Are Kids interested in Pen & Paper RPGs?

[roguerouge]

When I taught kids in 4th to 8th grade at my summer camp class how to play, they loved it.

 

[TheNexusGaming]

When I taught kids in 4th to 8th grade at my summer camp class how to play, they loved it.

more people need to do this

 

[Mercurius]

more people need to do this

I'm designing a class to teach at my high school either in the spring or next school year on World Building. We're going to play Game of Worlds (a free pdf game on world building) and each student is going to design their own world from scratch, draw a map, and come up with some kind of unique artistic project. It could be a song from a culture in their world, or a short story, or a creation myth, or a paper maiche globe, etc. I want the class to be open enough that they can take whatever approach they want: They can make it very scientific, work on geological eras, figure out planetary dynamics, etc. Or it can be completely fantastical. They can also either create an entire world or, if that is daunting, they could create a fictional town in our world with its own history and structure.

 

[Toben the Many]

I will posit a hypothesis: If a child is exposed to video games at an early age and plays them a lot, they'll be less inclined to enjoy tabletop RPGs later on. Why? Because their imagination becomes dependent upon external imagery. More and more children are playing video games (not to mention watching television) pretty much as soon as they are ex utero. This is a travesty, imo.

Yet every single study denies this. I mean, the same thing has been said of TV for my entire lifetime. TV is the death of reading. Yet, currently, Young adult fiction sales are up 25 per cent. Every single major publisher now sports a young adult fiction line. The idea that video games are hurting imagination just isn't supported by the studies.

Took the words right out of my mouth. There is no evidence that video games reduce creativity or even the amount that people read.

As a school teacher, it certainly appears to me that the kids who read the most, also play video games the most. It's not a hard thing to imagine. The nerdy kids who read a lot also happen to like to stay inside and play video games a whole bunch.

As far as MMOs being the death of table-top RPGs, I think that's simply a farce and a failure to look at the bigger picture. The reason I can't see MMOs replacing table-top any time soon is simply for the fact that MMOs are a massive time-sink. There are those rare and occasional people that you meet who can play just once a week. But those people are rare. The average WoW player plays for 21 hours a week. Table top RPGs, however, are great for someone who just wants to get an outlet once a week or even just once a month. It's a completely different animal.

The real competitor with table-top RPGs is not just MMOs or video games - it's everything in today's media. It's also Facebook, and Instant Messaging, and Rock Band, and File Sharing, and YouTube, and even good old-fashioned books - it's everything. I wish people would get that. Saying that it's MMOs that are the problem is missing the forest for the trees.

But even bigger than this problem, I think, is that D&D is a closet activity. In the end, D&D's biggest problem is itself. The fact that D&D is considered by many to be "that game people play in their mom's basement" is the biggest barrier to getting in new players. There's the stigma attached to D&D, and then there's the fact that so many people who play D&D are closet players. So many of the players themselves don't advertise what they do. I hope, however, that this might be going away. It's appearing more and more in popular media, which is a good sign.

All that said, I think that the death of RPGs is simply overstated. As the CEO of Goodman Games stated, D&D had two peaks. One in the 80's, the other in 2001. That's just 8 years ago that we hit a peak. I meet so many players whose first RPG was 3rd Edition.

 

[Biohazard]

As a school teacher, it certainly appears to me that the kids who read the most, also play video games the most.

You're joking, right?

 

[Theroc]

You're joking, right?

I'm 21 atm. Whenever I wasn't in school, I'd be playing WoW or some such game... probably 40 hours a week if possible. Why? No alternative. Now, that's when I WASN'T burning through a book such as Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" or "Eragon" or "The Lord of the Rings" or "Dragon Rider's of Pern" or... etc...

I actually had a biology teacher IN SCHOOL confiscate one of my Wheel of Time books because I was reading it after I'd completed a test and apparently she wanted me to sit silently and do absolutely nothing instead.

However, I was the ONLY person in my highschool I knew that could take a book from a series such as Lord of the Rings or the Wheel of Time and 'burn' through the whole book in 2-3 days. I'd even read those books WHILE eating dinner. Once I read like 3-6 chapters for the meal, I'd go up and play on the computer for awhile. Or maybe I'd get really into it and read all night.

Now, as I said, as far as I know, I was an anomaly, NOT an example of the norm. However, I was also regarded as a 'nerd' and a 'geek' and all those terms as well as several other derogatory ones. I didn't advertise an interest in D&D, but if the subject came up, I'd mention I'd always wanted to play.

So, I can believe someone when they say that the avid readers were also avid videogamers... because I myself have been or am both. I haven't read a book in quite awhile, but I haven't found one that grabbed my interest of late.

 

[Scrimshaw]

Kids today are too busy with their dungarees, their "Ya Ya Ya" music, and not staying off my lawn!

