Quote from: flyingmice;360875Part of the appeal of these sites for kids is that most adults don't even know about them. The appearance of actual presences by publishers is a sign that the place is seriously uncool and that the old farts are co-opting it. I know if I were a kid I would find somewhere else to hang. It would be like teens hanging out at a retirement home.

Just like listening to the same music as one's parents, was considered uncool when growing up.

Perhaps today, fundamentally this is one of the biggest barriers that D&D and other tabletop pen-and-paper rpgs have.  Kids/teens may perceive D&D to be their "parents' game" and is automatically considered "uncool".

Quote from: boulet;360826Another, more surprising motivation, is because she belongs to a community of players who impersonate characters on FB. It's not table top RPGs they're playing though, more like a spontaneous freeform/fanfiction/collective storytelling in whatever setting that floats their boats.  

Yeah my youngest cousin is 12 years old, and she likes role-playing. it is this activity exactly that she is talking about when she uses the word.

Quote from: two_fishes;360878Yeah my youngest cousin is 12 years old, and she likes role-playing. it is this activity exactly that she is talking about when she uses the word.

And she is correct. Role-playing is nearly universal. It's the combination with gaming that is a different concept, and not nearly as much now in these days of computer games.

-clash

Quote from: ggroy;360877Just like listening to the same music as one's parents, was considered uncool when growing up.

Perhaps today, fundamentally this is one of the biggest barriers that D&D and other tabletop pen-and-paper rpgs have.  Kids/teens may perceive D&D to be their "parents' game" and is automatically considered "uncool".

My son is far more conservative musically than I. At 23, he prefers classic rock, while I prefer current bands. Of course he's not a kid anymore...

Dagnabbit! Everyone under thirty is a kid to me!

-clash

Just an update on the facebook group thing... since the ad stopped running (10 am on the 15th), 9 people have joined the group. Likely invited by recent new members.

Quote from: flyingmice;360875Part of the appeal of these sites for kids is that most adults don't even know about them. The appearance of actual presences by publishers is a sign that the place is seriously uncool and that the old farts are co-opting it. I know if I were a kid I would find somewhere else to hang. It would be like teens hanging out at a retirement home.

-clash

One of the best and worst things about the internet is that no one cares about your age unless you mention it. I think facebook will stick around so long as you can keep your profile private and deny friend requests from parents.

Quote from: ggroy;360877Just like listening to the same music as one's parents, was considered uncool when growing up.

Perhaps today, fundamentally this is one of the biggest barriers that D&D and other tabletop pen-and-paper rpgs have.  Kids/teens may perceive D&D to be their "parents' game" and is automatically considered "uncool".

I've warned about this for some time.

RPGPundit

Quote from: ggroy;360877Just like listening to the same music as one's parents, was considered uncool when growing up.

Perhaps today, fundamentally this is one of the biggest barriers that D&D and other tabletop pen-and-paper rpgs have.  Kids/teens may perceive D&D to be their "parents' game" and is automatically considered "uncool".

Do you think WotC should have named 4E something like: Points of Light: The fantasy battle game.  Shake off the baggage of the D&D brand for younger folks AND avoid all the mind-numbing edition schisms.

You can't unring the bell now, but I really wonder sometimes if 4E would be getting more positive reception if it hadn't ALSO been part of the Dungeons & Dragons brand.  Sure, it wouldn't have gotten the same level of attention, but WotC more than anyone else could grow a new brand.

Of course, in my fantasyland D&D would have remained a d20 game, given another decade to develop a new edition more organically and then become popular again.

Point of order: role-playing is uncool.  Getting more coverage on MyBook or FaceSpace or whatever isn't going to make large swaths of any age group flock to our banner.

Quote from: jrients;361342Point of order: role-playing is uncool.  Getting more coverage on MyBook or FaceSpace or whatever isn't going to make large swaths of any age group flock to our banner.

