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Old 10-06-2013, 10:02 AM   #1
Loukas
 
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Default Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

When I visited my old hobby shop, in north London's Finchley, one of the staff there said the local games club is little changed, and that 20 years later I'd still be one of the younger players.

Talking to one of the staff at Stockholm's SF/F Bookshop he says something similar, that the players nowadays are mid 30s and up.

Where's the new generation?

Is this a problem where you are?
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Old 10-06-2013, 10:45 AM   #2
namada
 
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Old 10-06-2013, 02:28 PM   #3
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

In flgs in Saskatoon, SK, I see a lot of younger players; they mostly play DnD/Pathfinder but some other stuff as well.

I personally run a DnD Encounters game and while there are a few grognards getting back into it after a decade or two of absence, most are young - as young as 10 to 20. A few I've even poached for another game in Savage Worlds = I haven't had the nerve to try them in GURPS yet. I think the two best young players I saw there were two girls, 10 and 15. Raw on skills but very outgoing and enthusiastic - gives me hope.

My regular group is up there now; the last 'young' kid I recruited was about 15 years ago, now, but he was 20-ish when the rest of us were mid-30s.
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Old 10-06-2013, 04:41 PM   #4
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Loukas View Post
Where's the new generation?
On line, apparently. And it's not just gaming bookshops that are struggling, but all sorts except antiquarian.

I listen regularly to Ken Hite's and Robin Laws' mostly-gaming podcast, and after the latest con season they were talking about a boom in gaming and unprecedented crowds of youngsters at the cons. When I was looking for players at Roll20.com all the response was from high-school and college kids.
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Old 10-06-2013, 05:27 PM   #5
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

Maybe it's a local oddity, but the local gaming store in this area seems to be getting a lot of new (and young) faces coming through the door.
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Old 10-07-2013, 12:37 PM   #6
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

Kids just dont play em as much anymore.

Comp RPG vs PNP Rpg. The FInal Fantasy guys feed alot of that need without the need for social interaction that we've been slowly breeding out of kids for the last 20 years. It demands people.

Big Time Slot - Ive palyed in games where it runs for a 12-14 hour stetch. Kids just dont have that level of time to commit. Even a 6 hour game can be tough to fit in. It demands a certain amount of time.

No slick interface - MapTools et al is improving this, but as long as someone is trotting out a map and putting real world figs on a board, RPG is goign to suffer by comparison for space and just general 'slickness' of the interface. It demands a certain amount of space.

Not enough evangelisim - I raised my kids to be GURPS people and GURPS people they have become. I like to think that D&D and WOD people do the smae thing with their kids, but I dont know thats the case. I still think its one of the most interesting forms of gaming and indeed a media all its own, but until kids can experience that from a first person perspective, it looks weird from the outside.

Persistent NERD stigma - The Geek/Nerd division is one that for somereason hasnt been kind to RPGs. Geeks play Japanese RPGs like final Fantasy, but only NERDS drop dice and describe their pretend actions.

Nerd Competition - Nerds are getting lured in by OTHER nerd things. CCGs only take one other player. Some people prefer to take their 'pretend' to the next level and go full on LARP. Some people are warhammer people. For various reasons, young nerds are taking thier playtime elsewhere.

Whats odd is that I would have surely thought that having a computer and printer in almost every house everywhere would have caused a boom in the RPG industry that would have catapulted it to a more mainstream audience. Sadly this has not been the case.

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Old 10-07-2013, 12:41 PM   #7
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nymdok View Post
Persistent NERD stigma - The Geek/Nerd division is one that for somereason hasnt been kind to RPGs. Geeks play Japanese RPGs like final Fantasy, but only NERDS drop dice and describe their pretend actions.
Meh, given how the term geek gets expanded to cover very un-nerdy things, I think I'd rather stick to being referred to as a nerd.
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Old 10-07-2013, 01:11 PM   #8
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Meh, given how the term geek gets expanded to cover very un-nerdy things, I think I'd rather stick to being referred to as a nerd.
These days it's become just another marketing category. Like "punk".
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Old 10-07-2013, 01:18 PM   #9
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Meh, given how the term geek gets expanded to cover very un-nerdy things, I think I'd rather stick to being referred to as a nerd.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RogerBW View Post
These days it's become just another marketing category. Like "punk".
Yeah. 'Geeky' is probably best defined these days as 'the charmingly quirky suburbs of cool'

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Old 10-07-2013, 03:49 PM   #10
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

Part of the problem with GURPS and DnD type games is that to play them well you need a certain levels of creative and critical thinking, neither of which is generally encouraged by the powers that be.
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