Nice post by Odyssey about the problems associated with finding a way to "appeal to the masses of tweeting, texting, facebooking teens who barely have time to sit still to eat breakfast let alone play a 4 hour game of D&D on a regular basis".
She's right on the money; all I'd add is that I personally hate the perception of the world which says that in order to appeal to young people, a hobby or pastime has to embrace new technology. At 28 I still like to think of myself as at least reasonably young, but even when I was properly young (14-24, say), almost none of the things I enjoyed doing - going clubbing, drinking, hanging out with friends, playing Warhammer, playing football, playing cricket - had anything whatsoever to do with technology. The sole exception was playing computer games.
Radical concept: like old people, middle-aged people, or indeed any sort of people, young people like to partake in pastimes that are enjoyable. Technology sometimes plays a part in that and more often it does not, but it is essentially irrelevant. A percentage of kids, probably a small minority, will always be both imaginative and nerdish enough to get a kick out of D&D, and whether twitter and facebook are involved won't make the blindest bit of difference.
It's my opinion that the whole "we need to make D&D high-tech to appeal to young people!" argument is actually indicative of a genuine problem in Western society; namely that adults these days seem to have lost all confidence to engage with youngsters. Young people have always been seen as different, alien and unpredictable, but the extent to which this applies today is astonishing. It is almost as if the population above 30 believes "young people" to be a different species. They aren't. Kids have always been kids, just like we were, and what is or isn't fun never changes.
I think the real issue here is a wrongheaded attempt to appeal to kids for whom D&D is never going to sound cool. EARTH TO WotC: YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE IS NERDS.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't worry about the next generation.
ReplyDeleteI was standing in the dealer's room of the local gaming con this past Saturday, and there was a pair of young kids (10 or so), geeking it up with snark about modern TV SF and conspiracy theories and game system criticisms and I kept bending over the Rifts books so's not to have them see me laughing.
This was about an hour after finishing up a game of Paranoia XP run by a girl of about the same age, who proved to be an excellent GM.
Don't fret. Like the Who said, the kids are all right.
(word verification: "clerro" - a derro cleric)
young people like to partake in pastimes that are enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why I see a lot of what is going on these days is to figure that out - like there needs to be a rediscovery.
I wonder if the 2nd generation of game designers and marketers in the RPG industry have "grown up" enough that they've become disconnected with youth... perhaps there's a search for a rediscovery of what the magic was.
A much older and wiser gent than I has summed it up concisely - the Rick Krebs rule - "have fun!"
You mean at 28 your already too old to go drinking/clubbing/playing football?
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with this post. If anything gaming needs to move away from technology otherwise it'll just end up a WoW wannabe. Young people aren't bio-mechanoids that can only communicate through technology, they're just people.
yes the target audience is nerds, 'cause we're the coolest
Blizack: It's like trying to market rugby at a Star Trek convention.
ReplyDeletePere Ubu: I quite agree.
Chgowiz: I'd be interested to know how many of the top designers at WotC actually have teenage kids, for instance.
Dungeonmum: Maybe I should have added the caveat that I still enjoy those things. ;)
@dungeonmum - you're not too old to do any of those things but by the time you get to 28, you can't afford them any more.
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ReplyDeleteI don't really think that is the case. And, honestly, I find the whole "Only us nerds like this game! Get out of here!" vibe self defeating. From what I see they are trying to tap into the market that is being opened up by the wider acceptance of gaming as a whole. Sure, being into a computer game (even one like WoW) doesn't mean you'll like DnD... but I think accepting that you like that sort of thing makes the possibility not so crazy.
I'm a 35 year old gamer. I started gaming in the early 80s with the red box for DnD. I'm not exactly one of those damn kids, but I'm also not part of the OSR because I have almost no nostalgia for those early games. I don't really know where I fit in so I find the whole balknisation of the niche market to be annoying.
I am going to fix this whole probelm soon, so everyone should stop worrying about it.
