Game Interview

Horrible idea. The worst roleplayer I've ever met could do this. He would fuck up groups with drama, fall asleep if things were not combat, provoke fights where the rest of us made contacts and so fourth.

The best roleplayer I've had can barely walk up a flight of stairs.
One guy I know that's a fantastic roleplayer, has a muscle disease. He's just short of being paralyzed.

Seems reasonable. I'm a 300+ lbs fatty, but even I can do ten proper pushups.

1. Are you a man?

2. Can you prove it?

Questions I would ask a completely new player

>Are you familiar with the system?
>Are you familiar with the setting?
>What days can you play? I generally try to keep a rotating schedule
>Are there any topics you want to avoid seeing in the campaigns because you have issues with them? I will avoid rape, graphic sex scenes and humilating other players. I would prefer having as little solo-game time at the table as possible.

I consider these questions to be important.
I would most likely also ask questions such as
>What's your phone numer?
>What's your name?

Then why even bother? Who's it gonna weed out?

The people who should be geting fit instead of wasting time with RPGs.

>Do ten leg squats
>If they can't do it or they object don't play with them.

Wait, hold on. How fat do you have to be not to be able to do ten squats?

Or do they need to show that they have proper form?

Hardly a fair test. I'm not fat (67.8kg) but the reason I can't even squat once is muscle atrophy. I spent three months in a hospital bed, recovering from an ongoing list of afflictions.

Just as a I start to get my strength back, another disaster hits. roleplaying is one of my few escapes from the fear that, through no fault of my own, my body will just fail on me some day soon.

>Missing the joke this hard.

>Making a joke so shitty that that many people miss it

I guess the thing to do for me would be to ask them what their worst experience in tabletop RPGs has been, because THAT GUY is going to have a very different worst than a normal player.
Then probably share my own worst and gauge their reaction.

If the player is a complete newbie and this is their first every game, I guess I'd ask how they got into the idea, since I feel like the average normal player would have different reasons to the average that guy.

Though I mean a fair number of that guy stories aren't anything to do with the game and end up being about wcternal things.

My worst player ever was terrible in the actual game, but as a complete newbie it would be kinda understandable.
The problem was that outside actual role play and game mechanics she was ignoring the game half the time to play overwatch whilst pretending she was going over character sheets and shit, and then got hella rapey with two f my players.

I feel like those aren't things you can easily find out about a person from an interview since even these people would know to hide it up front. Fucking surely.

>What kind of question should I ask a new player wanting to play at my table?
Ask them what they are hoping and expecting from the game.
Explain the kind of game that you are planning run and ask them what they think about it.
Ask what kinds of characters have they played recently and what kind they might want to for your game.
If you have any rules like no rape, no smoking, no drugs, no pvp, no phones, no kender, or whatever, it might be a good idea to mention them now and ask them If they're okay. (my no phone rule only really comes up if it's a problem)
Ask for as many methods of contact as possible.
Ask for their schedule of expected availability, so you can coordinate game time.

>How can I be sure to filter That Guys and other unpleasant individuals?
>be sure
You can't.
A solid conversation is usually enough to detect many possible red flags.

>being so ashamed over missing a joke that you can't let it go

Mostly the same as what other people have written, but I'll add something I wish other GMs would ask occasionally: Are you planning on playing a character, or playing a build?

As a player, I love to come up with character concepts and build them around that. I always try to then play that character as optimally as I can within the ruleset, but I've had a few clashes with people who always want the mechanically best characters at their tables.

That's not to say one is worse or better than the other, they're just personal preferences that can occasionally stir up trouble at the table.

>Are you planning on playing a character, or playing a build?
This question is kinda loaded.
Simply ask about their character and how they talk about it should reveal if it is a character or a build.

bump

I can do 50 pushups no problem, but my knee is fucked so squats are out.

I kinda just ask if they're a warm body, but that's more due to the fact that I GM at a game bar. If someone shows up and the manager puts them at my table, I gotta deal with them.

That means you have the weekly people with the private jokes and you have the walk ins who disappear forever the next week. They generally get killed by frightfully common weather patterns.

I really thought the Prof X reaction image made my point.

OP here, thank you friends for all your answers. I usually go through friends referrals to get new players, but I am exploringnew ways of recruiting like forums and so on

>no phones

I guess I'll go fuck myself if there is an emergency at home or someone needs to talk to me for work.

>it'd probably turn away a fair few normal-good players too, purely because it seems so formal.

Agree. As a player, the moment I have to go through a job interview just to be in a game I immediately feel something is off. This level of formality reeks of a control freak GM who takes the game way too seriously.

