WayneLigon
Adventurer
I found I was writing a long reply to Belen's thread where he mentions kids not coming into the hobby, so I thought it deserved it's own thread.
It probably depends on where you live, too. A friend of mine has a son 15 years old, and they've introduced about seven kids to RPG's over the last couple years.
Really, though, I don't see most people turn on to RPG's as a mainstay hobby until college. Introducing kids to it is OK, but I don't see most of them staying with it until they are older and have more patience and less in the way of distractions. Right now, the kids my friend has introduced have several things that keep them from gaming:
1. Band, or extracurricular activities. Unless you were on the football team or in band when I was in school, you were done at 2:20. Now, a lot of kids have more activities.
2. They get grounded from gaming when their grades fall. College kids don't have that.
3. They have family trips and activities they can't get out of. This is anything from 'We're going camping for a week' to 'Uncle Ed is in from Minnisota and all of us have to stay in the house with him, so you can't go out tonight'.
4. At least one of them can't play 'D&D'; he can play any other RPG but not 'D&D' because his mom thinks it's evil. Read that again: he can play anything else but specifically D&D. She has no problem whatsoever with him playing GURPS, HERO, or whatever. Odd, but he's still shackled by that until he's out of the house.
5. Kids simply have more things competing for their time that are equally fun to them. When I started gaming, personal computers hadn't even been invented yet. Most of these kids have their own box, and they all play Guild Wars or Empire Earth, or other games. There's paintball, another big time and money-suck. None of the kids they deal with play much in the way of card games, but others do. Another money pit.
And the last point: how many groups are willing to teach new kids? I'm thinking: not many. I know ours would be hard pressed to deal with a 13-16 year old. Probably not anyone less than mid-20's, really.
BelenUmeria said:
It probably depends on where you live, too. A friend of mine has a son 15 years old, and they've introduced about seven kids to RPG's over the last couple years.
Really, though, I don't see most people turn on to RPG's as a mainstay hobby until college. Introducing kids to it is OK, but I don't see most of them staying with it until they are older and have more patience and less in the way of distractions. Right now, the kids my friend has introduced have several things that keep them from gaming:
1. Band, or extracurricular activities. Unless you were on the football team or in band when I was in school, you were done at 2:20. Now, a lot of kids have more activities.
2. They get grounded from gaming when their grades fall. College kids don't have that.
3. They have family trips and activities they can't get out of. This is anything from 'We're going camping for a week' to 'Uncle Ed is in from Minnisota and all of us have to stay in the house with him, so you can't go out tonight'.
4. At least one of them can't play 'D&D'; he can play any other RPG but not 'D&D' because his mom thinks it's evil. Read that again: he can play anything else but specifically D&D. She has no problem whatsoever with him playing GURPS, HERO, or whatever. Odd, but he's still shackled by that until he's out of the house.
5. Kids simply have more things competing for their time that are equally fun to them. When I started gaming, personal computers hadn't even been invented yet. Most of these kids have their own box, and they all play Guild Wars or Empire Earth, or other games. There's paintball, another big time and money-suck. None of the kids they deal with play much in the way of card games, but others do. Another money pit.
And the last point: how many groups are willing to teach new kids? I'm thinking: not many. I know ours would be hard pressed to deal with a 13-16 year old. Probably not anyone less than mid-20's, really.