 

[maddman75]

They do like playing, because playing is fun, and there's a ton of people there and you can manage your character and everyone is laughing and yelling and someone sets the bad-guy on fire right and pushes him off a bridge, and he falls on the goblins outhouse below, and we all laugh about that. In my experience, kids love that, because it's fun.

I think this ties into not only kids, but the recent 'casual gamers' discussion.

I came to this realization a while back. Most gamers won't do homework. They won't worry about builds in between games. They won't look at your website with any regularuty, and you should be grateful for a skim of your background stuff. It isn't fun.

So don't focus on it. Focus on the immediecy. Don't hand them pages of background notes with a description of the HellRiders in it then expect them to know what it is when they show up in game. Let the see the HellRiders, then give them information. They'll soak it up, because it clearly matters to what they're doing.

Run every game as if it could be the last in your campaign. You never know, it might be!

 

[Scribble]

I will posit a hypothesis: If a child is exposed to video games at an early age and plays them a lot, they'll be less inclined to enjoy tabletop RPGs later on. Why? Because their imagination becomes dependent upon external imagery. More and more children are playing video games (not to mention watching television) pretty much as soon as they are ex utero. This is a travesty, imo.

Ok, hypothesis posited... Now go back that up with some sort of research, and maybe you'll have something. (and accurate research does not equal a few guys you know who play video games.)

As it stands your statement sounds like this generations version of "TV will rot your brain!" or "Comic books will destroy the youth of america!"

I read a study once that indicated after about age 30 people form an attachment to whatever they liked in their "prime" (puberty - early 20s) and almost completely stop liking new things, and even have more of a tendency to dislike new things. I wonder if this is related?

I don't pretend not to be rather anti-computer games as I see very little, if any, redeeming value beyond the development of certain motor skills and mental processing speed. But at what cost? We really don't know yet, but I can say that every single hardcore computer game player that I've known has been rather unhealthy and unbalanced in a social/lifestyle sense. There are other qualities that I've observed, but won't go into them here.

A lot of the actual studies are showing that computer games offer a lot of benefit.

Increased self esteem, increased hand/eye coordination, increased problem solving skills, increased ability to concentrate (and concentrate on multiple tasks at once) and increased visual acuity being some of the top ones.



As to the topic at hand. I can only offer my own experiences growing up.

I played D&D. I read a lot. I also played a lot of video games, and watched a lot of TV, and movies.

When it wasn't out game time, and I was hanging out with friends, we were probably playing video games, but also talking D&D, or making characters, or looking at game books at the same time. When we were watching TV the same was true.

I do the same stuff now. I'm at a bar with my friends who also game, chances are pretty good at some point we'll start talking D&D (and gaming in general.)

I talk on enworld/write adventures during free moments at work.

If gaming is fun, kids will game.

Personally I don't think MMOs are drawing kids away because kids only want computer games these days. I think it's because for the most part, MMOs are more in tune with what kids find "cool" these days, while a lot of TTRPGs are standing firm trying to push what was cool in the 80s and early 90s.

 

[Mercurius]

Imagination is narrative. If we were to talk about "things that inspire the imagination" we would end up covering RPGs, books, paintings, movies, television, video games, theatre: basically the entire breadth of storytelling media. CGs are no less capable of inspiring the imagination than RPGs; as was already said take a look at fanfiction.net or DeviantArt for hundreds of examples of how CGs have inspired imagination. What you're leveling is the judgement that "that kind of imagination" is less worthy than whatever kind of imagination you feel is worthy, like the further adventures of the three Musketeers that <you> dreamt of as a kid after reading the books is somehow more valid an expression of imagination than the further adventures of Cloud and Tifa.

Actually, you're right that I am making a judgment about different kinds of imagination, but "what I feel worthy" has less to do with my personal tastes and experiences as it does to something qualitative. To illustrate, here is a quote from Samuel Coleridge:

The IMAGINATION then, I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary Imagination I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealise and unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead.

FANCY, on the contrary, has no other counters to play with, but fixities and definites. The Fancy is indeed no other than a mode of Memory emancipated from the order of time and space; while it is blended with, and modified by that empirical phenomenon of the will, which we express by the word CHOICE. But equally with the ordinary memory the Fancy must receive all its materials ready made from the law of association. - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The difference I am pointing to is between what Coleridge calls (secondary) Imagination and Fancy. I think Tolkien's term "secondary world" is directly related to this, as a function of secondary imagination. Fancy deals with fixities; nothing truly new or vital is generated (not "new" in the sense of novelty, but in the sense of a living quality).

So I am saying that, at the least, most of what comes about through video game is "Fancy" and not "Imagination." Not all, but most.

The reality of imagination is that it actually takes a lot of work to improve your imagination, so much so that most people are born with as much as they'll ever have the capacity for. To this point it boils down to a binary: does it access imagination - yes/no.