Hello guys, OP here again, sorry for deserting my own thread but today has been quite busy, between work meetings and an evening session of lighthearted d&d with friends.
Thanks again for all your answers which are all useful, though I realized that I might have phrased my OP better: I am not really going to sit down at a glass-and-steel table with the new guy, in a suit, coldly asking questions and taking notes.

I am a financial consultant, and besides receiving money by my clients, my job requires to ask them questions about delicate matters while simultaneously keeping them at ease and willing to answer, so the exam-formal interview template is obviously not going to work well.
Let alone an interview for a series of informal gaming sessions.

I am sure that an informal conversation, one on one, maybe in front of a beer, is going to be the best way to do this. But I am going to need to know which kind of questions do I need to ask, or to which subject do I need to steer the conversation. So be sure that I am not going to appear formal in any way, hell at least I hope so, but just casually asking (very precise) questions about gaming.

That said, I tend to take my games seriously. I mean, it's a very particular hobby which is easy to get into and very hard to do right, since as a GM I am taking charge of the fun and enjoyment of 4-5 people at my table. At the very least I don't want to disrupt a fun and satisfying environment because the new guy obviously won't fit in.

And this is basically why I opened this thread, I wanted to know what you guys think of this subject since That Guys stories are fun to read but less fun to experience.

These are very good questions, thank you. They do imply however that I have some answers from my existing group to compare, which is not necessarily going to be easy. Or, I just go with my guts and see if the answers convince me.

1 - I guess I am going to just throw this and see what answers come out. I'd answer "I expect to have fun", which is damn generic already, but you never know what answers can come out.

2 - I recently studied pic related that detail exactly what people find "fun" in videogames. I guess that while I can detail as well what my idea of "fun" is, I'm not going to get answers that precise, so I am going to need to broadly frame the answer I'm going to get. It's not going to be hard anyway, I think I can do it.

3 - This is perfect exactly as it is. Seriously thank you very much.

Sharing the pdf as payment.

>interviewing people for a game
We're all nerds here, but holy shit you Fucking nerd

>"What's been your worst experience with/in a tabletop game?"
>Listen closely to this. What kind of story they tell is what'll differentiate a normie from a That Guy.

Just to clarify, can you provide examples of both cases?

>"What sort of time commitment are you looking to make for this game?"
>This'll establish the interest/investment level they have and time/schedule that'll work best for them.

I guess that an introductory chat before joining the sessions would filter already those who aren't going to be invested as my group is in the game. But it's crucial, nonetheless. Thank you.

>"Are you okay with not having access to phone/computer usage during game hours, unless you have an emergency?"
>If they aren't willing to accept this, DON'T let them in.

I understand that this is sort of an issue in many tables around, but I sincerely don't know what can force a person to come and sit down for at least 5 hours for something they obviously will find less interesting than Angry Birds. I get that when a combat scene is dragging along and it's not my turn I can wander around a bit on facebook, and I find nothing wrong with it, but if this is a constant issue, well...
Also, in my group we tend to play with manuals and sheets on tablets/phones because it's easier to manage, and no one fools around taking selfies. I guess it's maturity related? I don't know.

Great questions and subjects to discuss, thank you.

>I would most likely also ask questions such as
>What's your phone numer?
>What's your name?

Well I damn hope so, and hope that I already know the answers before question time begins.

If you don't want it to be like a job interview, just ask the guy to make a character (just the concept, don't need to stat him out at this point). That should tell you a lot; is he a Mary Sue, an edgelord, a powergamer, etc.

I just reached an age/stage where I vastly prefer quality and likeminded people over mindless "just for fun" gaming. ESPECIALLY if I don't know those people beforehand, and I need them to meet my close friends at my house.
You'll eventually get there if you want to improve.

That could be really nice.
I guess he needs to know a bit of specifics about the setting beforehand if it's not enough widely known, but it's definitely doable.
And it's going to tell a lot about him, and give me a lot of hooks for more questions if I don't want to reject him already.

Excellent list, thank you very much. Really helpful.

This form is garbage... please don't do this, you'll wreck yourself. Find some non-meme guide.

>Also, this is a fucking game where obese men and women pretend they're elves, not a fucking job or college class.

Our society has broken down to the point where even fucking games need RPG job interviews. I'm sick and tired of being bait/switched into Magical Realm bullshit. If you feel threatened by OP's solution, then it's more of a reason to implement RPG job interviews.

This is great advice. "Don't stat him out" is also very useful to see if they can make a character that doesn't depend on mechanical stats.

>Just to clarify, can you provide examples of both cases?

