Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

[Rocket Man]

I'm not sure if the question is whether roleplaying is having a hard time recruiting younger people or if roleplayers are. My experience is that most gamers are recruited into the hobby as the result of personal contact, and as gamers get older, they simply don't have as much social contact with folks in their teens or twenties as they used to.

As recently as six years ago, I had an easy time recruiting four late teens/early 20s into a GURPS group, but I already knew all four of them through a summer Shakespeare production I directed.

[D10]

Overall I dont think electronic games are the problem, if anything they exposed an ammount of people in countries like Brazil to the idea of RPGs in unprecedented quantity.

I feel like its a LOT more easy to get people to play with you, even hot girls, than it has ever been... ever.

At the end of the day I double down on what Rocket Man said and ill add that peoples willingness to get into a group depend heavily on impression they had of said group.

There are situations where people will play RPGs merely because they wish to hang out and understand more that specific group of people, which is the majority of people, and to get these people interested in the game you need to get them interested in the group.

The kind of group that formed in my teens were usually depressing to be in and depressing to watch, after watching my cousins play, and hearing many many other stories from other players, I have come to conclude that the majority of groups are composed of people who dont have a grasp of the basics of playing an RPG and of social interaction (not necessarily on the anti social side).

I feel like this led a lot of non RPG affictionate people to have a very bad stigma of RPGs and their players, but nowdays these kinds of stereotypes have changed, and more and more people of all types have been exposed to RPG concepts by virtue of internet and electronic games, MMOs, etc..

A golden age has dawn, there are good players ripe for the taking, its just a question of finding people who enjoy a more intelectual and productive (ironically) kind of social interaction.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

And of course, that problem is greatly reinforced by the continued publication and consumer support of hyper-fragile systems that can only be played with friends, with people one already knows, because massive and thorough trust is required, with regards to everyone exercising self-censorship in terms of not "abusing" non-abuse-proof mechanics.

Peter, do you actually play in any on-going games at present?

I ask because many of your objectives in game design seem intended to make them proof against the behaviour of the kind of kids who like to upset people. Adults don't tend to behave like that, because it's childish. In any case, your ideal kind of game can't turn obnoxious teenagers into good role-players, because for them, upsetting people is the point, and if they can't, they'll just go away. While that's quite an appealing idea, you can achieve it more easily by just not having them in the game in the first place.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by D10

I feel like its a LOT more easy to get people to play with you, even hot girls, than it has ever been... ever.

You live in Brazil. Can you even leave the house without tripping over a hot girl?

:)

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

against the behaviour of the kind of kids who like to upset people. Adults don't tend to behave like that, because it's childish. In any case, your ideal kind of game can't turn obnoxious teenagers into good role-players, because for them, upsetting people is the point, and if they can't, they'll just go away. While that's quite an appealing idea, you can achieve it more easily by just not having them in the game in the first place.

This reminds me of what appeared to be important design principles early in the (Forgeite) indie game tendency: bad GMs spoil games, therefore we will create games that such people cannot spoil. Which I suppose is laudable in itself, but I'd rather not game at all than play with people who needed to be constrained by rules to be worth playing with.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by D10

I feel like its a LOT more easy to get people to play with you, even hot girls, than it has ever been... ever.

As someone who met/played with a number of hot girls through the RP community, and dated several of those, I must say the phrasing looks a bit scary to me: mixing different sorts of good things often doesn't end well, IME.

But I agree that the 'cool people do not do RPGs' meme is largely false - percentage of hotness seems to have no correlation with PRGness whatsoever.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

That's a large part of the problem, the "will only play with people I already know"-thing.

And of course, that problem is greatly reinforced by the continued publication and consumer support of hyper-fragile systems that can only be played with friends, with people one already knows, because massive and thorough trust is required, with regards to everyone exercising self-censorship in terms of not "abusing" non-abuse-proof mechanics.

Why is there virtually no demand for robust systems?

Because we already have computer games. With co-op play.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

So I'll rephrase my question: Why is there almoost no demand but systems that are robust yet feature flexible character creation and broad purpose applicability?

Well, I'll suggest a couple of reasons:

The heart of roleplaying as I do it is the creation of imagined worlds. If that's part of your game and you do it freeform, you have the power to load the dice against your players as much as you want by building abusive features into the structure of the world; so having rules that govern just play mechanics doesn't really solve the problem. On the other hand, if you have rules that govern world creation as well, you severely limit the complexity of the world—because a world is an immensely complicated thing, more complicated than any set of game rules can address sufficiently. Your citation of D&D seems to underscore that point, actually: D&D doesn't seem to aspire to creation of rich worlds, but to creation of stage sets for player characters kicking butt.

Further to this, RPGs are an art form—a participatory art, where the creativity of the GM comes together with that of the (other) players, but still a creative activity. But art cannot be done by rules. Oh, there are rules of rhyme and scansion, of harmony and counterpoint, of composition and color selection, depending on the art; you can set exercises to new students where they show that they know the rules. But most of those student exercises will be really dull and will show mainly how inadequate the rules are to actual creation of art. The whole point of art, including the art of building campaigns, requires going beyond rules.

Finally, RPGs are an art whose audience comes to it voluntarily. Players in a campaign are not like citizens of a state, who cannot choose to reject the state (or can do so only at a very high cost that most people will not pay) and therefore need constitutional constraints to protect them from its abuses. Players in a campaign are like patrons in a restaurant who can go away and never come back, or even walk out in mid-meal. That in itself protects them from anything more than temporary GM failure or abuse by other players. The great unstated metarule that all players must freely consent to play makes detailed rules for all the nuances unnecessary.

Bill Stoddard

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Peter, do you actually play in any on-going games at present?

No, of course not. My own rules system is still in development, and I've given up on finding a campaign GM'ed by someone with competence and a healthy attitude.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Because we already have computer games. With co-op play.

None that are as flexible as the experienced provided by a competent GM with a healthy attitude.