No, roleplaying *is* cool, Jeff. Literally millions of kids do it on social networking sites and various other mediums. the vast majority do it as a "let's pretend' thing, though, with no or very little game attached. Millions of others play "RPGs" with little or no roleplaying on their computer/console or online. It's the balanced roleplaying+game stuff that is odd. And I mean odd, not uncool. That association just isn't there with kids any more. It was an artifact of a different time.

-clash

Quote from: boulet;360826Another, more surprising motivation, is because she belongs to a community of players who impersonate characters on FB. It's not table top RPGs they're playing though, more like a spontaneous freeform/fanfiction/collective storytelling in whatever setting that floats their boats.

My wife used to be heavily involved with LiveJournal roleplaying games, but they're very different beasts to the games we consider RPGs.

In LJ games the goal is to mimic a pre-existing character as convincingly as possible, rather than create a new and different character within the setting.  The fun of the game is in making posts to LJ that read like they were written by Buffy or Hermione Granger rather than inventing someone new within the Buffy/Potter-verse, because that would count as a sort of Mary-Sue-ish act.

I'm pretty sure that bridging the gap between those two styles of roleplaying is the key to bringing more women into the hobby - and possibly reinvigorating it along the way - but I have no idea how that could work.

Quote from: winkingbishop;361333Do you think WotC should have named 4E something like: Points of Light: The fantasy battle game.  Shake off the baggage of the D&D brand for younger folks AND avoid all the mind-numbing edition schisms.

Better yet, just license the "World of Warcraft" name instead of calling it D&D.  Advertise heavily.

Quote from: ggroy;361381Better yet, just license the "World of Warcraft" name instead of calling it D&D.

Judging by the frequency of remainders of this title appearing at my local Half Price Books, it appears that this earlier experiment failed.  Perhaps the new rules would've made the crucial difference.

!i!

Roleplaying shouldn't try to make itself cool, it should try to make itself ironically retro-hip. The kids think that's so cool these days.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;361570Roleplaying shouldn't try to make itself cool, it should try to make itself ironically retro-hip. The kids think that's so cool these days.

RPGPundit

I agree.  Like Odyssey's post I linked to in another thread wherein she mentions the whole retro-vintage-vinyl thing going on.  I think the retro-cool thing is the best way to get it in front of the younger generation today.

And Goddammit it has to be a simple game if you want to do it that way.  

And preferably in a format that can be played with everyone sitting on a couch, with maybe a coffee table in the middle of everyone for rolling dice.  

It can't take itself too seriously.  The whimsical aproach to dungeon design exhibited in the early days would be the way to go to attract this audience.  One minute you're running from a platoon of orcs, you jump down a hole, and the next you're in "Alice in Wonderland".  

I had hopes for Hackmaster Basic hitting this demographic, if they could keep some of the old whimsy, but they blew it with the level of detail in the game.  

I has to be a game that would be explainable to newbs in the time it took to have a drink, or pass around the bong.  Simple and basic.  Two minutes tops.  Players shouldn't even need to reference the books during the game.  

It would essentially be Swords and Wizardry repackaged to have some sort of character to it.  Right now S&W is written to be a game that is bare-bones rules, but is lacking in character.  Any character it has and any flavor it exhibits are language meant to distinguish it from new school games, and describe its rules-light approach, and the principles in Matt Finch's Old School Primer.

That's fine if you're going to target it to a market that gets the new school game and is wondering what old school is all about.  But to a demographic that doesn't know anything about the game at all other than that geeks played it 20 years ago, the intro/description/flavor/character/style/feel/vibe that a reader has to "get" in order to describe it to his/her friends while they're hitting the bong needs to be whimsical/fun/funny/over-the-top/ironic/retro-hip.

That way, after a new guy plays it for the first time in that group, he can go pick up a copy of it at a bookstore, throw onto the shelf next to Pictionary and Scrabble, and then HE can be the cool guy who "found" this old/new cool game and introduced it to HIS other circle of friends.

That's how retro-cool will spread rules-light RPG's.

I strongly agree with the 2-minute explanation rule.

RPGPundit