The past year or so I've noticed something NEW at the store.
 This is individual customers or groups of people deciding to get into RPGs on their own.  (Usually its D&D/D20)

Today  I had a guy in the store interested in being a Dungeon Master. he still didn't have a copy of the DMG yet.  so I showed him that book and the DMG II , asked him a little bit about his group of friends. Heres the thing : He wasn't a "lawncrapper", CatPissMan, or any other stereotype that folks associate with gamers.  He just seemed like a mostly NORMAL college age guy wearing nice clothes even.

 A month or 2 ago  - Attractive mid-30s dark haired woman stops in. At first she looks like a confused browser to me , then she starts asking pointed and direct questions about REAPER brand miniatures vs. the WOTC prepainted minis. Turns out she is a DM for a group of gamers and they had wanted to start using figures.  She decided to buy 1 box of the WOTC D&D minis and 6 boxes of MageKnight figs  that we've marked down to $1.99 each. She looked through those and decided  : "I can make up stats for these."

 When I got to talk to her a little , she revealed that she pretty much sklipped over being a player and went straight to being the DM.  Asked her how that happened , she said in an almost whisper " Because I'm a bitch and I like to be in control ."

Her group's youngest member is 25 or 26 , the oldest was mid 40s.

- Ed C.

Quote from: KoltarThe past year or so I've noticed something NEW at the store.
 This is individual customers or groups of people deciding to get into RPGs on their own.  (Usually its D&D/D20)

Today  I had a guy in the store interested in being a Dungeon Master. he still didn't have a copy of the DMG yet.  so I showed him that book and the DMG II , asked him a little bit about his group of friends. Heres the thing : He wasn't a "lawncrapper", CatPissMan, or any other stereotype that folks associate with gamers.  He just seemed like a mostly NORMAL college age guy wearing nice clothes even.

 A month or 2 ago  - Attractive mid-30s dark haired woman stops in. At first she looks like a comnfused browser to me , then she starts asking pointed and direct questions about REAPER brand miniatures vs. the WOTC prepainted minis. Turns out she is a DM for a group of gamers and they had wanted to start using figures.  She decided to buy 1 box of the WOTC D&D minis and 6 boxes of MageKnight that we've marked down to $1.99 each. She looked through those and decided  : "I can make up stats for these."

 When I got to talk to her a little , she revealed that she pretty much sklipped over being a player and went straight to being the DM.  Asked her how that happened , sjhe said in an almost whisper " Because I'm a bitch and I like to be in control ."

Her group's youngest member is 25 or 26 , the oldest was mid 40s.

- Ed C.

These stories are about the most encouraging thing that I heard about the future of the hobby in quite some time.  Thanks for cheering me up, Koltar!


TGA

Just remembered another one. (Hope folks don't mind a thread with a positive bent to it)

 A mother and son walked into the store. The boy was about 11 or 12.  They looked around at the Dungeons & Dragons stuff for a litle bit , when I asked if they had any questions , the mother said "Yes, can you explain the Dungeons and Dragons thing to me, I'm a little worried about it. "

 Normally that triggers the alarms in my mind of "UH-Oh, I got a religious one here whose been told its the work of Satan or some other BS like that".  She didn't look like that tho...seemed like a rather normal suburban mom old enough to have a 12 year old kid.

 So, I explained to her the game...popped open our DEMO copy of the introductory version of D&D (One with the black dragon mini) Showed her the map tiles inside, the free minis that came with it,  also explained that for many groups miniatures were optional or not even used. (She noticed all the WOTC pre-painted boosters of minis available.- Cost a concern)  Also, told her that in  a typical RPG the group of players are co-operating toward the same goal...a group in a common mission together.

 She liked the group part.

Also I explained how the Dungeonmaster is sometimes like a Referee and other times like a scriptwriter or movie director, but they also play the parts that aren't the player characters.

Mother finally was relaxed about the game. I answered her questions. She then quizzed her son  if he had enough friends to get a group together. He said he did .
They bought an introductory D&D set . Now here's the part thats COOL :
Mother says : "IF you guys can't decid who should be the DM, then I'll read up on it and I'll be the Dungeon master for it. " she paused "Is that Understood?".  
The kid nodded and smilled happily.

 Hey , he was finally going to get to play this game he heard about - even if he had to play it with his Mom.

 All of the above maybe took 40 minutes...or less.

- Ed C.

These are great stories. I have a few from my days of owning and operating the WarHorse Hobbies stores.

One of my favorites involved a group of girls (I should probably call them women but they were at that age, say 12-14) that came into our Illinois store. They were a gaggle of giggling hyenas as they went from game to game. It was pretty obvious they were not sure what they were looking at so I preety much thought that it would be one of them had a Mom in the beauty shop next door and they were wasting time waiting. Nontheless, I am always the optimist and approached them. They said they had seem some college guys playing D&D (this was in the height of 2nd) and wanted to check it out.

