Find people that want to play, there’s more than you can think.

Something I learned a long time ago is it's easier to find people who want to play D&D (or whatever game) and make friends with them than it is to make your friends play D&D.

There's probably a nicer way to put this, but frankly most people are a fucking mess. And who can blame them? This is a capitalist hellscape. But that means if you're semi randomly selecting people, you're going to get a lot of people who are barely holding on, and won't make fantasy elf time a priority.. Some of them might sincerely want to play, and overestimate their energy levels. Other people are terrified of confrontation, and will say yes even when they absolutely do not want to do that.

But if you go the other way around, and find folks that seem friendly at a meetup or whatever for RPGs, they're more likely to show up. They already put in effort and showed up somewhere.