How to find a roleplaying group

Where to look in order of what works, how to write an ad people answer, and how to tell whether a group will last before playing.

Finding a group is harder than learning the rules or finding the time. Plenty of people buy rulebooks they never get to play because they are missing three people.

Here are the places to look, from most to least effective, and how to avoid a group that falls apart by the third session.

First: decide what you are looking for

Many people skip this step. An ad like "Looking for people to play RPGs" attracts nobody because it says nothing. Before writing anywhere, be clear about:

Question	Why it matters
Do you run or play?	GMs are short, not players. If you run, you will have a group within a week.
Live or written?	They are different audiences.
Which day and time, exactly?	"In the afternoons" is no use. "Thursday 21:30-23:30" is.
Which time zone?	Europe and the Americas do not match. Say so from the start.
Which game, or do you not mind?	Saying it filters out whoever does not fancy it, which saves everyone time.
A long game or a single session?	Very different commitments.

With that written down, finding people is usually a matter of a week.

Where to look, in order of what works

1. People you already know

The most stable group usually comes from here: two friends and one of their partners, more than people from a forum.

Most have never played and think they will not like it. They almost always do, if the first game is short, without a book and without a complicated sheet. A one-off two-hour session convinces far more than explaining roleplaying to them.

2. Communities of the platform where you will play

If you already know where you want to play, start with its community. It has a big advantage over a general forum: the people there already want to play online, already know how to use the tool and nobody has to be convinced to install anything.

In Roliando this is Games: you publish the table with its day, system, language and seats, and whoever fits asks for a seat with a one-line introduction. Whoever signs up also sees beforehand what the table is like (the social contract and the safety tools), and whoever runs it decides who comes in. How it is done, step by step, is in Find a Game: the board of tables and players; the chat is in Community: Chat, Forum, People and Messages.

3. Spanish-language Discord servers

The big ones have a group-finding channel. They work, with two warnings:

There are lots of ads and few replies. Write in the format above and you will stand out for clarity.
The drop-out rate is high. Of five who sign up, three show up and two stay.

4. Roleplaying forums and communities

Slower, but the people who answer tend to be more steady: they have been there for years and do not vanish within a week. If you want a long campaign, there is more chance here than on Discord.

5. Shops and associations in your city

They work for in-person and for online too. Many people in your city play online for convenience and do not say so.

It works worse than it looks, unless you already have roleplaying followers. If you use it, put the day and time on the first line: nobody reads the rest.

How to write an ad people answer

The bad one:

Looking for people to play RPGs, I have lots of ideas, write to me.

The one that works:

GM looking for 3 players · D&D 5e · Thursday 21:30-23:30 (Spain time) · by voice · long campaign, starting at level 1 A classic adventure with some city intrigue. No experience needed: if you have never played, I will help you with the sheet before we start. Session zero next Thursday to get to know each other and make characters together. Write to me saying: whether you have played before, which time zone you are in and what you fancy playing.

It works because it says what, when, how many, for whom and what the reader has to do. That last line multiplies the useful replies.

If you are looking for a seat instead of running, the same idea in reverse: which days you can, what you have played, what you fancy and, if you are new, say so: some GMs like teaching.

How to tell whether a group will last, before playing

Almost everything shows in session zero, half an hour of talk before making characters. If someone skips that step, it is already a clue.

Good signs:

There is a fixed day and time, and someone says out loud what happens if one person is missing.
People talk about what the game is before talking about characters.
Someone asks which themes nobody wants to appear. A group that asks has thought about its players.
The GM says how long the campaign will last, even if only "about ten sessions".

Signs it will fall apart:

"We'll sort out the schedule as we go." It almost never gets sorted.
Seven players. They do not fit, and by the third session four are left.
The GM has spent three months preparing the world and has not played yet.
Nobody knows each other and nobody has spoken before the first session.

If you do not find one: run it yourself

It is the fastest route, and most people do not consider it because they think running is hard.

Running the first time is easier than playing well, because nobody expects anything. And GMs are short everywhere: announce that you run and you will fill the seats in days.

To lower the bar:

One session, not a campaign. "One afternoon, one adventure, and we'll see."
An adventure already written, a short one. There are plenty of free ones.
A game with light rules. The big rulebook can wait.
Three players.

If it goes well, you have a group. If it goes so-so, you have lost an afternoon and know much more than before.

When that moment comes: how to play roleplaying games online for the setup, and Running a campaign to run it.

How to get the group to stay

After finding people, the task is not to lose them:

Start and finish on time. Respect for other people's schedule retains more than any plot.
Sessions shorter than your body asks for. Two good hours are worth more than four dragged out.
Write three lines of summary after each session. Whoever missed it comes back knowing where things are.
Ask from time to time, directly, whether they are having a good time. People answer.
Accept that a campaign can end. Ten closed sessions are worth more than thirty that fade out, and a group that finishes something usually does it again.