Nostalgia Trend in Gaming

[Keeper of Secrets]

I never thought I would live to see the day that Tunnels and Trolls returned.

I am certainly happy that I lived long enough to see Paranoia redone and redone right.

 

[RFisher]

As with anything, the majority of innovations were discovered early on. The number of remaining innovations waiting to be discovered & published shrinks by the moment.

My experience suggests that there are very few roleplaying gamers under about 25-30 right now. I think that this is because there's a group between our peers & our kids that are harder for use to recruit from. I expect some interesting things from the hobby as our kids continue to become old enough to become a somewhat more independant economic force from their parents.

 

[Scribe Ineti]

Part of the nostalgia is possibly from a bunch of companies wanting to convert their classic games to d20, then gamers playing them and wanting to see the original ruleset, either because they're tired of d20 or want to see what it was originally like.

I'd imagine any RPG sales are good for the industry at large.

 

[Insight]

I'll relate my own story of nostalgia, perhaps not on the scale of what the rest of you are discussing. I have been slowly reacquiring OD&D modules. Man, those things sure bring back memories. As badly designed as they were, these modules are still how I learned to game. Everything I do now in the realm of gaming, some of it leads back to the old mods, books, etc.

So I figured I would try to pick up the old modules, to look through them and see if I could tell what made them magical, and perhaps to recapture that spark and convert them to a newer, better-designed gaming system, while still retaining some of that magic.

Who knows if it will succeed, or if I will even have time to do it, but it seems like it could be fun. I have a few ideas on how to make it a little more unique than just running through an old module everyone has already played.

 

[The_Gneech]

Well in my personal case, the nostalgia is because I can finally enjoy the story bits I liked, in a game system that I also like ... instead of enjoying reading modules but spending actual play time wishing the rules didn't suck.

Thus, I'm all over the cool parts of the past with a new enthusiasm for the present, if you see what I mean.

I don't know if that's common or just me, however.

-The Gneech

 

[jester47]

The number of ten year olds I saw browsing the game shelf at Powells city of books in Portland this weekend was astounding. I think it was like 5 in one hour. They were distributed through about 3 different families. Granted the kids looking at the games had no clue what the difference between 3.0 and 3.5 was. It was really amusing to see a kid looking at MMIII and being all excited and then seeing MM3.5 on the shelf and then getting REALLY excited then looking through it and realising that it was just the MM and his derision at such discovery.

Granted it could be a statistical fluke, but, I would wager that there is a legion of Junior high kids out there playing, esp if the 10 year olds are "playing it too." Typically if you have a bunch of kids playing somthing that you would expect early teens to be into, then the chances are that the older brothers and sisters are doing that thing more.

The industry is not in danger. There is just a better understanding now of how it works and what sells and what does not. Its hard for a fan of anything to understand how people cant be as fanatical about what they are fanatic about.

I go through this with Mariners and Seahawks fans all the time.

Aaron.

 

[Rothnoran]

Tunnels and Trolls? You know I am going to pick that up! I only hope that new versions of Powers & Perils and Dragon Quest are soon to follow (although probably not because both are now owned by WoTC). Hell, I love to get nostalgic in my game...and I have been greatly inspired by all of those old games (anyone remember Arduin?).
As far as the age of gamers go, I play with a lot of old farts that have been around sense D&D basic (or even the parchment books) but I also know of many younger gamers. The fact that Barns & Noble, Waldon Books and such. Have Role Playing sections (that actually where I usually run into the younger players) makes the games very accessible. Certainly computer games and worse yet, collectable card games, sucks away a lot of the younger players (who could be playing RPG's), I don't think that Role Playing in general is hurting for new players. As best as I can tell most of the teen to early 20s players are into the Vampire and other "goth" games but the younger kids are coming back to FRP's like D&D. This is of course all from personal observation.

 

[Psion]

Well in my personal case, the nostalgia is because I can finally enjoy the story bits I liked, in a game system that I also like ... instead of enjoying reading modules but spending actual play time wishing the rules didn't suck.

That was my feeling before I switched to 3e.

 

[kenobi65]

(snip)The Internet is a marvelously skewed viewing window, making those who have minority opinions seem vastly more prevalent than they really are. Those who visit ENWorld and other fan sites are dedicated fans who enjoy the minutiae of D&D (albeit in different proportions). The actual core market, those for whom it's a game and activity for fun first and foremost, and not a hobby, do not visit these forums in great numbers (when I say "great" I mean by the tens or hundreds of thousands).

Excellent points, Henry. The EN World community is, fundamentally, a somewhat larger version of "me and everyone I play with." While it's easy for someone to make a conclusion about the state of the industry, the sales of specific products, etc. from "me and everyone I game with," "what sells (or doesn't sell) at the FLGS I frequent", or "what I read in the EN World forums", those conclusions are going to be, very frequently, wrong when applied to the broader gaming community. Folks on these message boards are, on the whole, going to be representative of one end of the bell curve.

Just because you don't personally know any 10- or 12-year-old gamers, doesn't mean that there aren't any out there. Besides, when you were starting out as a 10- or 12-year-old gamer, were you hanging around with, and playing with, a bunch of 25-30 year olds?

Similarly, just because folks on EN World are all hyper about a bunch of retro games, doesn't mean that the general gaming population either (a) knows about these games, or (b) cares.

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed that there appears to be a backward glance in gaming of late, that a lot of what's news in the market is nostalgia for games long past.

You know, you're right. What's next? A new Star Trek? or Star Wars? Or even Battlestar Galactica? There's no way kids today could ever appreciate those things. May as well bring back Krypto or Hal Jordan of Kara Zor-El, for crying out loud. No one under 40 would ever enjoy those things!