Aging and Gaming

[Jahydin]

I solo with miniature & board games, but D&D.... wouldn't get anything out of that I think.

Which games? And which ones have been your favorite?

 

[TGryph]

Turning 65 in February. Been doing the Reading Glasses thing for 25 years...you get used to it. My big problem is remembering all the rules, and keeping the system rules separate from one another. A few years ago, I could run GURPS, Runequest, and Call of Cthulhu campaign concurrently. Now...I find myself looking up the rules between two similar systems a LOT more. My solution is to basically limit myself to three basic systems. I now run a Castles & Crusades campaign online, a Shadowdark occasional game, and a bi-weekly Dragonbane campaign. instead of a wide variety of systems, I now go deep into the ones I have. I would just go with two instead of three systems (to avoid confusion), but I just can't pick between C&C and Shadowdark, so I keep them both. Sold off most of my other systems to buy deeper into the ones I decided to keep. Makes my life simpler.

 

[Committed Hero]

I'm in your age bracket. I want to play, not learn new stuff.

 

[payn]

I'm in your age bracket. I want to play, not learn new stuff.

 

[Theory of Games]

"Old" and "Smart" aren't mutually exclusive. I promise you can be both.

When you're young, peer-pressure and social proof are way more important than they should be. So we're interested in ttrpgs that, deep down, we think are trash. It took me decades to realize I was only interested in D&D becuz hype.

The reality is D&D's been trash since AD&D. Most PbtA games are trash. Traveller and most "space" ttrpgs? TRASH. 99.9% of the "indie" games? TRASH.

Find 2-3 ttrpgs you really like and just play those. Life's too short for dumpster-gaming

 

[Belen]

The reading glasses thing is a thing. It happened to me about a year ago (it comes on fast!) and suddenly accessibility is a thing. Suddenly small text, white text on black, text on a busy background, no contrast between text and b/g (black on a brown b/g is particularly bad--all those parchment backgrounds? Illegible)--I can't read your book. So many times I"ve been at my local game club, took a pregen character sheet... and can't read a word of it. Too busy, too small, bad contrast. I'm sitting there asking people next to me to read my character sheet to me. There are thousands of books out there that people over 50 cannot read.

I learned an important lesson this past year. Accessibility matters. I'm embarrassed that, while I knew it, I only really knew it when it happened to me.

I have been working on accessibility issues in STM publishing lately with a lot of web developers who give me odd looks when I tell them that default larger font is required and that zooming in is not a solution.

Or the use of icons for every darn thing now. I know it looks pretty but put text descriptions on the buttons so make it easier for screen readers and no, hover text should die in a fire.

 

[Belen]

I just turned 51 a couple back and I can certainly say that the older I get the more difficult I find things.

For the past 15 years give or take, we jumped from D&D from D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder and it's not been a problem until the last couple years where I find I now struggle with the complexity of that system. It addles my brain and that is why I've come back to D&D with the 2024 release. It hurts my noggin a lot less.

More importantly I have found that my ability to focus has gotten worse. I can't help my look at my phone or online (when I've had to use my Laptop) because I struggle to focus. That was never an issue 3 or 4 years ago.

Honestly, it may not be age but rather your lifestyle on the focus issue. I have noticed that heavy use of phone or socials is killing focus.

I do not use socials but I have just started putting my phone in another room when I watch TV etc so that I am not using it at the same time.

 

[Belen]

I have glasses and my eyesight is getting worse although I still am very active in buying new products and supporting companies that I enjoy. Honestly, I probably need to cut back.

I am much more cautious with who I will game with these days. I tend to avoid the under 30 crowd if I am recruiting for an adult game. This was not the case when I was younger and we use to have a much wider age range. I had no issues with playing with older folks when I was young; however, there is a big cultural shift so that makes me more cautious and the young kids just do not have the same experiences of limited time, families etc. As for the avoidance, I always meet prospective players first and just have not connected with anyone under 30 in the last 5-10 years.

In the last few years, I have seen 5 deaths in my immediate family and lost 3 close friends in the course of 2 years. I have found it very hard to do things I used to love.

 

[Lord Shark]

Just passed 55 and I'm still thrilled there are so many games out there to try. I have some nostalgic fondness for the games I used to play back in the day but I have no desire to ever go back to them when the newer stuff suits me so much better.

Getting older doesn't mean you have to get ossified.

 

[GrailNite]

I turned 50 this year and I'm enjoying gaming more than ever. I met my late wife playing D&D when I was in my early 20's. We gamed our entire life together, losing her to cancer was a huge blow to me, I figured I'd never pick up the dice again. If it weren't for my best friend convincing me to give it a try again I would have never come back. Right now we have a solid in-person group of six ranging in age from 50 to 24. We tend to play Pathfinder 2nd edition, Starfinder 2nd edition Playtest, and Shadowdark.

My eyes aren't what they used to be, like many others have said here; I get by with my reading glasses. I'm moving to Georgia in March and still plan on remoting in to play with the group, we've already setup a couple tiral runs with cameras and a conference mic at the table. Additionally, I've already reached out to the game store in the town I'm moving to and found a TTRPG group there which I plan on joining and running a campaign for and playing in.

For me, it's always been about the shared story and adventure. I don't think this feeling will ever go away no matter my age.