Back and forth and one of the girls tlkaed about being a huge fan of LotR (I am one as well) and we just started blathering at pitches and speeds that only hyper fans and teenage girls can understand. At this moment in walks my scheduled group of 40K gamers, a rough group, seeing me and four girls blathering about Frodo and Sauron.

Anyway, they ended up buying the DMG, MM and a few PH. I set up some time and they became regulars at the store open game night. I even had a few of my regulars play in their games and they were impressed with the hard core Tolkeinesque game the girls ran.

Stories like that are way cool.

Great thread Koltar!

Bill

Why is this OT and not in the RPG subforum? Just asking...

Cool thread, BTW.

Quote from: JongWKWhy is this OT and not in the RPG subforum? Just asking...

Cool thread, BTW.

OT needed some levity, that's why!

Dude, awesome thread Koltar, I wish I had uplifintg fun stories from my tenure at the game store...I just have creepy ones though.

Quote from: JongWKWhy is this OT and not in the RPG subforum? Just asking...

Cool thread, BTW.

 Because When I started writing the thought it felt more like an "off-topic" thing to me.
 Not really about Game ideas or gaming...more about the people that stop into the store and Hope - that kind of thought.

- Ed C.

I agree with JongWK, this thread should be in the RPG subforum. On the other hand, the thread is very pleasant, so wherever it is, let it be.

I have a soft spot for such gamer stories.

indeed, off-topic needs a ray of sunshine.

thanks k my man

:bow:

Thread moved to the Role-Playing Games forum.  If Koltar has any objection to this I'll move it back to Off Topic.

Quote from: hgjsThread moved to the Role-Playing Games forum.  If Koltar has any objection to this I'll move it back to Off Topic.

Nope. No objection from me. Like I said above, I thught it was going to ne more off topic when I started it .

 Just remembered another bunch that "recruit" themselves : Servicemen just out of the military or on leave.  The guys who might have looked down on gamers whilst they were  in High School are now playing Dungeons & Dragons and loving it.  First year that our store was open a soldier explained to me that an RPG needs very little "equipment" to play in the field.  All a player needs is his or her character sheet, dice and their imaginations. The DM is doing most of the hard stuff. (A DM also might need the books more)

Past couple of years  we're getting plenty of Soldiers and Marines who come in and buy the Player's Handbook or DungeonMaster's Guide - so they know the game better when they get sent back to Afghanistan or Iraq.

 Thats why I wasn't surprised to read that annoucement of Ziggurat Con elsewhere on the forums.


- Ed C.

FWIW

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I was just at a Con last weekend.  Now my experience is mostly limited to the D&D room, but does extend to what I noticed whilst wandering for food/facilities/etc.

The breakdown in the D&D room was surprising to me.  The...ahem...older set still was the majority, but there was quite a bit of "new blood."  

I'm ballparking these numbers heavily.  I was too busy playing to get exact numbers. There were about 15-20 tables in the room. If you average 6 people per table per slot, that's about 90-120 people playing in any given slot. So for percentages sake, I'll go with 100.

I'd say 10% were under 16. This was quite shocking to me. I saw kids playing with Mom and Dad and 4 strangers. I was almost mustered to a table with just that; the Dad was DM, and Mom and Daughter, maybe 10 or 11, were characters.

I'd estimate the 17-25 groups at 30%. I played at two tables that had one person 25 or under, and they were more liberally sprinkled in at the other tables.

I'd say the next group, 25-45, was the largest, about 50%. Most of the people I played along side were in their 30's.

Over 45 was about 10%.

And you had about 25% women/girls. I played 6 slots, half were run by women. I actually saw a young woman who seemed to have brought her boyfriend along to learn and play (she was explaining to him how the intro adventures worked and such) - something I've never personally seen before.

Outside the D&D room, the percentage of younger participants actually went up. From board games to other RPG's, the crowd was definitely younger than the group in which I played.

These are all guesses, so the grains of salt should flow freely.

Quote from: James J SkachThese are all guesses, so the grains of salt should flow freely.

That matches very well with my experiences. For reference, my IRL group's ages are 11, 16, 16, 18, 20, and 50.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceThat matches very well with my experiences. For reference, my IRL group's ages are 11, 16, 16, 18, 20, and 50.

-clash

Wow, you wrote all your stuff and you're only 20?!?!?!

Quote from: James J SkachWow, you wrote all your stuff and you're only 20?!?!?!

Hehe! If only! I'm 51.

-clash