How long have you been gaming?

[dbm]

Another Red Box here, started in '83 and played continuously ever since. Moved away from D&D around the time of 2e, started playing GURPS and lots of RoleMaster. Some Warhammer. Came back to D&D with 3e and picked up some new players to the group around this time. Dabbled with some Fate and Cortex, but we're more simulationist as a group.

 

[Jester David]

At >20 years I didn't expect to be a rookie...

 

[Arilyn]

At >20 years I didn't expect to be a rookie...

How about journeyman?

 

[Lanefan]

1982, AD&D 1e.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

My starting point was the tabletop boardgame HeroQuest, back in 1990 or '91. Then my mom bought me a copy of ICE's Middle Earth Roleplaying Game around '92 and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. In '93 my friend bought a copy of Earthdawn, and from that point I was hooked. A year and a half later I was introduced to D&D (or more specifically, AD&D 2nd Edition) and that was that.[.

That's quite similar to my origin story! We started with HeroQuest and went through the two expansions. My mom couldn't find the dwarf and barbarian HQ expansions so she bought me the 2nd Ed. AD&D "First Quest" boxed set (in '94). After playing that set we started homebrewing D&D stuff for HQ to make it more like an rpg, then realized we could save the effort and just play D&D.

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

About 1993, when I was 12, 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (and I had been reading the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio for at least a year prior). My dad taught me and my younger sister how to play, and we had our first game with my dad's DM and gaming group. We only played about a half-dozen times over the next few years, due to his group being pretty scattered. Then I went to college in 1999 and started gaming heavily, again 2e AD&D. Then 3e came out in 2000, and I played that, 3.5, and Arcana Unearthed/Evolved for a long time. Dipped into 4e with a group post-college, and didn't like it that much. Started playing Numenera/The Strange/Cypher System alongside 3.5 D&D with my regular group, and haven't played 5e yet. Going strong with Pathfinder now!

 

[GrahamWills]

A few thoughts:

* Enworld is strongly targeted at D&D players, who are likely to be much older than the average player. I'd expect a very different result if the Fate forum did a similar quiz.

* Selection bias is strong here. If you're a newbie, you're less likely to click than oldsters.

* Even given that, the strong 31-40 year old peak is really interesting and consistent with other threads where I've said stuff like "playing for 32 years now" and had several others chime in with a "me too". Early eighties seems to be the strong winner.

 

[Morrus]

Enworld is strongly targeted at D&D players, who are likely to be much older than the average player.

I would expect the exact opposite. WotC's player acquisition outreach over the last 3 years has been strongly targeted at new, young gamers (as it should be if they want to keep going for another 40 years). They're using Twitch, young Hollywood types, an aggressive worldwide Organised Play program, and large social media outreach all designed to that end. While EN World itself would skew older (for other reasons), I don't think that D&D as a whole does these days. At local gaming clubs and the like, the new youngsters are all playing D&D 5E.

Somebody really needs to do another of those massive market surveys to find out for sure, but that's my sense.

 

[Yaztromo]

Early eighties seems to be the strong winner.

 

[GrahamWills]

I would expect the exact opposite. WotC's player acquisition outreach over the last 3 years has been strongly targeted at new, young gamers (as it should be if they want to keep going for another 40 years). They're using Twitch, young Hollywood types, an aggressive worldwide Organised Play program, and large social media outreach all designed to that end. While EN World itself would skew older (for other reasons), I don't think that D&D as a whole does these days. At local gaming clubs and the like, the new youngsters are all playing D&D 5E.

Somebody really needs to do another of those massive market surveys to find out for sure, but that's my sense.

Well, without survey data, it's entirely anecdotal. But when I wandered through the Pathfinder and WOTC areas of Origins, it looked much grayer than the Indie Games on Demand areas. the Savage Worlds and Pelgrane groups seemed intermediate in age, but the difference between D&D and Indie games was pretty strong.

Of course, that might be just me. With Gen Con coming up, it's an easy exercise for people to try for themselves!