I agree with the first part, and this is exactly why I take issue with video games because, I believe, they are antithetical to the healthy development of imagination, even working against it, replacing it with a kind of simulationist fancy.

The only reason why it feels right to rag on CGs for not inspiring the imagination is because the narrative of most CGs is bad, they do a poor job at accessing imagination. The stories are terrible, the characterization is flimsy to non-existent, and the structure of the experience does little to promote ownership. The same, however, can be said for most books, movies, television shows, and, yes, RPG games with the sole exception of the ownership aspect. Objectively most RPG stories are bad: a poorly paced, ill conceived pastiche that has a singular redeeming quality in the sense of ownership it fosters in the participants. That's why <you> love your own campaigns but get bored to tears when the dude behind you in line at the convention starts talking about his favoritest elf cleric: you can see just how banal the story is if you weren't there.

Sturgeon's Law, eh? I agree with this, but the quality of the video game or RPG is not really what I am talking about. I mean, I hear you, but that is not why I am "ragging" on video games.

One aspect of this is very simple and easy to grasp. When you play a video game or watch TV your imagination is passive; it receives but it does not create. When you read a book your imagination is receptive and active, it creates images. When you write your own work or create art you are being much more active (although there is a major activity of reception, but I won't go into that now).

As far as MMOs being the death of table-top RPGs, I think that's simply a farce and a failure to look at the bigger picture. The reason I can't see MMOs replacing table-top any time soon is simply for the fact that MMOs are a massive time-sink. There are those rare and occasional people that you meet who can play just once a week. But those people are rare. The average WoW player plays for 21 hours a week. Table top RPGs, however, are great for someone who just wants to get an outlet once a week or even just once a month. It's a completely different animal.

The other side of this is that MMOs don't require anyone else to be there so they can be done whenever you alone have free time, whereas RPGs require 2+ people finding a time to play.

The real competitor with table-top RPGs is not just MMOs or video games - it's everything in today's media. It's also Facebook, and Instant Messaging, and Rock Band, and File Sharing, and YouTube, and even good old-fashioned books - it's everything. I wish people would get that. Saying that it's MMOs that are the problem is missing the forest for the trees.

Sure I can agree with that, but I'm talking about the effects on the imagination of the two, and in that regard (IMO) MMOs are a big problem.

But even bigger than this problem, I think, is that D&D is a closet activity. In the end, D&D's biggest problem is itself. The fact that D&D is considered by many to be "that game people play in their mom's basement" is the biggest barrier to getting in new players. There's the stigma attached to D&D, and then there's the fact that so many people who play D&D are closet players. So many of the players themselves don't advertise what they do. I hope, however, that this might be going away. It's appearing more and more in popular media, which is a good sign.

Agreed. I've seen so many people turn their nose up at RPGs without having a clue really what they are about. This isn't helped by the partially self-perpetuated ghettoization of RPGs.

All that said, I think that the death of RPGs is simply overstated. As the CEO of Goodman Games stated, D&D had two peaks. One in the 80's, the other in 2001. That's just 8 years ago that we hit a peak. I meet so many players whose first RPG was 3rd Edition.

Yes, and as I said earlier, there have been three overall peaks or "baby booms" in RPGs: the late 70s/early 80s, the early 90s with Vampire and Mage, and then around the turn of the millenia. It seems like it happens every 10 years or so, so we might see a new development in the next 2-3 years.

Ok, hypothesis posited... Now go back that up with some sort of research, and maybe you'll have something. (and accurate research does not equal a few guys you know who play video games.)

Believe me, I've thought of doing the research but don't have the time or means at this point. But it is research that needs to be done, imo.

As it stands your statement sounds like this generations version of "TV will rot your brain!" or "Comic books will destroy the youth of america!"

In a way it is. And I think TV does "rot your brain" to some extent. This is not to say that I think people shouldn't watch TV but that it should be moderated.

I read a study once that indicated after about age 30 people form an attachment to whatever they liked in their "prime" (puberty - early 20s) and almost completely stop liking new things, and even have more of a tendency to dislike new things. I wonder if this is related?

Are you implying that my dislike of video games is because I'm over 30 and no longer have the capacity to like new things?

A lot of the actual studies are showing that computer games offer a lot of benefit.

Increased self esteem, increased hand/eye coordination, increased problem solving skills, increased ability to concentrate (and concentrate on multiple tasks at once) and increased visual acuity being some of the top ones.

Yes, and I recognized this in one of my posts above. I will mention that most of what you mention relate to the ability to process information in an almost mechanistic sense, but have nothing to do with a more aesthetic (or imaginative) kind of thinking.

And again, at what cost? What are the negatives? In the long run we don't really know yet. But some of the short-term effects are pretty obvious, at least with hardcore computer players. My sense is that the effect of excessive play is rather similar to drug addiction.