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Old 10-07-2013, 03:55 PM   #11
sir_pudding
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

I've got three 18 year olds in my group and they seem to game with a lot of other people their age in other games.
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Old 10-07-2013, 06:36 PM   #12
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

Something else to consider is that there are a couple of a strong trends at work:

1. Younger gamers are gravitating toward drama-based systems – ones where the emphasis is on what would be cool, tell the better story, etc., and where meta-game mechanics are used to accomplish that. Their preferred games aren't much like older-style RPGs, which are sims with visible war-gaming roots, walls of stats for weapons and vehicles, and so on. Older gamers familiar with the latter kind of thing often don't even see the younger people, and vice versa.

2. Younger gamers don't think anything of buying PDFs and gaming via an online chat. Older gamers whose expectations are built around physical products, brick-and-mortar shops, conventions, and face-to-face gaming often don't even see the younger people, and vice versa.

Of course, younger gamers who want sim-style resource-management games with tons of stats do exist, but they are being drawn into computer RPGs, as a computer is a far more efficient bookkeeper than any human GM, and can track a whole lot more variables for those who really want to geek out.
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Old 10-07-2013, 06:45 PM   #13
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

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Of course, younger gamers who want sim-style resource-management games with tons of stats do exist, but they are being drawn into computer RPGs, as a computer is a far more efficient bookkeeper than any human GM, and can track a whole lot more variables for those who really want to geek out.
There's also a related issue: the 'fight of the week' style game has always been a fairly large part of the hobby, and once again, that's an itch which can be quite effectively scratched by a CRPG.
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Old 10-07-2013, 09:52 PM   #14
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

Not currently making the rounds in any gaming circles, but when I was...

I would say that there was a decent amount of high school kids playing or wanting to play RPGs.
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Old 10-08-2013, 12:59 PM   #15
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Old 10-08-2013, 01:48 PM   #16
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

The main problem is that roleplaying gaming is almost completely invisible.

If I were to tell someone that one of my main interests is "roleplaying" or "RPG", or in Danish "rollespil", then the first thing that'll spring to mind, for that other person, is either me running around in a forest playing dress-up, or me sitting in front of a computer interacting with a non-human simulated enviroment.

And the second thing that'll spring to mind, for that other person, is the other one of the two options above.

And it's not a given that the third thing that might spring to mind, if a third thing does (most people's minds aren't particularly springy), involves polyhedrals, hex maps and Cardboard Heroes(TM). It could be something of a sexual nature.

Most people don't know that that which I do, and that which some of you also do, is something that is done.

They either are howlingly factually ignorant of the existence of the roleplaying gaming thing (exactly analogous to someone's understanding of our planet not containing this large island called Greenland - hey dude, your world map is incomplete!), or else they assume that it was a thing a couple of decades ago but has now died out completely.



I do think it's good that people leave the hobby, if it's because they'd rather play a computer game, or do the Dramatist thing, or run around in a forest waving a rubber sword. That's fine. They do their thing, and I can do my thing, a thing which they obviously weren't interested in anyway. They don't appreciate the benefits of having a well-designed character creation and task resolution system, and a GM with the necesary capacity and a healthy attitude (rare as those are), and a properly built world.

The only thing that bothers me is that they've stolen the name for that which I do, and are using it for something that is fundamentally different from what which I do, in one or more of several ways.

But of the current generation of youths, and the next, many flat out don't know that roleplaying gaming can be done, as a way to escape into a realistic and rich world, let alone that it is being done.

And of course, much of that problem is due to the name theft. If all those other guys, those who don't do roleplaying gaming, would just call it sometimes else (in many cases, due to their deeply inadequate attitude towards the player skill vs character skill question, selfplaying would be extremely apt), then that'd improve the visibility of that which we do. By a lot.
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Old 10-08-2013, 01:56 PM   #17
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

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Originally Posted by fartrader View Post
So yes, there are many more rpg's on the market these days and there are a larger variety of rpg's actually being played, not just being bought and tossed on a shelf for idea mining, but D&D is still the king of rpg's and I don't see that changing unless Wizards massively botches the release of Next. The new-school rpg's have certainly gained a share of roleplayer converts, and there are undoubtedly some insular drama-rpg-only groups out there that refuse to have anything to do with the old-school rpg's. My experience tells me though that such a thing is extremely rare and there are only three types of roleplayers in the real world, in order of frequency encountered:
1. Those willing to play D&D and only D&D because they can't be bothered to learn another system.
2. Those willing to play any rpg just to get gaming.
3. Those who don't have the time but wish they did.
I'm currently running three campaigns and playing in one. I'm going to cut down to two campaigns next year. None of them is D&D; I haven't played D&D in at least a quarter century. I'm willing to play a lot of games, but (a) not D&D or clones (I tried M&M, but it didn't quite suit me), (b) not several games that I've run and been disappointed in, and (c) not certain games that I've read through and put down with a shudder.

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Old 10-08-2013, 03:14 PM   #18
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

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My experience tells me though that such a thing is extremely rare and there are only three types of roleplayers in the real world, in order of frequency encountered:
1. Those willing to play D&D and only D&D because they can't be bothered to learn another system.
2. Those willing to play any rpg just to get gaming.
3. Those who don't have the time but wish they did.
I am 4. someone with time to play but not GM, and no close local friends who like gaming. Tabletop roleplaying is a social activity which gives a group of friends an excuse to meet regularly and spend time in the same room telling stories. Without a group of friends, there isn't much point.

I will play most systems if a friend wants to run them.
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Old 10-08-2013, 05:34 PM   #19
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Old 10-08-2013, 06:48 PM   #20
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Default Re: Is roleplaying having a hard time recruiting younger people?

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I've seen this pitch quite often over the years and I just can't buy it, here's why [...] My experience tells me though that such a thing is extremely rare and there are only three types of roleplayers in the real world, in order of frequency encountered
My experience tells me different. Then again, we live in different countries. In particular, I live in a bilingual city where it isn't a given that everybody loves the great Anglo game, D&D. But my recent experience with gamers in general definitely favors story games over traditional RPGs . . . to the point where the Pathfinder people are kind of getting marked as throwbacks.
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