Always Create a Welcoming Environment

Today’s article is going to fall under the “Community Growth” tag, but it’s a topic that applies to all walks of your gaming life and really your life in general. We, both as individuals and as a community, should always work to create a welcoming environment. There are a multitude of benefits to being open and inclusive – better recruiting to your local scene, better retention in your groups, a more enjoyable play experience (for yourself and for your opponent), and an improved reputation for the game and community as a whole. Let’s talk about why (and how) to make things as comfortable as possible for everyone you interact with and continue to elevate Warhammer Underworlds. It’s already a great community, but there is room to grow and we will expand our player base best if we all have a positive mindset.

Notably this is intended to be used for all your interactions – both in person at your local game night, and online in any venue. Cold-shouldering a potential new player in person or driving them away with a harsh attitude in person is substantially impactful in your own area, but how we present ourselves online and interact with anonymous screen names can impact the game worldwide. I’m not perfect myself, and don’t want to sound like I’m nagging, but it’s always good to have a personal check-in and make sure our behaviors match the goal of getting more people to play this great game with us. As they say, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Better Recruiting
Whether for your local scene or for the community at large, you will add more new members by being open and kind to everybody. A personal casually browsing the shelves at your local game store isn’t likely to spend much time thinking about Underworlds if you aren’t paying them any attention. I don’t mean that you need to go out of your way to introduce yourself to everyone who walks by the table and try to sell them on the game, but I do like to try and follow the 10-5 rule that’s common in hospitality circles. If somebody comes within 10 feet of you, see if you can’t at least make eye contact and drop a smile. If they’re within 5, give a warm verbal greeting. Some people will smile back and continue about their day, and that’s fine. But some portion of them will feel that it’s now socially acceptable to watch your game for a short while or even ask questions. I can’t say what portion of them would then try a teaching game with you or buy an Underworlds box, but your odds go way up if they feel like observation of your game wouldn’t be awkward, and your body language is going to make that more likely. I also have a ‘talk to me about Warhammer Underworlds’ binder I like to prop up at my table on occasion so they both know A) what I’m doing and B) that it’s ok to look over my shoulder.

Now let’s imagine there’s somebody who is already interested in Warhammer Underworlds, or at least has heard about the game and is willing to give it a try. If you can give them some attention and appear friendly, they are far likelier to engage in your play group and could become a regular member of your game nights. More than once I have snagged somebody who came in for a game of Kill Team or AoS, had time to kill, and spent it with me doing a quick demo. They don’t all turn into lifers, but some do, and being cold or unwelcoming would have killed that opportunity.

In an online setting this still applies. Somebody came by your forum, discord server, facebook page, etc and expressed some interest? Say hello and engage with their questions. A person with tentative interest in Underworlds who gets radio silence or perceived rudeness to their question will move on to another game, another hobby, another community. You only get one shot at a first impression, and it’s best to make it a positive one. It also sounds corny, but exclamation points in your posts and comments do help with this! At least for Gen Z readers. You could even go so far as to leave a smiley face or emoji if it feels right based off the original post.

Better Retention
The people who are in your local group or the online community at large still benefit from a welcoming environment. A warm smile and a ‘good to see you again’ at your game night, a ‘hope to see you there’ post in your local online setting, and the occasional ‘how have you been? I would love to get a game in with you sometime’ direct message to people can help your regular players feel engaged and more likely to keep coming back. Players who are more on the fence or don’t play nearly as often will be more encouraged to return and keep playing if they’re perceived as ‘one of the group’ and valued as an individual. If you treat people like you could care less about whether they come to play with you or not, then you can probably expect some of them to find something else to do with their time. Try not to take your friends for granted and treat them like real friends. Don’t just talk about the game too, but their summer plans or their kids’ birthday and so on.

Gatekeeping, or the act of diminishing players who might be perceived as ‘lesser than’ can really hurt retention as well. Don’t write somebody off because they don’t understand a rule or they’re some ‘loser who only plays rivals’. Treat people like they’re a valued member of your group and they’re more likely to learn that rule, try out Nemesis or Championship, and become more invested. Cold shoulder them or ridicule them for their perceived failings and you’ll lose them. This kind of behavior is especially pertinent online unfortunately, with relative anonymity and distance making it very easy to be (or at least appear dismissive).

