Notice I'm giving ftf roleplaying another 16 years

[quoghmyre]

Just off Twitter:

Notice I'm giving ftf roleplaying another 16 years, but as 1st & 2nd generation players die off, I don't think 3rd & 4th will replenish.

When I see roleplayers at cons, there are lots of 30 plus players, very few teens and younger. And they're not any good at it. heh.

The young people are doing cosplay, which is the lead-in to virtual reality. Gaming will be a really different scene in 20 years.

Heck, even I want to put T & T's Trollworld into a computer, so I can immerse myself in it that way.

It might be why they made 4th edition, and it will hold the line for a few years, but computer gaming will just get better. Ftf won't.

"As for RPGs, there are things that face-to-face, human centered play can do that computers cannot. So far." 10 yrs pal

I hate to say it, Paul, but you like these things, beer, chips, ftf conversation because you're old. I like them too. but . . .

The real money is rpgaming has already gone to computers. Time spent per player has gone to computers. Ftf is going 2 mean using your webcam

KenStAndre

[quoghmyre]

Just off Twitter:

There may still be some ftf roleplaying after 2025. It will survive in the same way that archaic games like horseshoes survive.

In 20 years, I predict, actors will simulate ftf gaming to show kids what things were like in the bad old days before VR. heh. grim.

Or, perhaps it will survive in parts of the third world where electricity is hard to get. D & D will be the in-game in the Andes by then.

Why does SF almost never talk about future sports? Because a sedentary, computer-controlled populace doesn't need them. Pro sports r doomed

100 yrs ago the only pro sport was baseball, & it wasn't a big deal. 100 yrs from now I think all the current big money sports will be gone.

KenStAndre

[djacknh]

I love the technology of today. But I'm very glad I was born in 1968.

[quoghmyre]

Yes, we can point at those big bad Techno games, the cash flow of WoW is mind numbing. Liz D is a very active WoW player, Ken is an avid Runescape player. Is it an all or nothing situation, or is there space for ftf.

But is this the end, or an opportunity for a new beginning?

[Aramis of Erak]

New beginning? No.
All or nothing? No.
Shake down the industry of dead weight? Probably.

Kids tend to roleplay naturally. Start them young in RP gaming, they will make it part of their personality (pre age 12, based upon the typical ages of personality fixation), and they will continue to be self-rewarding in continuing the hobby.

Actively discourage RP through age 14, and it never will be comfortable.

I'd lay odds that every one of us played non-game LARP of some form with their buddies before age 12. My friends, it was Star Trek, Star Wars, Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers, GIJoe vs Commies, and Russians and Eskimos (we didn't realize it was historically Russians vs Aleuts...)...

[feldrik]

It is sad that pressing the same button until you suceed passes as role playing these days...no one looses, everyone feelslike they win.
I see the results of this in sport combat (a form of LARP) and other aspects of life like work. Young people get frustrated when they don't win at first try, their percieved view of themself is pulled away and they must bravely adjust or retreat deeper into the 'press and win' universe that coddles them.
I have played about a dozen online fantasy board grinds (RPGs for those not paying attention) and get bored after level 20. It is all 'go get some wolf gonads so I can make a charm bracelet for my girl friend, I'll give you 100gp and an axe of 'think you are awsome' plus 100xp".
I felt no comradery or connection with players on line, I am choosy about my friends and I did not even enjoy it when I was trying to play with them, I love the FtF game sessions we play however. Oddly I do feel a great level of comradery on these boards, probably because we are exchanging ideas not pixels.

[quoghmyre]

I don't agree, the problem is not with the computer games, the problem is not with the Youth, the problem is not with T&T, the problem lies with us GM's.

When was the last time you introduced and taught a teen to play T&T? I'm talking about the game as in the rule book, not some "souped up", changed and rearranged, house rules riddled, game. The game were they can then go down to the gameshop/online and buy the book and play the same game with their mates?

If we as GMs don't believe and trust in the T&T rules why would a new player?

[Aramis of Erak]

About 2 years ago. Stock 7E. He loved it.

He went and bought a copy.

Besides, I'm seeing plenty of kids RPGing in the high school halls. More, in fact, than I saw during my own time in HS 1983-1987. (in the very same school, no less. I've subbed in my old HS.)