As the saying goes, if everyone you meet smells like shit, check the bottom of your own shoe. Generally people who can be saved have one or two particular shitty moments or people they pick out. That Guy will tell you he's left (been kicked from) twelve separate groups and in his narrative it's because all 45 aggregate members of those groups were unfathomable cunts who hated him and were also dumb.

You could do the interview in character (and about the character instead of the player). That would lighten up the mood and actually tell you a lot about their style of roleplay.

Bamp

OP here, thanks a lot for clarifying the point.

OP, this guy has a few solid questions.

Other questions would be like said
>What do they expect of the game? What kind of theme do they want (horror, action, kingdom-building)?
See if the group agrees on a theme.

Yeah thanks, I noticed and answered them

It's not a bad hint, but it needs the player to create a concept without knowing anything specific about the ongoing campaign, or the game world, the way the group plays and the group itself.
All informations that will be provided during the interview.
It's kind of a shot in the dark, because the player doesn't know all those things and the GM may want to reject that character concept because it won't fit, regardless of the quality.

What if I've never played a ttrpg before? What questions would you ask me then?

Asking for a friend.

Funnily enough, the times I had to do an RPG interview, it was clear the group itself was cancer. Namely because every time I asked them about setting specifics for the game I was interested in, they tended to fly off the handle and tell me that I was a metagamer edgelord and wasn't a good fit for the group.

Well excuse me if I wanted to know if this was going to be a horror game or not and if we were going to be working for firewall: Eclipse Phase is weird.

Not that guy, but my experience has been that groups that run interviews tend to be... furries.

You don't need an interview to detect most That Guy. You just need to hang out with them for a while.

Well, I supposed to find new players over forums and sites dedicated to let players/GMs meet to play ttrpgs, otherwise there's no point doing an interview.
I mean, they must be used to the subject at hand, and your question premise is completely opposite.

>You don't need an interview to detect most That Guy. You just need to hang out with them for a while.

The point is, why should I slowly waste my time discovering that indeed, I wasted my time with That Guy, when a quick interview (or informal conversation, if you like it more) is at least going to raise a few red flags, allowing me to ask more questions just to be sure?

A lot of that guys will pass the interview process, to be honest.

Sometime, That Guy doesn't start out as That Guy.

Actually, skip the interview. Run a one shot with the people you intend to play with first to see what happens.

Arm injurie, squats are better for me.

This is true.
A normie might be like.
>We had a dm or players that kept skipping sessions
That guy is going to list arguments and faillings out.

>wanting normalfags in your game

Has Veeky Forums really fallen this far?

Fuck all you casuals.

>inb4 I'm That Guy

Actually I'm bro-tier at the table. I took a back seat for the entirety of the last session, without being asked, purely to let a new guy and a returning player get an extra dose of spotlight. I'm just not a filthy normalfag.

>run a one shot
No. No friend, you're missing the point here.
I don't want to waste lifetime on bad games, not even "trial one shots".
I'm setting up interviews - that take way less time - specifically for that reason, and I want questions that root out problem players.
Do you have some advice on this?
If you don't, thanks anyway for your help.

>fallen this far

This tribal mentality is exactly one of the many things that are keeping this hobby from evolving and setting up standards.
Tabletop roleplaying is a very social hobby to start with, and one where you can actually build strong and useful social skills, like public speaking, empathy and lateral thinking.
If you want to do it right, of course. Step up, do everyone a favour starting from yourself.

Iunno man, interviews are honestly as likely to filter out the good people as the bad, and the really bad will generally be capable of faking their way through it with flying colours.

I've never found it to be a useful tactic.

I put my phone away, and use my tablet for referencing books. Not as good as having the actual books, but I can have them all available without having to carry a bunch of books.

not user

Group interview.

Get all people in the room together and ask them general roleplaying scenario WWYD questions.

Ask them what character/class they want to be and then try and answer questions IC

>A village complains there's something in the woods killing sheep.
>There's several chests closed and locked in the room, on the otherside there's a locked metal door.
and throw in something that can potentially bring out the worst
>You find a bar wench tied to a tree, she appears to have been knocked uncontious.
>There's a dragon sitting on a hoard of gold
>The priests let you spend the night in the temple to protect their ancient relics from thieves.

I say do this in a group because a LULRANDOM player will only act up in a group setting.

>bonus points

Plant a trusted roleplayer in the group and have him do something LULRANDOM and see who follows along and who tries to stop him.

OP here, now that's a very nice solution, if potentially time consuming. Also, not sure if a new guy would be embarrassed to be thrown into group dynamics all of a sudden, but nonetheless you make very valid points.
Thanks.

Do you think they are used to little more "formal" filters already, like question time sessions?
Or they are faking their way through because that's just what they do?