"older" gamers

[Greylock]

Keep visiting shops and bookstores and ask around. It took me over six monthes of frustrating dead-ends before I finally found "mature" group. I was almost to the point of giving up, but I finally connected with the right group through the internet.

You also wrote:

" husband and I are off in the professional world, with bosses and coworkers who, if they knew what roleplaying was at all, would believe us to be incomprehensibly infantile for still playing. "

I am not looking forward to the day when my boss asks me what the score was at the game I asked off for ;p.

 

[alepulp]

The joke among my group is we'll all somehow end up in an Old Gamers' Home somewhere, eating liquified junk food and having to have nursing assistants read our character sheets for us.

I'd rather do that than play dominoes or stare at the TV all day. The idea of being able to play D&D all day until the nurses put me to bed is quite enlivening. I can look forward to a good retirement after all - and the chance to progress to an epic level character.

Having said that - until this thread, I wasn't really classing myself as older... but I am - I have a wife and two kids - one now starting to play in my quarterly game. I am nearly 40.... but much fun to come.

One suggestion I have for getting to recruit older gamers is to chat about what books they read. If there is a genre focus on fantasy you can get in there and invite them for a gaming evening. My weekly group did this and we now how our first female gamer - and she is mad about the game. I think, as you grow older, escapism is becoming more welcome instead of being "cool". One of the guys at work found out that I was a gamer and quickly decided this was for him also - sadly the group is too full to accept him in.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Heh, I am the second oldest gamer I know in my local area. (And was the oldest until early this year when a friend of mine got back into gaming after a ten year hiatus.) I am older than the oldest player in my current D&D game by seventeen years. (And until late last year I was better than 20 years odler than the oldest player until another more mature player joined.)

Mostly I handle it by just accepting that my hobbies and entertainments are different from those around me. (I also listen to folk music & storytelling, do cardstock modelling, and study history and religion as a Unitarian and lapsed Catholic.)

I also break my relationships into groups - those who game, those who listen to folk music, etc.with little overlap between any two groups. (To the extent that my gaming friends sort of thought that my girlfriend was imaginary. A conceit she abetted in until a rash of 'Jackie sightings' took place. Darn the one person folk music - roleplaying overlap! Jackie is a non-gamer, but an avid folkie.)

For the folk music group I am younger than most, and I am about average for the religion and history groups. Cardstock modeling is pretty solitary, and my only contacts for that is via the internet.

So I handle it idiosyncratically.

The Auld Grump

 

[diaglo]

finding gamers hasn't been the problem for me.


finding those willing to play real D&D has.

Original D&D(1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are just poor imitations of the real thing.

 

[Whimsical]

Use the net, Luke.

Find players using the RPGIndex Player Finder, or the RPGA convention calendar (select your State at the bottom of the page). Then list yourselves in the various player registries. I have had good luck finding players with AccessDenied.net.

At work, include subtle gamer paraphenalia among your desk knick-knacks. Such as non-d6 dice, minatures, calendar of fantasy art, or a GENCON coffee cup, etc. Nothing that says Dungeons & Dragons™ on it, but stuff that fellow gamers would pick up on.

 

[Buttercup]

Though I don't think of myself as "old" I guess I'm part of the demographic you're talking about. I'm in my 40s, and the group I DM for ranges in age from 28 to 52. We're all friends outside of gaming, so the age thing isn't an issue at all.

What has been an issue in the past is that the gamers we know with kids have a much harder time scheduling time to play. In fact, my last campaign folded over this--we just couldn't get everyone together, what with professional committments and child care problems. Right now the game I'm running is a smaller group, the players being my husband, another couple (in their 30s) and a married/no kids friend whose husband doesn't play. We manage to play twice a month. I'm also playing in a game at the FLGS, and although I don't know the ages of all the players, my guess is that two are in their 30s, and one is about 50. And then there's me, of course, and the DM who is a 30 something family man.

Regarding other people's opinions about gaming, I've found that most really don't care. If you already have a reputation for being...odd...then when they find out about your hobby they'll think it's creepy. If, on the other hand, people think you're normal & well adjusted, or if they look up to you, then the fact that you do something by definition makes it alright. Truthfully, most people are so wrapped up in their own concerns that they don't have time to worry about what other people do in their free time. I'm really surprised to hear that people who have gamed in the past are denigrating the hobby, or looking askance at the poster who started this thread. What is wrong with these people? Is it possible that the original poster is mistaken? (I'd rather believe that than that ex-gamers have become snobs!)

 

[Buttercup]

Original D&D(1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are just poor imitations of the real thing.

Diaglo, I like you. Really I do. But your schtick has gotten really boring, you know?

 

[tetsujin28]

I dunno. Nearly all my gamer friends are the same age as I am, save my friend's daughter (20), and another 20 year-old. But the rest of us are in our early 30s to early 50s.

 

[DragonLancer]

But there's no way in hell we're giving it up!

Good on ya! I'm only 30, but I never plan on giving up the gaming. I enjoy it too much. Good luck finding players and don't be afraid to proudly declaire that you still enjoy D&D.

 

[ForceUser]

Diaglo, I like you. Really I do. But your schtick has gotten really boring, you know?

I second that.