Are kids playing tabletop D&D these days?

[Delta]

My oldest children (and nieces and nephews) are playing.

What edition?

 

[CanadienneBacon]

My kids just got to play their first D&D game ever today. They're girls, ages 6 and a set of 5-year-old twins. We played the Dragon Quest board game for 2E. It's D&D on a board game instead of a battlemat, and uses slightly dumbed-down rules.

They took to it like fish take to water and are already begging for their next session.

 

[The Little Raven]

All social interaction is superior face to face.

My friend Jaymie, with her anxiety issues, would disagree, and I'd agree with her. Some people do better interacting with others when they aren't face-to-face.

I think you are right, and I think the DI is one of the reasons 4E isn't going to "be D&D". It isn't just building a way of playing D&D on-line, it is building a D&D that can be played on-line.

Well, D&D can be played online right now, as the large number of PbP/PbE/PbWhatever games attest. I guess it must not be D&D, eh?

 

[rgard]

My three sons do...ages 9, 13 and 15. I DM, but they aren't a captive audience.

 

[Meloncov]

I personally know about thirty teens who play D&D, though only about ten do so regularly.

 

[KrazyHades]

I'm a high school senior, and my friends and I have played tabletop D&D since sophomore year. I've run other games before that, but this is the first long-running campaign of mine.

When we're all together it's a group of 10 + me (the RBDM).

 

[Orius]

I
Something their comments made me think about is one factor that is the wildcard as far as videogames vs. tabletop rpg's go...the GM. I play both and the main difference I see is, with a videogame you can do a little research on the internet and basically know what your experience will be. They have a standard play experience. TT rpg's on the other hand have common rules but a totally variable play experience depending on who is DM'ing.

Your first game could easily be something that hooks you for life or that totally turns you away, and most of it is dependant upon the GM.

That's a good point. A rotten DM can totally kill the game experience.

Another point to bring up is the scope of the games: electronic games are limited by their programming. Certainly there are games todat that have gotten very expansive, but they still can't go beyond their code. D&D on the other hand, doesn't have this limit, the players and DMs can do whatever they want with it.

I still enjoy both though.

 

[Orius]

I think some people grasp that...but I think many others DON'T. All of my players have been involved in MMOs at some point. Some of them are still playing WoW (EQ, EQII, UO, DDO, AC and CoX all having eventually fallen to the wayside), but all of them are still playing D&D.

There's that too. Playing games online can be a lot of fun, but eventually, the players move on to the next best game. It sucks when there's no one left to play with online. And keeping up with video games can get real expensive.

There needs to be some trial similar to GURPS Lite or WoW's 14-day free trial to hook people in....or some very convincing gatekeepers need to be won over.

What would probably work best would be a basic boxed set that has some rudimentary rules (say enough to cover levels 1-10 for the four main classes with just humas, elves, dwarves, and maybe halflings as PC races). Then again to, it might not work, since they have over the years released a number of sets like this.

 

[Orius]

Not in regard to online play or different mediums, it didn't.

The vast majority of online play is still the realm of hobby newcomers, with most of the old guard rebelling against it as being inferior to the old ways. As much as I wish I were kidding when I type that, I think the various threads about the DI -- including some posts in this one -- make it clear that I am not. For some reason, older gamers view any medium other than face to face, over a tabletop, as inferior, many of them actively resisting the promotion of such mediums.

But I do agree that it has to be done, even if it ends up sucking. No matter how much I may like or dislike what comes of DDI, WotC has to do it. It's a matter of evolution; those who can't adapt go extinct, and WotC is well aware of that. Maybe it will be a spectacular failure (and they damn well better be using some good beta testing on it to make sure it doesn't), but whether it is or not, WotC is doing the right thing by trying it.

 

[Lord_Psathus]

It is a shame that there are so few teens wanting to play DnD, I think if a handful of people tried it with the right DM, they would really get into it. It does definitely seem like at school there is a lot of talk about 'Halo 3 this' and 'Warcraft that', and it is a shame they will likely never play.

But, you can add quite a few more to the list of teen gamers who play. My friends and I play at least once or twice a week, although we all play World of Warcraft, we were playing DnD before that time. (We started playing when we were about 10 years old, and haven't stopped for 4 years).

Our group consists of five teens who play consistantly, and at our school we actually got a 'D&D Club' approved, which consists of about 3 different groups at five a piece.