Are Kids interested in Pen & Paper RPGs?

[LFK]

Ah, but they may be central to this discussion?

Not really I have respect for the Romantics, to a degree, but by and large a lot of them were the 19th century equivalent of trust fund frat boys, except they were smoking opium instead of dope and studying philosophy instead of pre-law. And they didn't have Madden. If they did we probably wouldn't have any of their books.

See, not helpful. At all.

Yes, good point. But what do we mean by "good"? Why is the Mona Lisa "good"? Why is some art that is technically mediocre so much great than other art that is technically perfect?

I remember when 3E came out and everyone hated Todd Lockwood, calling his art soul-less; people would wax nostalgic for Erol Otus....now technically speaking Lockwood is miles beyond Otus; Lockwood is art grad school while Otus is junior high. But what was so evocative about Otus? Is it the "Golden Age of 12" factor mentioned in another thread? Is it nostalgia? Or is there something else there?

It is that "Something Else" that I am interested in, which I feel is what brings the imagination to life.



Yes, and it really worked for what it was. But it didn't go deep; no one watched an episode of friends and came away feeling like they had experienced something profound, that they had witnessed a great work of art. And I am not saying that all media needs to be "great art," but that we should recognize that there is a spectrum, and a place for all "locations" on the spectrum.



You might be right here, and I am probably somewhat of an elitist when it comes to imaginative creations. Not every fantasy novel needs to be the Silmarillion; heck, I loved the Belgariad--actually, the characters were a lot more enjoyable than Tolkien's, in many ways. They were certainly funnier. Ultimately my favorite kind of art is that which manages to run the gamut to some degree. Unfortunately it is very, very rare.

I think part of the problem is that the standards for imagination are set by television and film because they reach the widest audience. And they tend to have a gravitational effect: What you see on TV won't be terrible in that it will at least be professional and decently edited, but it will never be great because its greatness would be lost on the masses. Very very occasionally you can find a gem that is both accessible to many, but also deeply profound and "archetypally resonant." The Lord of the Rings is one such beast. Star Wars and Star Trek at their best are other examples. Harry Potter, unfortunately, is not.

Some really good points I agree on, and this is why I want to roll back to an older statement I made about (basically) Sturgeon's Law and persistence. The advantage that "better" works have over the mundane crap is that intellectuals and elitists tend to have a longer memory. The people who loved Futurama and Arrested Development still bring them up every time they can and force their friends and family to watch them any chance they can, and will continue to for some time. Why? Because the gems are rare. The masses don't need a memory span because there's always something more in the pipe coming their way, and there always will be.

Also I would say that over the span of the Potter series Rowling actually turned into a fairly decent writer, and while her style is a bit stilted at the beginning and the climax of Deathly Hallows makes a few clunky missteps she has, undeniably, created memorable characters that a very wide slice of the world has identified with in one way or another. While the literature itself may not stand up to the test of time, the characters and the archetype of their struggle, the general concept of their world, will project itself at least a century into the future.

Unless we blow ourselves up first.

 

[Toben the Many]

You're joking, right?

No, I'm not joking at all. The kids that I teach today that read the most also play the most video games. What is so hard to understand about that? Again, it's the nerdy kids who stay inside.

If a kid has read Lord of the Rings nine times, there's a good chance that they play WoW. If a kid is obsessed with World War II and has read all of the WW II books in the library, there's a good chance that they play a lot of WW II shooters.

 

[Mark]

The kids that I teach today that read the most also play the most video games.

I have no doubt there is some crossover and that bright young people also play video games but at the end of the day any hour doing one activity is an hour that cannot be spent on another acitivity so it is unlikely that the young people who read the most also play video games the most and unlikely that the young people who play video games the most also read the most.

 

[Toben the Many]

I have no doubt there is some crossover and that bright young people also play video games but at the end of the day any hour doing one activity is an hour that cannot be spent on another acitivity so it is unlikely that the young people who read the most also play video games the most and unlikely that the young people who play video games the most also read the most.

All I can tell you is that after a decade of teaching, this is what I usually observe. There are the occasional kids who do nothing but play video games, but by and large - the majority of kids who play a ton of video games also read a lot. These are the same kids that also have a lot of free time on their hands, too. They're not going to sports or cub scouts or piano practice after school. They're going home, finishing homework, playing video games, and then reading before they go to bed and on the weekends. But the rate at which they consume books usually far outstrips any of their peers.

