All of my regular group is within 3 years of my own age (I'm 31; we range from 28 to 34).

We have one very occasional player in his late 40s or early 50s, though. He is a swell guy, great gamer and very easy to get along with, but not a regular player in our group (yet).

As a kid (late teens to early twenties) I had some bad gaming experieneces with older folks, but I attribute this to the fact that said people were the local catpissman and his gang of rejects with poor personal hygiene, which has nothing to do with age.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;494402Famous last words.

Any social thing that involves people you don't know is a crap-shoot.  You just have to feel the people out the best you can and try to get with people you think will be fun to hang around for a bit.

Quote from: jgants;494428I find that 3-4 hours is more than enough.  Most of my group get pretty tired/bored after 4 hours.  I wouldn't play for 8-10 hours straight unless I was being paid.

It depends on the size of the group.  My main sessions are Sunday from 6 to midnight, but we also eat dinner and go through copious amounts of wine.

I somehow can run 2 players in pretty concemtrated game for 8 hours straight...but bigger groups are harder most of the time.

Minor threadjack:

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;494402So when he put me down, I cast Carpet of Adhesion on him which stuck him to the ground, immobile. Then I dropped a Fusion Block at his feet and ran away. It blew up for 120 points of damage, kiling him.

Most criminally underrated spell ever!

For some reason, level 4 spells were the best. Carpet of Adhesion, Charismatic Aura and Shadow Meld were my typical choices (I stopped picking up or recommending Fire Bolt for 1st-level Ley Line Walkers when I realized that a good energy rifle would give me similar or greater damage without burning precious PPE).

Magic-using classes in Rifts were never about Teh DPS. There's no sense treating your wizard like an artillery piece when you have, y'know, actual artillery pieces in your adventuring party. Crowd-control stuff was always a winner with my magic-user PCs.

/end threadjack

I feel really uncomfortable not gaming with people in my age group.  Playing with people younger than me makes me feel like a creepy old man, and playing with people older than me makes me feel like I'm the victim of creepy old men.

It should also be noted that I'm incredibly neurotic and what most men would describe as "high maintenance."

I worry more about the quality of players than age.  And young players generally can be made into quality gamers if they but have maturity.

In any case, the youngest player in my current gaming groups is 14 (the son of another gamer in the group); and he plays fairly well.  The oldest regular member of my group is maybe 10 years older than I.

RPGPundit

A good variety of ages in the game can produce a lot of vibrancy. Everyone won't have the same references/attitude, so things really pop.  Several years ago I had a high schooler in my group, recruited from the local store. He was a good player, but I insisted on his parents coming over for a one-shot session so they understood who was there and what we were doing. It was the first time they'd ever participated in their child's hobby.  They didn't "become gamers", but he said he was glad it happened because they understood the appeal/fun of the game, and even some of the benefits (social, mathematical, tactical, etc.)

Right now we have a very homogenous game group in terms of age, all in our 30s.  If a chair opens up (someone moves, etc.) I have a few 20-somethings on my back bench that I'd love to bring in.

Quote from: B.T.;494690Playing with people younger than me makes me feel like a creepy old man, and playing with people older than me makes me feel like I'm the victim of creepy old men."

WTF games are you playing? FATAL?

Quote from: B.T.;494690Playing with people younger than me makes me feel like a creepy old man, and playing with people older than me makes me feel like I'm the victim of creepy old men.

Curious: I never had these feelings at the table, but reading anything published for D&D 4E makes me feel both ways at the same time.

Quote from: The Butcher;494681Carpet of Adhesion

Most criminally underrated spell ever!

Tell me about it! And there's no saving throw either; you can save for 1/2 the duration, but you're still stuck no matter what.

I've used this spell to stick giant Coalition Abolisher robots to the ground in strategic places where they could be easily destroyed and I've also used it to counter super-fast types like Juicers and Borg so they can't run away; their super mobility becomes useless & they take a severe penalty to dodge.

In Palladium, a Knight was riding past me on a horse and I cast it on the horse itself which came to dead stop, but he did not! He went flying and crashed really hard, taking a bunch of damage. And then I killed him with a big rock.

I hope my RIFTS wizard isn't reading this thread!

RPGPundit

Quote from: TristramEvans;494863WTF games are you playing? FATAL?

I was wondering the same thing. Geez.

Yanno....


I've never actually gamed with people my own age. I mean, one or two players maybe, but even that was a rarity. When I was a little Pika, I was gaming with people ten to twenty years older than me. When I was an adult pika, I was STILL gaming with people five to ten years, or more, older than me predominantly (and really, this is the only time in my life I gamed with people 'Of my own age group'), and now that I'm a mature, fatbearded pika, I mostly game with people ten to 15 years younger than me.

And now I am inexplicably sad about this.

Quote from: TristramEvans;494863WTF games are you playing? FATAL?

LOL!

I just turned 39.  I guess gaming with people over 50 or so or under 20 might make me self-conscious.  I can't think of anyone I've played with who seemed 'too old', but I have a fair amount of experience playing with younger gamers.  My feeling there is that it depends a lot on how emotionally mature they seem; some 17 year olds are plenty mature enough, some 24 year olds still seem like children.