What's the gaming scene like where you live? Vibrant? Dead? Somewhere in between?  Full of 5e newbies? Lots of Old School? What?

Fairly varied and vibrant, if word of mouth can be trusted.  I meet someone else involved in a game fairly often.  But I couldn't say for sure or provide details, because it is nearly all private.  Most of the public gaming is miniature war games.

Large and extremely varied (I've seen D&D 2, 3, 4 and 5, VtM, Mage, WEG Star Wars, LUG Star Trek and the new one, Battletech RPG, Shadowrun, Rifts and even a group that does nothing playtest whatever they can get ahold of.

But it's also pretty insular. There's very little gaming in public locations like game shops; it's all in people's homes. If you're in the community you can find games no problem. If you're not though it can feel like a gaming desert.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1054480What's the gaming scene like where you live? Vibrant? Dead? Somewhere in between?  Full of 5e newbies? Lots of Old School? What?

My local gaming pub is usually packed. The usual Magic, The Gathering crowd, but we have a weekly X-Wing Miniatures night (which I participate in) Starfinder and Pathfinder society, we once had to split into two tables of 7 each for Starfinder.
I've seen at least one other AD&D 2nd edition group, and plenty of 5th ed, Pathfinder, misc board games, chit and counter gaming. It's a pretty excellent spot for gaming.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1054480What's the gaming scene like where you live? Vibrant? Dead? Somewhere in between?  Full of 5e newbies? Lots of Old School? What?

Where I live? Mostly magic card or warhammer crap. But on YouTube/Hangouts, I can find great role-players.

London's scene is large but a mixed bag.

There are no FLGSs here. At least, not like in LA and -- I'm assuming here -- the rest of the United States. There are stores but you can't just walk in, buy some cold brew or dew and sit down to play or even reserve a table -- like wargaming nights, for instance, are specifically held by the store instead of being customer-driven.

It is a big haven for WOD, as are the rest of the major/capitol cities in Western, Northern and parts of Southern (it's massive in Italy, according to my Italian players) and Central Europe. However, until I came onto the scene, there were no tabletop clubs dedicated to WOD -- it was all LARP. Managed to fill a big niche there, attracted a lot of players into and back into the hobby, grew it pretty big.

There are a number of "clubs" (a lot of them aren't really "clubs", just bigger standard meetups) running within Zone 1-2 and more outside but -- especially outside -- the average age is up there (half will be at least 40+) and as a result, they tend to play older games (excl. D&D, that's always played regardless) which at least half of this forum hold as treasured favourites I'm sure.

Universities have a long-standing, traditional RPG culture in London. Same can be found across the UK however, particularly in Southern England -- especially South-East -- but also north of London up-to and including the Midlands. A LOT of gamers got into RPGs through a student society at uni and continue to play with their mates from uni or have sorted themselves out other groups from there.

In terms of players, it's wide and diverse. Dozens of different nationalities can be found in the player base; ethnicity-wise, when I started I wasn't the only minority present at least half the time -- yay, progress! -- and its continued to gradually get better on that front.

All this said, much of the gaming in London is still very much in peoples houses and flats. It's a thing where people will just put out an lfg or lfp and will straight-up have people come to their house. Bit weird and I imagine more than a bit dangerous for anyone who's not a 6'6" male like myself. A lot of the people hosting the games though that put out calls usually are based in more "leafy" parts of the capitol -- Islington and Camden, for instance -- so swings-and-roundabouts.

And for the American grognards on this forum, you'll be pleased to know that the British grognards are also quite grognard-y, with their own particularly quaint yet punk feel as is the British way! (thank God I wasn't around in the Thatcher era... though I am a product of the Blairites era... uhhh...)

Portland, Oregon.

Rampant, full of 5e newbies on both sides of the screen. Lots of Adventure Leaguers. Meetups with social justice / D&D crossover themes like "5e for The Marginalized Minority Of The Week".

Also lots of Magic games, often on weeknights at local bars.

Vibrant and full of 5e newbies!

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1054541All this said, much of the gaming in London is still very much in peoples houses and flats.

I recently had a young lady contact me out of the blue and ask me to run preferably-non-fantasy for her and her friends at my flat. Ran White Star for a couple months which was fun but not all her mates were as committed as she was so I decided to wrap it after a couple cancellations. It helped I could find out a bit about her before the first session, I imagine if a 6'6" guy with prison tats had made the same request my response would have been different!

Re player age and D&D in London - with so many new players joining, it has been going down for years, so you get age 40+ grognards like me plus a lot of players in their early 20s. Typically most of the players in my games are ca 20-25, but there's almost always some older players too so I don't feel odd (yet!).

Re ethnicity, while there are a lot of French, German etc players, there are REALLY a lot of Spanish players. RPGs seem to be huge in Spain.

Alive with 5E newbies, Pathfinder 2E playtest, and old folks like me.

Recent events listed in this thread.

Mostly MtG and Pokemon for CCGs. Warhammer and the up-and-coming Gundam Build Fighting wargame for the lead pushers. RPGs are dominated by D&D 5E Organized Play, with smaller Organized Play groups fighting for leftover scraps. It ain't dead, that is for sure.

The gaming scene in my area is excellent. It consists of my lounge room, and a bunch of friends, as it pretty much has for about 30 years.  I get to run whatever the fuck I want, and occasionally someone else in the group really wants to run something, so they get to do that too! It's awesome.

Apparently, there are cons and game stores and stuff, but I wouldn't really know anything about that.

Doing fairly well it seems. Both RPGs and LARPs. Though one of the biggest LARPs local has been on hiatus for a while. One that annually held a week long LARP event. The local Vampire LARP seems to have puttered out.

Seems pretty healthy, always see good mix of RPGers, boardgamers and wargammers whenever I am at the game store.

Full of 5e newbies. Game stores are filthy with them. In a good way. Highly enthusiastic mostly younger crowd, including middle school and high school students, flocking to learn how to play.