I think what you also have to factor in is that we're talking about kids. As kids, they don't have access to all of the video games they want. They might have just a few in their collection. So when they done with a game, they'll go back to a book. Or after they've read Harry Potter for the fifth time, they'll go back to video games.

This corroborates what we've always known. They talked about this in the WotC gamer survey way back when. That when gamers are given a choice of video games, RPGs, and minis - a lot of them pick all of the above. People like to engage in a variety of activities and can do so easily.

Here's the thing. I would go ahead and wager that on these very boards, most people here read far more than the average American. And I would also wager that most people here play more video games than the average American in their age group.

 

[Mark]

All I can tell you is that after a decade of teaching, this is what I usually observe. There are the occasional kids who do nothing but play video games, but by and large - the majority of kids who play a ton of video games also read a lot. These are the same kids that also have a lot of free time on their hands, too. They're not going to sports or cub scouts or piano practice after school. They're going home, finishing homework, playing video games, and then reading before they go to bed and on the weekends. But the rate at which they consume books usually far outstrips any of their peers.

I think what you also have to factor in is that we're talking about kids. As kids, they don't have access to all of the video games they want. They might have just a few in their collection. So when they done with a game, they'll go back to a book. Or after they've read Harry Potter for the fifth time, they'll go back to video games.

This corroborates what we've always known. They talked about this in the WotC gamer survey way back when. That when gamers are given a choice of video games, RPGs, and minis - a lot of them pick all of the above. People like to engage in a variety of activities and can do so easily.

Here's the thing. I would go ahead and wager that on these very boards, most people here read far more than the average American. And I would also wager that most people here play more video games than the average American in their age group.

I understand your perspective but I think you are being a bit selective about who gets eliminated from your overall picture and it is skewing what you view as the results. You set aside "the occasional kids who do nothing but play video games (. . .)" and only include those that are "not going to sports or cub scouts or piano practice after school" which has the effect of steering toward the results you have predetermined as what you desire to predict. To take a different tack in what I am saying, let's agree to set aside young people who mostly are "not going to sports or cub scouts or piano practice after school" even though it may well be that those same young people might predominately use some of their free time to either read or play video games. Let's also understand that a certain amount of reading is going to be mandated as necessary for school, whereas this is not true of video gaming. I'm not even asking that we set aside the time spent on mandated reading as not to be included in our factoring. I am, however, asking you to agree that if any single person has five free hours in a day to spend on any activity they wish, one who chooses to spend those full five hours on reading and not playing any video games, is going to be spending more time reading than a single individual who spends three hours reading and two hours video gaming. Further, I am asking that you agree that one who spends five hours video gaming only, will be reading less than one who spends three hours video gaming and two hours reading. Do you follow me in regard to how throwing out some of the data points skews the results toward your desired outcome?

 

[ggroy]

I have no doubt there is some crossover and that bright young people also play video games but at the end of the day any hour doing one activity is an hour that cannot be spent on another acitivity so it is unlikely that the young people who read the most also play video games the most and unlikely that the young people who play video games the most also read the most.

When I was growing up, the most hardcore video gamers I knew of were the kids who were at the local video arcades all the time. For the most part, none of them read any books. Even today when I occasionally run into some of these same guys, none of them read any books these days.

 

[Cadfan]

I think that some of what gets lost in these discussions is that when you guys were kids who played RPGs, you were HUGE NERDS.

So don't ask what kids collectively are up to today. Obviously they aren't spending all day reading books and imagining things for their later RPG sessions. Only HUGE NERDS do that.

So ask what the HUGE NERDS are up to.

And you'll find that some are playing video games and some are reading books and some are wasting time on 4chan and some are drawing pictures of dragons. Same as it always was, just updated for the year 2009.

 

[Hussar]

I'm 38 years old, and I've been teaching high school for 15 years now. I can honestly say that the die-hard video gamers amongst my students tend to be the biggest morons: shortest attention spans, least amount of creative ability, weakest critical thinking. And they are simply atrocious readers and writers.

I say this as a lifelong video gamer and RPGer. (Shrug). Don't ask me to explain it. But trust me, based on my own limited experience, if you see a brilliant, thoughtful, creative high school student, you can bet your rear end that he or she isn't playing WoW for four hours a day.

