popscythe wrote:The first response to my post that could be summed up as "stop arguing online and start running games" is an attempt to start an argument.
Sure, you've been proven correct, huzzah.
The troubles of Palladium are in no way due to a Rifts 'Hate Brigade', and I am SURE the world is full of people who were GOING to play Rifts, but since it's so controversial have decided to play something else. I think if you had actually read what came before, instead of just responding to it, you would see that one of the problems with getting new players is that Rifts doesn't even come up as an option. It's not that some extremely vocal group follows potential players around talking down Rifts, it's that there is no one talking about it, at all.
Thus why the conclusion is, since Palladium can't recruit very many new players on their own, if you want some, you have to introduce them and run games.
See, it's actually the same solution that you came to, but for some reason you have to post an imaginary conversation and blame these 'haters' that seem to haunt your gaming stores and shoo people away from Rifts.
Aaaanywaaays...
Since, clearly, the best way to get more people to play is run games, I am curious to know how other potential GM's sell Rifts to new players, or convince them to try it instead of some other game?
Personally, I didn't really give anyone a choice, I generally say, 'I'll run a game of Rifts for you' and maybe we'll do something else later (I have old Masquerade WoD and the old Buffy game lined up currently as 'next' games, and I need to get learning a fantasy game so I can run that for people as well).
One of the selling points I do use though, is the 'sure, that sounds neat' idea.
One of my new players wanted to be an Elf (very Fantasy minded), and that was all she knew about anything gaming related. So we chose an Elf, then I just encouraged her to express her ideas, and we figured it out. You want to be an Archer or a Scout? Well, if Rifts those are skills, and you can do those AS WELL as something else. How about being a wizard of some kind as well? There's a Mystic, LLW, and Shifter. Yeah, if you were a Shifter, you could have an owl as a familiar, ect, ect. And thus we end up with an Elven Shifter.
Another had no idea, so she started with the old Random Roll origin. You are from a small tech area, a D-Bee infact, and you have a dog tail and oddly large eyes for your two random characteristics. Can you have a fox tail instead and ears? Yeah, no prob, and you are short and slightly built. Can you have a big robot? Yep, but would you rather be an ace pilot, a mercenary, or a wandering master of technology/master mechanic? And we have an Operator with an Ulti-Max
Another wanted to start with Random Rolls, then realized she could be an elf, then saw that there were dragons, and now we have a dragon.
The old salespitch of 'anything you can imagine' for Rifts is still a good one to draw in new players, especially ones unsure of the world, and guiding them through to the end result allows you to help shape their character (which is key, because I have never met a new to Roleplaying potential character who can make a Rifts Character on their own without reading the majority of the Rulebook, or needing real help at somepoint).
The well established world helps as well. The above new group started in N.A. but as they talked about what they like (TV shows, ect), I decided, you guys are going to head to England, which they were excited to find out was a book full of neat stuff.
The WORST thing you can do to a potential new player, I have found, is to just let them go at the library of Rifts titles. Unlike other games, there are really no books they know they don't need to check out, which means to get an idea of everything they can be/do from the established setting alone, and without the GMs help, they often get overwhelmed trying to read different character classes spread out in different books, why would i be this when I could be that, ect. I've found starting the way the books were released, and slowly expanding outwards, helps new players a lot.
Unfortunately they are not too interested in purchasing any of those books, as I find new players rarely are. Since they are not often available at shops, aren't well publicized, don't stand up to a lot of other products cosmetically, and mainly, because later books are filled with 200+ pages of AWESOME that very few people care about. Most new players seem to be easy to guide towards really specific books (like Juicer Uprising), probably because they find an idea they like and wish there was a 'Player's Handbook' type publication for it, and are not interested in larger world books.