in vassal, you can measure everything out and think of a million different options. In real life, we don’t have that: people will bump the table, people who play Zach will be using measure tapes in stead of widgets just to piss him off. There are discrepancies and errors that happen in the process, just like a computer building up a cache that needs to be cleared. Accepting that level of imperfection goes a long way in helping analysis paralysis. 

Have a plan going into a game, and talk to other players about it. The way malifaux is designed, you: walk up to the table, make pool, pick deployments, pick master, pick crew, see the board, see your opponents stuff. You have the information you need to make a plan to win the game. You’ll spend a lot of time thinking: “how can I score this scheme with my crew?” Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard. Look at what schemes are easier, think about what has worked before. “What do I need to score each point?”

When you’re new, doing it every game can take a while, so when you have a chance, download the app and read the GG (current Gaming Grounds) in your free time. If you know what is required, that can go into your rolodex. For Ensnare, Hucksters can do it well, so if you hire them, that’s their job. When you activate them, think “how do I score this round? If I can’t, how do I score it next round?” Keep following that logic. “If I can’t achieve it this turn, how can I do it in the future? How do I keep them alive? How do I adapt?” It can cause paralysis, but think of it as the weights you’re building up muscle with to know what you can and cannot do. “I know I can go over here and drop something.” 

Ultimately it's about scoring 8 points and denying 8 points, whatever is in the middle is the game. If you want to play the game purely for the story, ask yourself when you activate the model, “whats the story I’m trying to tell”, and let that inform you. 

James: Something I don’t think is talked about enough is that there are 2 parts of having a clock, or being conscious about time: there’s your turn, and there’s the opponents turn. There’s a lot of time where the opponent is doing a lot at once that doesn’t necessarily affect you, so being able to spot that and tune out and think about your next move makes a big difference. 

Jim: In D&D during initiative rolls, or even going through a fight: there’s the other 3 players and all the monsters, that’s all time for you to consider what you want to do. Sometimes the ogre you were going to attack goes down and you have to scramble, but still, more often than not, it speeds things up.

What format do you think is the most effective way to introduce the game?

James: Firstly, just acknowledging that different things work for different people. 

Jim: Yes that’s the problem, there’s no “this is the starter experience” for malifaux. The game is complex, and it doesn’t necessarily scale well outside of the standard 50 soulstones. It’s a different in Henchman Hardcore at 40SS. At the same time, that’s a lot of stuff to figure out. 

I tend to default to variant of Henchman Hardcore. Start by asking the person, “would you like a demo? do you have anything of your own to play? what do you have, I’ll match that.” Half the time I’ll say, let's just focus on the core mechanics, Turf War with no schemes. That has interacting, killing, and spreading around the board (movement, interact, and combat). Plant Explosives is tough for Henchman Hardcore because it encourages spread out, fast crews, so bubbly crews lose value. In Turf War you can spread or bubble, both are viable. 

For schemes (in GG4), I like Protect Territory and Take Prisoner. Protect Territory is heavy on scheming but in Turf War you have to ask yourself how am I doing this. Even just making up a simple scheme, like put scheme marker by a piece of terrain, end point is 2 markers on that piece of terrain, just enough so that a single model can do it in Henchman Hardcore. The other one should be combat-type. Now you can do combat, but show that the control aspect of the game is also important, it showcases parts of game that make it different than Warhammer or Infinity. 

If somebody wants to play a master specifically and says I really like Misaki, I’ll ask whats her core box? They play that, and I’ll make up a core box or comparable crew (henchman and 3 minions). Build both crews and play that. Ignore the action limit at 40 soulstones aspect for a demo game, because practically most people aren’t playing at 40 soulstones or less, and the master is the core thing, it’s the cool model that draws people. The problem with Henchman Hardcore is you have to say: this is how you play the game, but when you actually play the game, it’ll be different. So preface with: this format is for teaching the mechanics of the game, the full points game adds in a lot more soulstone use, more schemes, and make sure they’re ok with it. Experienced minis players will get it, but for average board game players it might be confusing to them. Have an open honest dialogue, so say here are the options, what appeals to you? 

Small things: if I’m doing this, try to minimize to fewer model types (~4) for the new person to have to learn (3 for HH). Pick a leader, a cool named character sidekick (henchman/enforcer), then a few minions (max copies). After that, have a Master level game, and introduce totem concept. Ideally a teaching crew will have common abilities between them. Tell them the basic roles for all the models to establish expectations and simplify things for them. 

If the shop has display places, put painted crews there so that you can point people to the “shop models”. For that purpose, it’s hard to go wrong with specific key model for each keyword that you have available. There’s so many aesthetics that it's hard to say, “this is the best starter crew.” I often default to things like Parker, Basse, Dreamer, and I’ll avoid summoners generally unless player is attracted to it. 

James: When I gave away my Dreamer crew, it took me a long time to explain the intricacies of his summoning mechanics. 

Jim: A person needs to understand what’s going in, and be dedicated to it. There’s enough complexity in the game with just the basic rules, mechanics, and terrain.