[quoghmyre]

Just off Twitter:

Anyway, I'd love to be wrong, but the world is changing mighty fast these days. I think pen & paper rpgaming is in its twilight.

KenStAndre

[quoghmyre]

Aug 4, 2009 22:53:20 GMT -5 Aramis of Erak said:

About 2 years ago.

and you're a rabid enthusiast...

We're doomed

[Aramis of Erak]

Naw... I've directed several pre-teens to it, and a nunch of 20-somethings... Get them YOUNG... teens is too late. Seriously, developmentally, 14+ is too old to really get them hooked.

But also seriously, RPGs are alive and well in the teens and 20's... Those kids playing them in HS usually started in middle school or earlier. My last long-term, I had 30 6th graders, of whom 3 played traditional RPG's weekly or more, and another 2 who had played, and enjoyed play, but didn't have their own books (and didn't get along with the other 3) since the older brother of the one left for college and took his books.

[machfront]

I've a number of friends much younger than I (very early 20s) and many of them are gamers. Hearing them talk, it's very clear that each one of them in turn know of yet another handful of gamers their age, younger and a bit older.

By contrast, when I started gaming in the mid to late 80s, I knew and knew of only a small handful of gamers at all. Much less than what I've witnessed with regards to the afformentioned group and their friends and aquantinces.

When I was young, there were two gaming stores in the area. Now...there are two. One of them is one of the first two from years back.

RPG game are much easier to find and learn about than ever before since so much of it is talked about in so many places online, and that's where young folks spend a lot of time...online.

The amount of time some of my computer and console gaming buddies spend on the games they dig doesn't sound like any more time than I spent on my ol' Atari and Oddessy 2 systems/games, and I still turned to role-playing games.
There's a number of computer and console games I really dig now, and I completely understand the appeal, but it doesn't offer anything even remotely similar to actual role-playing games.
As fast as technology is changing, growing and improving, I think it's rather silly to think that computer or virtual or whatever kind of 'tech' gaming could ever replicate what role-playing games are like or how they're played or why they're enjoyed. It's going to take very likely well over a hundred years to make the GM and/or group redundant...at least.

Though role-playing games may be less of a phenomenon I don't think they're signifigantly less popular.
We're simply going through a changing time, so of course to the older folks it looks bad or bleak or like the end times. All folks above a given age view change in that way no matter the subject. Food, entertainment, population, education..you name it.
Not objectively worse or better or dying or growing... just different to those used to it a certain way.

[ProfGremlin]

Aug 4, 2009 22:32:59 GMT -5 quoghmyre said:

When was the last time you introduced and taught a teen to play T&T?

I'm teaching my pre-teen son to play, he loves it esp. being able to grab a solo and create a few new characters to run in it. My daughter is on the fence, she has some interest but she's not sure she wants to get involved with it. One of their friends is familiar with paper-pencil RPG's and enjoys them. I'm not a GM, yet, but once I have a better handle on all this I'll see about running a one-shot for them and see how that goes.

In my weekend gaming group the son of another player has already been included. It's only a matter of time before the GM's daughter is indoctrinated and another players newborn will most likely be introduced to the concept.

We need to remember that while paper-pencil RPG's are a big part of our entertainment they've always been a niche item. More people played video games than ever played RPG's. That was true even when I was in school. Back then it was a nothing to see all sorts of social groups in an arcade but ask most of them to open a book to learn how to play a game? It just didn't happen. It was the few who were already into reading in various forms that enjoyed this form of entertainment.

I don't think this form of entertainment is going to go away. Sure, it'll morph and change but humans need interaction and a chunk of silicon, no matter how well written the code, can only do so much.

[djacknh]

Aug 5, 2009 5:20:28 GMT -5 machfront said:

When I was young, there were two gaming stores in the area. Now...there are two. One of them is one of the first two from years back.

Keep in mind that back then it was mostly only young people who were gaming, and we didn't have much money back then. You would think that the 30+ crowd which has more money now, along with a younger generation, which supposedly games as much as we used to, would support more than two stores?

[feldrik]

...the game as in the rule book...were they can then go down to the gameshop/online and buy the book and play the same game...

Too right. For all my academic talk about change this and house rule that it is best to run the game straight out of the book.

As for my other comments, I am an old cynic so I can be extreem at times but those things are a factor in just getting people to the table.