If you’ve ever spent time in a mid-level area, you’ve undoubtedly heard “LFG” over the general channels at least one too many times. Leave the public desperation at home.

Most games feature a toggle to set to announce quietly that you’re looking for a short-term group. Some also allow you to search through nearby players to see who has that flag and which class or race they are. Star Wars Galaxies has the most advanced player-matching setup of any modern game, allowing you to search based on personal interests as well as in-game abilities. When you find some likely results, start /telling or /whispering people to see if they’re interested in your goals. Be specific, friendly, and understandable. “Hi. I’m looking to take on the ogres across the lake. Care to join me?” is a good opening line.

If you find someone willing to give it a try, start the group with yourself as the leader. Once you have one or two people together, you can start advertising. A group looking for players is often much less annoying than a player looking for a group. Similarly, if you see a group looking for a player, make sure to speak up. Someone else has gone to the trouble of putting together a group, and the best thing you can do is to support them. If they have their own goals, hear them out. Their goals may be similar to or physically near yours. Groups can handle challenges more quickly than a solo player can, so having multiple goals when you start the group might work nicely.

If you don’t have a grand goal and you notice a few other people hunting in the same area, consider starting a small group—even with only two people. Look for the obvious signs that you and others have the same goals. If you and another player are about the same level and are obviously hunting only a particular type of creature, chances are that you could aid each other in the short term. Don’t be shy; send a /tell with your proposal.

If you are leading, check with the other group members to understand what everyone wants out of the experience. If the quest has any requirements, such as having a quest logged, being at a certain level, or having a certain item, make sure that everyone has that taken care of before you start. If you are a participant, make sure that you prepare for the task at hand before you enter the group. Nothing frustrates players more than supposedly quick preparatory side trips before a mission.

Take a few moments to figure out appropriate group roles. Who’s the Tank? Who’s the Healer? Who’s pulling, and who’s doing DPS? (See Table 3-1.) These roles don’t have to be formal, but do plan ahead and set your expectations appropriately.

EverQuest players should have a good stock of bandages, food, and drink. If you are participating in an instanced adventure for the first time, be sure to obtain an adventure stone from a member of the Wayfarer’s Brotherhood. Galaxies players should be sure they have access to a steady supply of high-buff food tailored to their prey. If you’re hunting creatures that target minds heavily, have mind-buffing food at the ready.

With your group members ready and your roles assigned, strike out on the trail. Many games have a /follow option that allows one character to follow another as you move through the world. This is a convenient way to travel long distances, because only one person really needs to drive. Before you start, discuss hunting on the way to your destination (if you have one). Some people will want to head right there, and some folks will want to stop and kill every bunny along the way. Discuss that up front.

Once you have reached your destination, consider your combat techniques. The technique you use to enter combat will determine the most effective use of your party members. The most common method, and the only one I’ll discuss here, is pulling . This is where one party member, usually the Tank, attracts the attention of a monster or small group of monsters and leads them to the group, waiting in an area free of monsters. Once the Tank has led the monster to the group, he leads the attack against the creatures. Nukes and DPS characters attempt to bring the beast down as quickly as possible while the Tank and Mez characters ensure the safety of their damage-dealing compatriots. Healers and Buffers use the time between pulls to practice their arts.

While this may seem tedious, pulling ensures that only a limited number of creatures enter combat with the group at a single time. A large group is much more likely to awaken every monster in the cave, but a single individual can attract the attention of a smaller group and draw them to the rest of his party.

Pulling is common in large dungeons where dangerous creatures tend to gang up on parties, such as the train-heavy gnoll dungeon of Blackburrow. Outside of a dungeon, the odds of a large number of creatures ganging up on the party is much smaller. Additionally, there is more room to maneuver outside, so pulling may be unnecessary.

Pulling is less common in Star Wars Galaxies, which has alleviated the need for these tactics. Most hunting parties become targets of an entire enemy group by attacking only one creature of that group. Crowd control is the key to a successful hunt.

Have the group leader designate a primary target. Use the most powerful hunters to take out this target as quickly as possible. In the meantime, have the rest of the group perform disorientation effects, knockdowns, and fear-attacks against other enemies. Most Galaxies hunting groups have a Doctor or Medic with them. To keep the others players alive, have the doctor monitor their HAM bars. Droids with the proper Stimpack Dispensation Module can hold stimpacks, which can ease the load of your medics.

Now that you’re in the field and in the thick of things, stay flexible but on task. If you’re not the leader, your primary objective is to keep up with the group. If you fall behind, you jeopardize the group by your absence—and by the fact that the group might have to come save you from a respawn.

Congratulate the other folks in your group for finding good loot and for gaining levels. Don’t complain if someone found a better item than you did just by the luck of the draw. If you really are interested, offer to trade them something for it. Stay on the lookout for monsters that might wander in during combat. Players traditionally announce additional monsters by saying “Add!” or “Inc!” for “incoming.”

You’ll soon start earning loot, which is one of the points of a group in the first place. Most games have specific styles of group looting mechanisms in place. Before you kill a single monster, it’s crucial to decide which style to use. Looting is the single most stressful group activity.

If you don’t have the option to limit the ways in which people can loot corpses, a round-robin approach is probably the fairest way. If you have a frequent group of players, designating one player as the official looter might work best. At the end of your hunting session, the looter can hand out items to players who are interested in them. Split looted coin evenly among the party members; most games do this automatically or at least give you the option.

Once you’ve reached your destination, you may have to deal with camping. When a creature spawns infrequently, and players have a high interest in killing it, groups often camp out at the monster’s spawn location. Camping is a fact of life in Massively Multiplayer games. Be polite. The group that’s waited the longest has the first rights to the monster. Make sure that you and your group members respect the wait the other group has endured.

If possible, offer to help the other group. Many boss-type monsters spawn with attendants, making a difficult fight even harder. If the boss monster is the only creature the groups at the spawn are interested in, offer to take on the attendant spawns while the other group tackles the boss monster. This gives you more experience and less boredom, and the other group may offer to reciprocate.

Your group might complete the initial goal more quickly than you imagined and float another goal as a reason to stay together. Now that you’ve gone to the trouble of playing together with these people, be open to the possibility of doing something else with them. There are likely to be several options open to you, so state your preference. If you’re voted down, decide whether you’d like to assist with the new goal or whether you’d like to move on. Helping out other folks can have a turnabout, though. If the goal has already changed once, it’s possible that it may change again to something more to your liking.

Your assistance and friendly behavior may have future payoffs. All modern games have some capacity to designate people as friends. Many people use the friend list as a way to keep track of reliable individuals for grouping. The friend designation is most formal in Final Fantasy XI and requires an okay from both parties to enact. At the same time, FFXI players are very ready to recognize worthwhile group members as friends. It’s too useful a technique to pass up.

With your adventure successfully completed, the only thing that remains is to leave the group. If you and your group have decided to divvy up treasure at the end of the session, make sure you get your cut before you take off. You may have picked up an item or two along the journey that another group member might want. Offer to trade, if you like, or just give it away if you’re feeling generous. As courteous as you may have been, nothing makes a better impression than philanthropy. Thank your group members for helping you out and then take your leave. Ungroup yourself from the group before you leave the area so that it’s clear that you are gone. Some games allow you to gain experience from fights you had no part in, so ungrouping is a courtesy to the other players.

The most important part of grouping is courtesy. Helping out other folks in the interesting and dangerous world you inhabit will ensure that there are people around in the future to watch your back. What else is a group for?