It has been my experience that social deduction games are very attractive to folks who have problems socializing in day-to-day life. You can see them almost come alive when they are given the permission.
I think a lot of people need prompting for something to talk about. They have no confidence that topics they bring up will be interesting to anyone else. So any kind of gathering that takes that pressure off will be attractive.
I've been trying to come up with some interesting prompts after observing just asking someone "What's been happening" yields nothing but "Oh not much, work". So far the old classics of just probing in to what they do for work, what they did last weekend, etc and then finding any bit of info to drill down in to more interesting topics works best.
Also very important to recognize most conversation starters are someone serving the ball to you, you need to hit it back with a continuation. If you're giving one word dead end answers you've just caught the ball and dropped it.
I was a bit surprised to read this. I didn't think I'd stand out in the sea of comments here. But to this, since a couple of years ago I had a break up, moved city, quit all social media and went outside to real events. HN is the only place I still comment on.
Yes and the reverse is also true. I don’t like to play social games at my meetups because that’s a framework that seems to stifle genuine conversation. I do sometimes provide hypothetical questions as a bit of scaffolding.
> You can receive $1 million immediately for every 1 year of your life you are willing to give up (taken off the end of your life). How many years, if any, do you sell?
> You get to ask a "Cosmic Google" one single question about any mystery in history (e.g., "Who was Jack the Ripper?" or "Are we alone in the universe?") and get the absolute truth. What are you asking?
> If everyone in the world had a floating stat above their head (like "lies told" or "pizzas eaten"), which stat would you want to be able to see?
Same. I don't like to yuck other people's yums, but I don't get a lot from those kinds of games. Talking to strangers is not a problem for me.
I have been spending a bit of time at the local board game shops and the crowd sounds quite similar to the crowd you are attracting. On a very basic level I just try to model being a social adult and hope it rubs off.
