Different Strokes

[Maggan]

Most kids are barraged by cheap, explosion-filled, story lacking (IMNSHO) animated junk these days. They also tend to not be exposed to a lot of fiction or intellectually challenging material in any medium. Since their tastes are based on what they see and experience, of course their tastes are going to tend toward the fast, flashy, explosion-filled, visually stimulating form of entertainment. This applies to games, movie preferences, and television preferences.

At least, that is how I see it.

That's how my father saw it as well, all those years ago in 1982, when I started gaming. And again in 1992. And again in 2002.

And he'll probably see it like that again in 2012, if we get ten more years out of the old man.

/Maggan

 

[Fishbone]

Here is something I found pretty quickly. The money bits are at the start.
http://www.nea.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf
Reading rates have been falling steadily since 1982, in many factors the decline is pretty large, in the double digit range.
I don't want to sound snobbish or anything, but I've yet to hear a role-player openly brag about how few books he or she has read over the years. I've yet to hear reading dismissed as a big waste of time by roleplayers, or how they only read books in school when it was required and even then they cut corners on it.
You want to know how much the average person reads in a year? The average person doesn't read, period.
Over 50 percent of people don't read for pleasure and over 40 percent don't even read books for business.
I knew it was bad but this really shocks me.

 

[Fifth Element]

You want to know how much the average person reads in a year? The average person doesn't read, period.
Over 50 percent of people don't read for pleasure and over 40 percent don't even read books for business.
I knew it was bad but this really shocks me.

I don't find that shocking. Sad? Yes. Shocking? Not hardly.

The average person is quite ignorant. No elitism or condescension in that statement; it's simple fact. Public school will do that to you, if you don't have a real drive to learn things on your own.

The average role-player is far more interested in reading and learning than the average person. Again, no elitism there, simply fact.

That being said, I know that I enjoyed the animated crapola I watched as a child as much as anyone. It spurred my imagination.

I am a role-player who will admit to not being a voracious reader; at least not in the traditional sense. At this point in my life (full-time job, RPG writing, two young kids), I simply don't have the time. And I always preferred the stories I created myself to those written by someone else. It takes me forever to drudge through LOTR, and I prefer light fantasy comedy to epic five-volume sprawls. I have too many interests in addition to fantasy to spend a lot of time reading the stuff.

That being said, I am rarely found at home without an open book in my hands. It's just not fantasy literature. It's an RPG book, or a history book, or a sports magazine. I read a lot, but not nearly as much fantasy as most people hear, I would venture.

Fifth Element.

 

[Ranger REG]

I was just reading the Anime thread and a poster mentioned that there's a generation gap in RPGs - the older gamers being S+S junkies and the newer ones being anime/LOTR visual junkies.

I was just thinking - are games changing due to this generation gap? Do we have a marked explosion in a more visual game than a well scripted for the verbal game?

Being an english teacher, I can say my kids are more often than not visual in their writing and creating style. Ask them to write a story and they write what would look excellent in a movie (exploding spaceships or what not) non-visual stimulus is less exciting. The exploding spaceship thing applies - an exploding spaceship in a novel is not awe inspiring at all.

What do we think, guys? In a visual-less game, are we becoming more visual oriented?

More visual oriented? I think we already are. It's the kind of visual -- along with the story the art is interpreting -- that affects us ... individually.

There was a time when you could read a book and then create the movie in your mind, and that movie is your own "adaptation." Others who would read the same book have their own "adaptation." And that the author of the book is not too concerned how his reading audience "adapt" his literary work. Nowadays, literary authors want readers to see what the author sees with no deviation from the details. Fans of said authors want to make sure no other fans deviate as well. And so we have Purists.

As for RPGs, they also undergo evolutions to adapt to the taste and appeal of the current generation of gamers, as the older generation have either lost interest or ... succumbed to old age. As more of the older generation number decreases, not many of the new generation would game with them, unless you're as popular as Gygax or Arneson or have familial relations. The gap is not limited to gaming but in real life.

As for anime, it's been around a lot longer, even for us old-school gamers. It just so happens to be popularized in the mainstream as recent as five years ago.

 

[shurai]

Here is something I found pretty quickly. The money bits are at the start.
http://www.nea.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf
Reading rates have been falling steadily since 1982, in many factors the decline is pretty large, in the double digit range.

Did you notice the shining gem of good news in there? People are writing more then ever. I tend to think that's very good news.

Anyway, one of my favorite lines from the film Good Will Hunting runs, roughly, "You f***in' people baffle me. Spend all your money on these f***in' fancy books. You surround yourselves with 'em and they're the wrong f***ing books."

This insight is critical. People who are going to waste too much time on brain candy can do so in text, sound, or video just as easily. Folks used to read Danielle Steele and Tom Clancy, now they're more likely to play The Sims and Call of Duty. Second verse, same as the first.

