Lately, I have been having a problem with finding in-person players. I have visited shops to find them full of Magic and other TCG players, but no role-players. Several game stores in my area are like this. I have posted on relevant socials and Discords like the Discord server for a game store, local area RPG players Discord and FB pages, LFG groups on reddit and Lemmy and Discord. I’m wondering if anybody else has this problem, and how are you trying to solve this?
Did you ask the people behind the counter at your LGS if they do TTRPG groups?
If you’ve done all that and you’re still not getting any bites as a GM looking for players, I’m inclined to think there is something wrong with your pitch that is turning people off. Usually GMs looking for players have the problem of too many players being interested. Maybe it’s because you’re looking for pen and paper players as opposed to an online group? Are there any unusual requirements you’ve put forth in your posts on these communities?
Some people might be a bit nervous about playing in-person with a totally new group. Perhaps you could offer playing online virtually with people in your local area first, and then if you all vibe, you could meet in-person after that.
The store I have been at lately has welcomed the idea of more RPGs played there for some time. He got me on the store’s discord so I could find and chat with players. There was a push for some time, but folks have been rather silent about TTRPGs.