D&D 5E DMs: How Old Are You?

[Ruin Explorer]

36 and have been DMing since I was 10. I can safely say that despite travel and living in other countries and so on, never has a year passed in which I didn't DM something.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I'm surprised no teen DMs. I know several, even a pre-teen DM or 2. I guess they don't spend much time on the boards.

As long as they're playing instead of boarding I'm fine with that!

 

[BoldItalic]

You've got me beat! I'm just 66, but you and I started playing and DMing about the same time.

I'm surprised no teen DMs. I know several, even a pre-teen DM or 2. I guess they don't spend much time on the boards.

A few months ago, I looked though the "introduce yourself" thread on the WotC 5e forum and collected what ages people said they were (not everybody gave their age, but about half did). Not very scientific, but I got pretty much the same statistical distribution as were are seeing here. So I think it's more a case of "young D&D players don't post on forums" rather than "young D&D players don't post on ENWorld" particularly.

*shakes head* Youngsters these days, why when I was a lad ... *mumbles into beard*

 

[TRDG]

51 here next week, Played D&D at first then DMed through High school, dropped out of it at College then picked up again some years later with D&D, then went with Pathfinder and am now doing some D&D 5th Ed and PF at the moment, all on Roll20.

Cheers

Tom

 

[TerraDave]

You've got me beat! I'm just 66, but you and I started playing and DMing about the same time.

I'm surprised no teen DMs. I know several, even a pre-teen DM or 2. I guess they don't spend much time on the boards.

We knew that ENWorld skews old and skews DM.

Mearls and the WotCies periodically remind us of this. (Including, for example in their discussion of their last 5E poll). I think its one reason we get the disconnect between what think the game needs, and what they know.

(BTW, I fit the ENWorld skew).

 

[Mercule]

Here's a thought for you: given the demographic that we seem to represent, why is the typical PC aged about 17 and single?

Maybe "married, with kids" should be the default background for PCs?

Leaving aside the question of "should"...

As my group has aged, I've noticed that the PCs have tended to be a bit more... "established" as well. The group has been pretty stable for the last 10-15 years, with about half of us having gamed together since the 1991. Way back when, the 40-year old fighter was a "grizzled veteran". Now, most of us have passed that age and the 18-20 year olds of yore seem to be too hopelessly stupid to survive a real adventure, so we assume mid-twenties.

We did just add my 10-year-old daughter to the group, though. I think her sorceress is 17 or 18.

 

[TwoSix]

My wife has high school friends who are grandparents (from North Shore of Hawaii). It does vary by culture. But, for my region, my having an almost-4-year-old is not unusual.

It's pretty similar out here on the East Coast. I'm 36, and my kids are 8, 8, and 2, but the bulk of my friends didn't have their first kid until their mid 30s. Some are the same age, still childless but expect to have some soon.

 

[TwoSix]

Maybe we play D&D so that we can throw off the burden of maturity and act like children again for a while.

I don't think that's a "maybe".

 

[payn]

I'm going to suggest an answer to my own question. Role-playing a character that is younger than you is okay because you can remember what it was like to be that age. Role-playing a character that is substantially older than you is harder because you don't know what it is like, all you can do is to imitate older people which is less convincing unless you are a good actor.

Maybe we play D&D so that we can throw off the burden of maturity and act like children again for a while.

Discuss.

I guess this whole discussion has been a big "What?" for me. My table plays all kinds of characters with ages, genders, and married and unmarried alike. Often we play older, wiser, more experienced characters than ourselves as opposed to playing immature teens. In my experience, gamers are less apt to look for immature characters specifically, but certainly they are looking to escape the everyday which makes it roleplaying.

 

[halfling rogue]

32 years old so I selected early 30's, but "Just starting out" is probably not the best slot for me. I already have 5 kids!