... checking in with the dozen or so friends I have who always say they want to play tabletop games, but when it comes time to actually schedule a game suddenly go quiet or make vague excuses. I am only mildly exasperated by this, heh.

One Canuck built the #ttrpg tag and the #mecha tag. And that was me.
Cohost Cultural Institution: @Making-up-Mech-Pilots
Priv: @Scampriv
... checking in with the dozen or so friends I have who always say they want to play tabletop games, but when it comes time to actually schedule a game suddenly go quiet or make vague excuses. I am only mildly exasperated by this, heh.
I have seen many suggestions to just pick a time two weeks from now and say that you're running a game. Twice now I've prepped to run a game announced this way and had nobody show up even after multiple people get hyped and state that they'll attend
Oof, that sucks. Definitely not a case of "if you build it, they will come." Sorry that happened to ya' not once, but twice.
I don't normally try to write adventures before I have a group to play with, but chatting with folks it seemed like there was interest among my friends. I've asked a couple different friend groups. So far, one's been completely silent while another is interested. We just gotta puzzle out how to schedule it when two of the folks in that group live half-way across the world and have three kids.