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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jester47" data-source="post: 1955051" data-attributes="member: 2238">I agree with you on some points.  Yes I think we are nostalgic.  However I do not think it is because we are a bunch of old fogies.  I think it is because there was a point where Adventure Gaming in general was really really hurting (like the late ninties or thereabouts).  I think a large portion of the nostalgia is the people in the industry looking back to see what worked and what did not.  Almost every "nostalgia" product is accompanied with the explantion of why it worked so well and why it is remembered.  You could also say that the "return to" series of the 25 aniversery line was sort of an experiement to see if they could peg what people liked about the products.  The other thing about adventure gaming is that it works off of story.  So in the same way a 14 year old can get excited about Lord of the Rings or some other fantasy, they can also get excited by the world of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dragonlance, Blackmoor, the wilderlands, and such.  A big change is that D&D has lost its fad status.  In the 80s it was a big fad.  "Everyone was doing it."  So the growth experienced in the 80's was bad growth.  It was quick growth.  The problem with quick growth is that it sets things up for quick collapse.  The bottoming out in the 90s was a result of that.  However, the core group of players has been slowly growing.  Which is good.  We want slow growth, thats the kind that sticks around.  I think there are several things that contribute to the nostalgia:  The first is looking back and asking "what was good, the thing that everyone remembers?  Why?  How do we replicate that?  Was it so unique that using the thing that made it good would just be a rip off?  Or was it a concept of (say module design) that can be used over and over?"  Another is that printing and art have become more accessible.  So where there were these wonderful worlds, they can now be re-represented.  This leads into repackaging for the newer generations, which is the last use of nostalgia that I can think of.  Now the big things that adventure gaming has going for it, and the reason it has survived computer games, MMORPGs, and other such creatures is that it is one of the last bastions of hospitality in modern society.  If you go outside gamer and certain religious circles, hospitality is dead.  No one invites people over for dinner anymore.  People rarely open their homes to people they don't know.  Profressionals have taken over.  But Gamers do it all the time.  Its why we have so many freaky people stories and people that don't game don't.  Playing pen and paper role playing games almost requires some form of hospitality.  More often than not, someone has to open their home to other people so you can play the game.  More often then not people say the reason they play is that they get to spend time with friends.  In fact I do not think "lifestyle games" is a good moniker, but I think "hospitality games" is.  And I think that is the reason RPGs will survive and thrive in the future.  As things are going it will be very necessary as a social institution.  Indeed with the way parents are teaching their children the games, I think it will grow.  So in short I think the nostalgia is a good thing in that it helps the industry refine what works and what does not.  Aaron.</blockquote>

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