Yes I know content gets more content , but it just feels like it's the same folks posting content. It doesn't really feel like we're aiming to get one group or another. As it stands It feels like this place is more of a MTG forum ; which is cool, and all than a table top gaming forum.,

I think we need to chose to focus on which RPG segment are we going to go after.

Well it definitely doesn't help that a certain prolific rpg writer is ethically bound to not look at any of the rpg content.

For me, one of the coolest elements of rpg is character design. One of my favorite things in any tabletop rpg is when my character dies heroically and I get to make a new one. Maybe we could have some character design contests? We could even have technical character design, and then have a flavor contest where people write the backstories for the winning entries, and then have someone run a game with those characters! The contests could be open ended (make any character and then we build a party out of the best 3-6) or close ended (make a good dark elf who isn't a dual wielding fighter, make a wizard assassin, etc.)

Well, how much have you guys poached from other sites? Like, are there still people hanging around on the Wizards forums that could be brought over? That'd be a start, I'd say.

Short answer. Yes.

WotC's boards for he RPG side became a graveyard with the last boards update and it doesnt have the pool of people to draw from like the Magic side did. Terisia, Castle of Fun, Coalition War Game, and several other sections completely dead. Play-by-post Haven and Real Adventures were both on life support but their members and their GM's chose to stay on WotC rather than come here and the places mostly fizzled. The main area for D&D still see a bit of traffic but most of the longer members there moved on to other sites and WotC mostly sees new people asking questions or people adverting about their blogs or columns.

I really would like to get more people, I know they are out there, I'm just not sure how to draw them with wotc being so dead on that side.

But there's not a lot of people STILL hanging around? We already pretty much got all the people likely to come?

I know sometimes people still post in the F&S and Art subforums and Yxoque and Raven post on their threads to tell them to come over here. Hilariously, the mods don't even bother to erase those posts, so those boards are basically just full of advertisements for NGA.

If there are stragglers, maybe more could be dragged over if you guys did a sweep of the D&D boards?

Its the same for D&D section.

When people post I often show up and direct them this way. A few of them have showed up and made an account but never posted, or posted once and fizzled.

I think it needs to start with word of mouth. Anyone active on these forums should expose at least two or three IRL friends to it and try to get them participating. Also, what would you think of going to places like Giant in the Playground and talking to actual mods about if they would be okay with us talking about NGA in their forums? I know it would be unkind to try and guerrilla post and recruit, but since they have such large followings, they might be okay with us letting people know there is another site running more games. A lot of the time, they're just mad that people seem to undermine them, but often asking permission first opens the floodgates to new possibilities.

~SE++

I am wary of recruiting actively from either gitp or mtgs. Wotc I'm fine with because they've made it clear that they don't care about what the community wants, and you also have new people showing up there all the time, because it is the default site newer players will go to. Both gitp and mtgs are great, however, and however big they are, they don't deserve to be poached. As long as you confirm that something like having a link in your sig to here is okay (I know it is on mtgs, not sure about gitp; fire would have more info on that, or you can ask a mod there,) then I think that is fine, but "actively" recruiting, i.e., talking to people about the site unsolicited and trying to get them to come here is both impolite and not likely to work; I've only gone to gitp just to read oots and get tips on random dnd stuff, and I've gone to mtgs for their spoilers, but for most people I think those are the two largest dnd and mtg sites outside of wotc, and maybe even including wotc. enworld might want a word with me about that, but I've never really gone there, so I can't comment intelligently on it.

tl;dr - poaching members from those two sites could give nga a bad name and hurt us more in the long run, and it is also not likely to work in the short term (hey come to our site, its great! also we need members to post content so uh if you could bring some of that with you too that'd be great.)

stl;sdr - if you build it, they will come.

Actually, actively poaching members from any other site, not just the popular ones, can give any site a bad name. NGA got a bad rep amongst a small group of people for poaching WOTC, and it only got mostly ignored because WOTC is as popular with its fanbase as Blizzard or EA.

Honestly, the wiki and maybe a larger area for play by post sound like the two most important things.

Just curious - why do you believe play-by-post needs a larger area?

As the leading member of play by post I'm curious what causes a user who has never posted there to say it needs to be bigger.

Edit: It seems Fire thought the same

Why would we get a bad rep for rescuing people from the Motherboard?

I can only assume it's a bad rep among people who've never attempted the nightmare process that is posting there now. Anyone else would surely be sympathetic to our aims.

But yeah poaching from non-disastrous sites is probably a bad plan. And I'm not sure we want people from Salvation anyway. >_>

Let's avoid bashing other sites and their members. Yes even WotC.

We have a lot of users who came from other sites, and the tabletop community is not site exclusive so people can belong to multiple.

The most common complaint I saw from wotc members was essentially "you created a new site because wotc is dying? great, but not all of us want it to die, so please stop making it worse."

I've actually not seen that one.

I've seen complaints about who was on staff, about not having enough content, or about members here but never that we poached from another site.

The motherboard is... barely usable though? That's not bashing, that's just pointing out the god's honest truth. Literally my entire community moved to Salvation because the site was that broken. NGA just saved us from being absorbed whole into another larger community.

Ugh, I mean I guess it's pointless saying this because obviously if y'all didn't agree with me you wouldn't be here running the site but it just bugs me that this site should be blamed for something that was largely inevitable and had mostly already taken place by the time the site was fully opened to the public.

I'm still shocked over what happened at the mothership. It's like it still hasn't fully hit me. I arrived really late to YMtC, but it was still an amazing place. Too bad. As far as growing our ranks here...I'm not really sure what we can do. I'll have to give it some serious thought and see if I can come up with any ideas.

The most important thing we can do as members to keep this place thriving is to post. The more you post the more people have to respond to and the more that people will find us when it comes to plugging random things into the search engine. I've tried to get the word out about this in the RPG section... if you have some question or something even if you think its silly, start a thread and ask it. Even if its answered quickly and in the first post, the next time someone else out there starts a D&D game and has the same question, when they go to google it NGA will be in the results.

Content breeds content, posting breeds posting. Stay active and so to will the boards.

let's see...my thread about Cyrstalshore has 26 replies,most of them mine saying i added stuff, but 1444 views...so yeah not for a lack of posting.....oddly this is the only place that i have gotten replies to the setting lol