At what age did you start gaming?

[D'karr]

Oh BTW, I'm not advocating making the game so simplistic that a trained monkey without any imagination can put together an adventure, though I've played on some campaigns that felt like that.

If you look at the original rules they were rather simple but not simplistic.

AD&D was not simplistic but it was still rather simple.

3E is IMO an improvement in consistency and a big improvement in simplicity.

The game should retain that level of playability. Making the rules clear is a good step in the right direction.

 

[Angcuru]

I actually first got into the game when I was about 12 or 13, but didn't start gaming seriously until around my 15 birthday. my how the time has gone by. until recently all my gaming consisted of was "ok, you hit, you deal damage, it's dead. you take it's stuff." Kill it and Take it's stuff, basically. thankfully, I've finally found a group that tries to avoid that kind of attitude.

 

[Arnwyn]

That's where I say the "selfishness" comes in - we're so determined to have the market serve US what WE want RIGHT NOW to the exclusion of everyone else that we're blind to the fact that doing so hastens the market's demise. If we ask them to serve us WITHOUT excluding everyone else - i.e., we compromise a little and get mostly what we want - we can keep the market alive.

Believe me, I know very well the consequences of business decisions (I'm a CMA, senior financial analyst, and business school graduate with honors), and I certainly understand what you're saying. (ASCII graphs! Woo!)

And, as a consumer, my response is: "I don't care". Yes, I want (though do not expect, of course) the market to serve *me* and *my needs*. What do I care if it withers and dies after we (the older demographic, the one currently being catered to) quit playing or pass away? I'll be gone - thus no effect on me. If the market starts catering to the younger demographic (and assuming not to me as well), then that could be construed as the market withering and dying for me, and thus the same result. Therefore, *of course* I want the market to serve me and my demographic. I don't care about the others - having the industry survive while catering to a different demographic doesn't do me any good.

(Now, contrary to my post above, I am actually a fairly altruistic person. But *purely* as a consumer within this marketplace - well, consumers look out for number one. Should we/they? Well, thats a whole 'nother can of worms that relates to entire economic systems! Not appropriate for this thread or messageboard, I think.)

In any case, those are only my "wants". The market will adjust itself to market conditions (though sometimes with a fair amount of pain...).

 

[jdavis]

I started gaming around 8 or 9 and started gaming alot around 11 or 12. The thing I remember about it back then was that it was considered much much worse for children than it is now. D&D and worshiping the Devil were equated to being exactly the same thing, now D&D is that game everyone played when we were little. Yea the game has grown up but our whole society has grown up too, D&D is a 1000 times more accepted by the genreal population than it was when it first came out, It was a fight for me to get to game at all and I think part of the reason I started was to make my mother mad. Just to draw a comparison to something that follows the same basic path, Hard Rock music actually was helped by being considered to much for children, children ate it up. Teens in particular love to get things they think they are not supposed to have. If D&D gets too accepted as a fun and non-offensive family game then it is dead for sure. Everybody seems to of started young but most people didn't get deep into the game till they became teenagers and teenagers don't want family fun they want the stuff adults don't think they should have. The future of D&D doesn't rest with 8 year olds it rest with 15 and 16 year olds buying their own books and playing in a basement hoping their parents don't find out.

Another point on this is If D&D was the same as it was in the basic box now then I wouldn't be playing it right now I would of outgrown it, for that matter I did stop gaming D&D for several years and started playing newer more cutting edge games (When Vampire and Werewolf first came out that was The thing around here, D&D was the kids game). I actually came back to D&D because it is more adult oriented now.

 

[Desdichado]

Arnwyn's got the right of it -- the industry doesn't cater to anyone except the customers who are buying stuff. That's how an industry survives. If some d20 company comes out with D&D Junior, I with the venture well, but I won't be picking it up.

All consumers buy only what caters particularly to them. In theory, the entire market can be served this way. I think this is fairly true -- there's a lot of stuff on the market right now that I have no interest in at all, but obviously it caters to someone because folks are still making it. Whether or not folks are actively trying to recruit new gamers into the fold through their product offerings or not, I don't know and I don't really care except as an academic exercise.

 

[KB9JMQ]

Well I was in 8th Grade when I was introduced to Gamma World. That was about 79-80.

Then in 9th Grade I played and then recieved the Red Box.

Life has been great since.

 

[S'mon]

I may have read 'Warlock of Firetop Mountain' Fighting Fantasy gamebook at 10, but 11 is when I was GMing my own rulesless games at primary school, before I'd ever played. 12 was when I got hold of AD&D rules, playing a bit but mostly DMing.

I think to maximize the number of players there needs to be children's stuff aimed at pre-teens, and 'mature' stuff aimed at teenagers, ages 12+, like succubi on the cover of Dragon...

 

[Olive]

I think to maximize the number of players there needs to be children's stuff aimed at pre-teens, and 'mature' stuff aimed at teenagers, ages 12+, like succubi on the cover of Dragon...

tee hee.

 

[Jeph]

Started three years ago, when I was 11. My first book was the DMG, for advice on running the free-form thing my friends and I had going. Next came the MM for more inspiration. Finally, after months of wondering waht a fricking DC was, I got the PHB.

 

[gregweller]

I started gaming about 12 or so...but that was so long ago DnD hadn't been invented yet. On the other hand, I also read '120 Days of Sodom' at about 10 or 12, so that tends to skew any kind of maturity a bit ...