How are you getting new players and converts?

Adonai wrote:

Here's a reply from a group in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada.

boardgamegeek.com/thread/616773/vampire-the-eternal-struggle-pre-con-newbie-bonanz

That was awesome. Good luck and congratz to Canada! I really enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing.

Also, DeBomas, very good points, and many the same I have been thinking if I were to demo the game. Next summer I will - my GF has this new group of friends, of which all play MtG and are pretty geekish; wonderful people, though! So I'm pretty sure I'll have another group of 5 to start the game then! I just hope there'll be starter sets still available somwhere then. Most likely our local store won't run out of stock anytime soon, though.

Anyways, this is a field I'm certainly interested in. All stories are definitely fun to read, and even though I've made plans for how to best demo the game myself, all ideas are a good read.

One bit of advice I'd give to all princes is: have 3 to 5 moderately competitive decks (ones that can probably sweep a table of 'social' decks made by experienced players) that are very simple to play. I need to edit one of mine, but I have a Tor-Vote, Malk Kindred Spirits S&B, Gangrel toolbox (I mostly need to adjust the combat and masters a bit). They're set up so that most players can be given one and put up some serious competition against the more serious players. That way they can get some success, get some of the key parts of the game sorted (Phases, Taking Actions, Stealth V Intercept, BASIC combat) and watch other people doing more complicated things (nearly every group has one guy who loves playing combat decks or Wacky Trick decks). Then after a few games (one or maybe two with another player hovering over the newbie's shoulder) they'll be able to get in on their own and do fairly well.

It's good if you can get them in a group, but if you're there every week then over time they'll interact with your group. Eventually they'd consider joining. Honestly if the pubs around my area were a bit less "working class get smashed in 60min" venues, I'd consider having games there...