“Remember the Human” is a term online and one of the ten rules of neitquette – people sometimes say mean things online, especially in semi-anonymous places like Discord or Reddit, things they would (hopefully) not say to somebody in person. If a new player or a curious potential player shows up and asks a ‘dumb’ question, and you drive them away with rudeness, saying “Yes, get a starter set, it says starter right on it, because it’s for starting, like you are”, not only do the rest of us not think you’re some funny cool guy, but the new person is much more likely to disengage with the community and find somewhere else to hang out rather than buy the starter set and try to fit in the prevent future bullying. Is there a chance they strive to fit in and ‘get it’? Sure, but they’ll be doing so with negative feelings attached and out of a need to prove themselves rather than joyously engaging with the community, and they’re far likelier to quit in the long run.

More Investment/Leadership from Your Players
Elevate the people around you, both in your local scene and online – a rising tide lifts all ships. By being welcoming and encouraging, you can have people in your scene take on projects, especially if you give them a nudge to pursue their personal interests and skills. Do you have a painter who is really skilled in your region? Tell people about their skills, share their photos (with permission) and maybe suggest they host a paint night or teach a small class to get others in on the action. Does somebody have computer skills? Maybe they can make some fancy graphics to promote your next tournament or league night. Are they into competitive play? Maybe offer to have them TO an event (or TO alongside you). Giving your teammates the opportunity and placing your trust in them can give people the ego boost they need to grow more fully into the Underworlds community and provide your club with some cool extras you didn’t have before. The more they contribute beyond simply showing up to roll dice, the more personal emotional investment they’ll have in your club’s success, and them ore engaged they will be. Help encourage them to ply their skills, and then celebrate and promote their efforts after the fact. Who knows, maybe they’ll make the next big live-play Youtube channel or something really cool, which brings life into your community. This extends beyond your local game store and to the online community as well – everybody has something to offer, and being welcoming and supportive of their efforts encourages them to do more, more often, and enriches everyone’s experience; theirs, yours, and the game as a whole.

More Enjoyable Play Experience
Remember we’re playing a game, and we’re playing it to have fun. Being positive in interactions with others helps them to want to come back and talk again or try out the game they see you playing, and it makes them more likely to have a positive association with the act of playing. People who have fun want to have more, and want to play again! But it’s not just for the new people,. but also the old hands who’ve been at it for a while. If they have fun, you’ll be more likely to have fun too, and isn’t that the point?

Share your opponents’ success and celebrate with them (be happy when they roll well, and compliment them on a great card play), and don’t be a sourpuss about a bad die roll or something not going your way. DEFINITELY don’t cheat to win a game. Even in a casual ‘this doesn’t matter’ environment, you cheapen the win for yourself and could potentially turn your opponent off the game for good. Trust me, it’s more fun to lose a hard fought game fairly than to win one because you got away with cheating – it took little kid me a couple years to learn this while playing Magic on my elementary school playground, but a stacked deck isn’t actually fun for you or for them. Winning At All Costs, or WAAC as it’s known, is like totally wack, yo.

Improved Reputation for the Community and Game
Have you ever popped into an online forum for some game or community and saw nothing but negativity, bashing, and general unpleasantness? Say you wanted to look into a local sports team and all you heard was people trashing the players and the league in general. It might make the ‘fans’ feel good to vent frustration that their team isn’t winning championships, but it doesn’t exactly draw in new fans. Maybe you peek in at a hobby forum like model trains, and instead of seeing everybody excited about somebody’s new track they built, it’s full of comments like ‘that engine doesn’t have lettering on the left side like yours does, and the smokestack is a few millimeters too far back, inaccurate get this out of here’ or something to that extent. Would you feel like you wanted to start building model trains?

A welcoming community would promote other people they see doing cool stuff, and largely offering criticism and advice only when asked for. Even if the person in question never joins the hobby and never plays a game of Underworlds, remember that those first impressions matter. My area has a very active Blood Bowl scene, and when I joined a few Facebook groups just to get the lay of the land, I was immediately welcomed, offered teaching games, free models, asked what interested me about the hobby, and more. This happened in multiple groups with multiple people. I never did end up playing, but the memory sticks and I feel like ‘that’s a good bunch of folks over there’, and I am far more likely to take them up on the offer in the future than I am to pursue the 40K scene locally because of how I was received in each. I haven’t even looked into 30K/Horus Heresy because of the player base’s negative online reputation, whether it’s deserved or not. I have referred a couple people to those Blood Bowl groups, so even if they didn’t convert me personally, their warm reception still got them traffic and potential new members. Strive to make Underworlds the kind of community that people suggest to others, even if it’s not a fit for them.

Wrap
The bottom line is that people in general desire courtesy and desire respect in their daily lives. Giving others courteous respect in your interactions with them is no cost to you and easy to do, yet can have cascading positive effects. It will make you more friends, get you more reliable gaming partners, and grow the Underworlds community over time. Everybody wins, even you, so if for nobody’s benefit but your own;
Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes!