Well, It's 7:25am and I'm just coming home, exhausted.
But man was it fun. Every time I've been to the fortnightly 'gaming club' event called the "Tavernorca" here, it's been enormous fun. Last week there was a room full of gamers playing Lords of Olympus, and my appearance there provoked a cheer and a debate about whether Lords of Olympus in actual play is more similar to a Venezuelan or an Argentinian Soap Opera.
This time, several players abandoned their previous game to join Dark Albion, which I've had to put on a strict first-come first-serve policy in terms of players. Last session had been too hard to handle with 8 players, this time went way more smoothly when I capped it at 6.
The players love my game, and I'm loving these players. The best part is how young they all are. Two of my players are 16. None is over 25. Of the 30-70 people who show up in any given event, all of them are at those ages, with the average being maybe around 22-24. As a middle-aged guy, I'm a freaking dinosaur there. I'm by several years the oldest guy there. And while that does make me feel old in a way I rarely experience in a gaming context, it's super promising for the gaming scene here in South America.
Particularly compared to the stories I've heard of the state of things in the U.S. or Canada.
That's it. I'm going to bed. I have to game again in less than 12 hours.
RPGPundit
Currently Smoking: Ben Wade Rhodesian + Image Latakia
From the impression of cons I've been to, tabletop RPGing in the UK is greying. There may be a younger crowd out there somewhere, but their circles don't seem to intersect much with mine.
ReplyDeleteWell, other than me (a special case, as an older 'celebrity' guy who goes to the young people events) and the organizer (a younger guy who started gaming with the older crowd) the generations of gamers here don't mingle too much either. There's a ton of older gamers who still game but don't go to these events, and the younger guys obviously don't see them on account of this.
ReplyDeleteI'm older than the rest of the people in my current gaming group by 14+ years, and I like to think we all have a blast. When I was ST for a White Wolf game at the local gaming store, we occasionally got people just watching the play - and once a bit of intrigued praise from the staff. And I don't consider myself a very good ST.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest drawback to the generations mingling in my area seems to be lifestyle issues. Those people with jobs and families just don't have the time available that the retired gamers and the college gamers do, and the hours we want to play creates a lot of conflict.
Another issue that comes up is the difference in experience. When the GM says, 'Remember the scene in Avengers where...' and I have to say 'I never saw that', then the mood drops a bit.
For me it's all about the days/hours people want to play. I have a job and kids so all-nighters and midweek don't work for me. Also I don't want to waste time, I want to play the game; a lot of gamers are big time-wasters showing up late and unprepared. When I say 8, I mean 8.
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ReplyDeleteWhat seems to be the problem is that there is little permanence within the hobby. Back in my ealry twenties, when I started, a bunch of my friends and acquaintances used play, but during the last 10 years most of them have left the hobby. I have a small group of friends that still play with me, and a couple more older than me that I know they play sometimes, but most of the people I knew that played, stopped for some reason or other. My point is, that like every other activity, of 10 young players we see, in 5 years ony 4 are going to still play, and in 10, there are going to be 2 left, with luck. The level of attrition of this hobby seems pretty high. At least here in Uruguay.
ReplyDeleteI think that of the Uruguayan gamers I knew (not sure if I knew more or less than you) 10 years ago, probably about half are still active in the hobby. In the sense that they still get together to play RPGs at least once a month, anyways.
DeleteYou probably know more of the 'serious' gamers. I knew more of the filthy casuals.
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