Also, it occurs to me that the internet and video games (evidently the culprits here, according to the NEA's study) are all very new, and that newly-invented media and artforms are always derided. When Jazz really started to get rolling, for instance, it was criticized for being morally and musically worthless or even harmful, especially when compared with that perennial sacred cow of good-for-you entertainment, the symphony orchestra.

Paradoxically, most of a century later, my state university holds weekly jazz concerts -- performed by professors of jazz. This is why I quit paying attention to official opinions of the arts: They badmouth a perfectly legitimate artform in one decade, then in another they hand out doctorates in it.

I'm not really saying it's a good thing that literacy appears to be on the decline. Rather, I'm questioning the implicit premise that the new stuff is somehow inferior.

 

[Dykstrav]

I don't find that shocking. Sad? Yes. Shocking? Not hardly.

The average person is quite ignorant. No elitism or condescension in that statement; it's simple fact. Public school will do that to you, if you don't have a real drive to learn things on your own.

I tend to find this to be quite true. I've been working in the film industry for three years now, and one of the big concerns whenever I go through scripts or setups is if it's simple enough for the average moviegoer to understand. If you write material with decent dialogue or characters that aren't based on broadly-drawn stereotypes, you can expect to hear, "it's pretty brainy, don't you think we can trim this down into something simpler?" Or the classic, "it's too cerebral."

I have noticed how gamers tend to read more and be more generally knowledgable people. Whether there is a causal relationship or not isn't something I've ever considered very deeply. I don't really read fiction myself, although I do real alot for fun. I'm nerdy and actually read things like textbooks, classical literature, and technical manuals.

But still, I use the film model when describing things in my games. "You arrive in the city of Greyhawk- we have a long tracking shot following you through the Highway Gate, starting at your eye level and tilting slightly down as we open over the street and our field of vision rises. The music swells... Unlike the wilderness, this urban area is slightly desaturated, cool colors, with neutral tones for most of the backgrounds. Splashes of bright color are found in the heraldry and gaudier merchant displays. We have a traveling montage through the city as you make your way to the Temple of Pelor and converse with the young cleric along the way..."

 

[Ranger REG]

Did you notice the shining gem of good news in there? People are writing more then ever. I tend to think that's very good news.

Is that about as good as having more d20- or OGL-based products in the market?

Anybody can write, but can they write good? At least to impress some of our uppity critical boardmembers here? Do there opinions matter? Are they who criticize are special enough to want your works being critiqued upon? Or do they dish out opinions like diarrhea?

 

[Drawmack]

Here is something I found pretty quickly. The money bits are at the start.
http://www.nea.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf

After a skim of the above mentioned document:
The average college graduate does read, the study shows 66.7% of college graduates read literature for entertainment. Extrapolating this with the previously mentioned facts that many more people read then read literature I would be will to guess that over 70% of college graduates read.

The average role-player is a college graduate, so this is the demographic you have to look at when comparing how much role-players read versus how much their peers read.

Also this is a very limited study. I would say there is no difference between reading an anthology of short stories and reading a bunch of short stories in the web. However, this study only looks at print media.

If you would like I'll take 3 - 4 hours and fully digest this report and then we can discuss it in greater detail. I'm pretty sure this is a flawed report though as I have already noticed 4 mathematical errors and numerous editing problems which makes me seriously question this documents legitimacy. Not to mention it is put out by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is constantly putting stuff like this out right before they ask for more money to help with the problem. In other words, the authors have alterior motives.

I'm not saying that the number of people reading in the U.S. is not declining. I am simply saying that I do not think this is a good study.

The declining reading rate can easily be evidenced by the number of people who buy or borrow books on a yearly basis. However, a complete trestise on this topic must take into account the changes in the american demographic over the last 20 years. The baby bombers are aging and as they do so our adult population is in decline and our economy is suffering as for the first time in our history there are more elderly in need of care then there are adults providing that care.

YMMV

 

[Drawmack]

Anybody can write, but can they write good?

Note true, the number of illiterate americans is increasing. So is the number of homeless youth - I'm not saying there is a correlation or anything.

At least to impress some of our uppity critical boardmembers here?

Well, I wouldn't consider myself uppity. But I would like to know what forms of writting are they talking about. Seriously chat and texting that is peppered with so many anograms it is not even english anymore should not count as writting.

Do there opinions matter?

I find everyone, who is not an expert on a topic, to have opinions which matter equally to me. Though, I will keep to myself exactly how much that is.

Are they who criticize are special enough to want your works being critiqued upon? Or do they dish out opinions like diarrhea?

I'm not really sure what this means.

[/QUOTE]

 

[iwatt]

Seriously chat and texting that is peppered with so many anograms it is not even english anymore should not count as writting.

I'm pretty sure the Pope felt the same way when spanish, italian and french languages began to evolve.

Me I'm impressed at how fast this new form of communicating has evolved. I can't keep up with it, but dismissing it as not writing seems a bit presumptious, since it does what written language is supposed to do: communictae information.