ReplyDeleteIt's my opinion that the whole "we need to make D&D high-tech to appeal to young people!" argument is actually indicative of a genuine problem in Western society; namely that adults these days seem to have lost all confidence to engage with youngsters.
ReplyDeleteMy experience *definitely* backs this up. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the "fairly articulate youth-type person" schtick, particularly because I'm willing to discuss my generation in general terms, and people are always fascinated by that. Mostly because the ideas the media gives people are just so weird, and they're surprised and pleased to discover that people my age are actual human beings. ;p
So it's not just RPGs. Heck, I've had basically this exact same conversation at church -- explaining that the way to get young people involved isn't Power Point presentations and rock music, but human contact. Things we can't get in the rest of our lives.
@anonynos:
ReplyDeleteI'm a little younger than you, and while I have an appreciation for old games, I don't actually play them exclusively. I don't consider myself part of the "OSR" either.
My attempts at simple humor probably obstructed the point I'm trying to make. I'm not saying they shouldn't target kids (they absolutely should). What I'm saying is that they should concentrate on targeting kids that are receptive to the idea of roleplaying, rather than trying to hook people to whom it will probably never appeal.
I think the hordes kids that watch anime, write fan-fiction and participate in freeform roleplaying forums would be at least as fertile a hunting ground as the WoW contingent.
When someone is new to D&D (speaking from my own experience and from seeing others) they are generally in awe of it, there is a lot of mystique around the whole thing as it's not massively marketed and because it is essentially 'low-tech' it's got a very grass roots following. People have a vague idea about what it is but because they know so few people who play it they can't be certain. I don't think to non DnD followers its essentially 'nerdy' just 'niche'. Young people have a tendency to follow the crowd but there's also a need to be an individual, at the forefront of information on certain topics like music, games etc. So if someone really wants to find out about DnD they will. People often worry about the supposed 'nerdiness' of DnD but the fact is, if you're into it, you know it's cool. If you're not, you imagine that it's cool, it's just you haven't got into it . . .yet.
ReplyDeletespot on!
ReplyDelete"It's my opinion that the whole "we need to make D&D high-tech to appeal to young people!" argument is actually indicative of a genuine problem in Western society; namely that adults these days seem to have lost all confidence to engage with youngsters. Young people have always been seen as different, alien and unpredictable, but the extent to which this applies today is astonishing."
ReplyDeleteYou've got a point there- particularly in the perceived need to make D&D high tech to appeal to young people. On the other side of things, you'd be surprised how young people take to "minimalist old fashioned old school gaming" if they're just given a real chance to do so. Speaking from experience, I find myself running an old school game these days with some 20-21 year old players (who are easily at least half my age). We game without the high tech flashy trappings - just dice, paper and a lot of attitude and imagination. I am happily surprised to see how these kids who live, breath and eat high-tech have a lot of fun with this.
I'd also like to weigh in on the claim the media often make that kids today have a short attention span.
ReplyDeleteYoung people have always had short attention spans, because they aren't interested in what they don't like. Here's a hint: if they're not paying attention, the problem is not with them. They just aren't interested in you. TV companies are constantly trying to blame their lack of appeal to 20-something men on their attention span, but that's not it - they're obssessively playing computer games rather than watch tv programmes that don't suit them.
As soon as you see anything in the media attempting to characterise modern yoof, you can dismiss it out of hand. It's bullshit by definition.
Thanks Zak, I'll relax now.
ReplyDeleteDo we really want the people from WoW playing D&D with us? I'm sure a lot of them can be fairly nice people, but having actually played such games, I really can't think of more than 2-3 people I've met on any of them that I'd ever actually want to play any traditional RPG with. And I'm fairly certain all the people I WOULD play with, were D&D players long before they started with MMOs. It also seems to me that companies trying to attract new players from these games are advertising and trying to cater to the very same people most DMs complain about; the power gamers.
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