Addendum: My daughter is almost seven, and my wife and I don't let her anywhere near video games. She also watches almost no television save the odd movie on DVD. She reads constantly, and loves writing and drawing. I'm delighted that most of the kids she will be competing with in the years ahead are destroying their cognitive abilities with video games and television (not to mention a steady diet of internet porn for the boys). Because in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

See, I don't buy it.

Let's step away from the US for a second. I worked in Korea in the schools there for about seven years. Now, if there is a population on the planet that is as full of hardcore gamers as the Koreans, I don't know what is. Yet, literacy rates in Korea are just shy of 100% and have not changed in decades. Reading rates in Korea have also remained pretty much the same throughout.

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.

Cool idea. I listen to the Fear the Boot podcast (can I say that here? ) One of the episodes a while back talked about a teacher who would use the old Traveler world generation rules in class. He would then turn around and use what they created in his games. Everyone wins.

But really cool idea.

I figure my ESL classes might just get a huge kick out of Dread. We're about to play Catan again next week. I love getting paid to play Settlers of Catan.

Mercurius though, I think you are really, really underestimating the creative power of video games. Long gone are the days when you pretty much did nothing but button mash your way through hordes of side scrolling baddies. Everything is optional now.

Heck, even look at WOW, the much dreaded WOW. Look at the amount of time people spend making videos of their characters, dressing the part, planning all sorts of activities and whatnot within the game. There are constant decisions to be made, many of which have very little to do with the basic grind of the game and everything to do with aesthetic choices.

And that's ignoring the huge popularity of games like Civilization and whatnot.

Something that gets lost in these discussions is the fact that reading for pleasure is a fairly new phenomenon. Our parents generation certainly didn't do it. My parents did, but then again, my mother is a librarian. Think of your parent's friends. How many of them would you characterize as regular readers?

Or, if you look at sales figures, the number one selling book in the mid-seventies sold 1/10th the number of copies as the #1 selling book in the mid oughts. That's pretty telling right there. Somebody's buying all these books and presumably lots of somebody's are reading them.

 

[Mallus]

And I hear your point, but I think it really depends upon how you play, how the game is approached. I've met quite a few gamers who play D&D in a very analytical/tactical and even non-imaginative way.

I think there's an inherently reductive quality to RPG's that affects most, if not all players, not just those who focus on the wargame-like part of D&D. The game mechanics chafe against the fictive dream (pardon me for using that phrase).

If you see Thor himself, then you see this mighty elemental deity who wields a great hammer of thunder and lightning.

The problem is, when you're seeing Thor in all his Nordic glory, it's hard not to also think of his hit point total, once you know it. And prolonged D&D play practical forces you to know things like that. Players invariable must engage with the game's mechanics.

The other problem is that most players seeing Thor probably see the Marvel comics version, or some similar derivative, pastiche, or synthetic pop version. Don't mind me, though. I'm just naturally critical of the attempt to portray D&D as a paean to the imagination. The imagination found in the game isn't usually of a high calibre, it's the the begged, borrowed, slapped together, jury-rigged sort. Imitations of imitations. Terrible cliches made personal, and therefore special. I love the acts of imagination that get committed in the name of D&D, but I'm under no illusions about their quality.

They tantalize both the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

Oh definitely.

 

[Scribble]

Agreed, but this is a half-truth. All things in moderation but not all things equally. Moderating donuts means something different than moderating spinach. Or, if we want to be as extreme as possible, moderating crack vs. moderating water.

Sure, but the point remains. Anything and everything needs moderation, so that fact that "something needs moderation" doesn't make it inherently bad.

Yeah, I know. There is a spectrum, of course, and I'm certainly not saying that video games are inherently addictive, but that A) many do become addicted to them, and B) serious "users" display characteristics similar to drug additions. At my school last year, for instance, we had a variety of computer gamers in terms of how much they played.

The same can be said about just about anything people enjoy. When people enjoy doing something, they want to continue doing it. (Or are you implying you believe video games have a physical addiction quality?) If someone does that thing to an excess negative reactions can/will occur.

If someone likes to read and they continue reading, oh no they're reading instead of spending that time outside running. Now they're becoming fat, and will die of a heart attack... Sure they used their imagination-but at what cost? Reading is bad for you!

It's pretty easy to come to random conclusions when you're not really looking at any facts, or studies, and just randomly observing things.

Remember, D&D causes us to all become occultists and devil worshipers , who plot to kill our families and friends right?

Without any kind of real facts or study, your observations are pretty much just stereotyping something you seem to dislike.