Balesir
Adventurer
First of all I apologise for using an example that was confusing because what I meant was similar-but-different to your "coffees in a supermarket" example. What I had in mind was a waiter guy offering to get you tea or coffee. Now, unless you have lived your life in a cellar, the chances are that you know several other options very well - and you could always ask for them (he can only say "no"). Or you could go to a different outlet. Or you could make something for yourself. To quote the great Orlanthi saying from Glorantha:
"Violence is always an option!"
Um, no, wait - the other one:
"There is always another way!"
Yeah. That one. Ahem...
Or you could make your own root beer (is that the same as ginger beer?). Or you could order online for delivery. You could even set up a business making root beer, or persuade someone else to do so. This is my point - there are always options. The only limit is how many you are aware of, and how many you discard arbitrarily (or, at least, with only minimal evaluation).
In practice, we almost always disregard some options without evaluation subconsciously. What the argument about "choice is bad" is saying is that it's bad if we have to make those disregards consciously - so being unconscious of options is good. I disagree with this as an assertion.
Now, these comments are interesting, because I think you raise another dimension here which may be the real nub of the issue. What these situations talk about is not choosing product, systems or options for onesself, but choosing what to play with other people.
The problem your "older gamer" has (and, just as an aside, I'm in my 50s, so I don't think this is universal) is not that other gamers have elected to buy and play a new and different system - it's that they decline to play the older gamer's favourite game with him or her.
I can see two ways to address this:
1) Say the "older gamer" should have some power over the other gamers' choices, so that they "have to" play his or her favourite game. Aside from the fact that I think this is totally unrealistic (because "there is always another way"), I am heartily opposed to any attempt to arbitrarily limit others on ethical and motivational grounds - so I reject this option (personally).
2) All of those involved need to show tolerance and flexibility in what they are prepared to play. Think of others and try to be accommodating - that's one of the fundamental virtues I was inculcated with as a child. Tolerance is always a good thing (it just doesn't imply you have to like what you tolerate, which would be daft).
On the "learning a new game" thing: I honestly think this is a function of folks who have only ever really played D&D (and similar games). In my experience, the difficult bit is actually breaking out of the comfortable furrow of assumptions that you have grown to have about "roleplaying" because of the way your own specific game works. Once you have broken out of that, my experience is that learning new systems is easy - it's all a downhill slope from there. What's more, by no means all systems are as content-heavy as D&D. FATE is not hard to learn to play (I did so last year - and now I love it!). Fiasco is not hard to learn (year before last). Primetime Adventures is not hard to learn (around 2009, I think). Pendragon is not hard to learn (1990s sometime?). This year I'm lining up Savage Worlds - and that looks no harder than the others to get into. All these games have the essential rules in one book.
I could go on about how trying different games gives you different perspectives on every other game you know and is a hugely positive experience in its own right, but I've rambled enough for one post...
