The shift in gaming as we get older

[Corinth]

The older I get, the less I care about story-telling--I can get that from books, comics, movies, TV, etc.--and the more I treat it as I would if it were real: carefully employed resources, optimized capabilities, strong team discipline, and an increasing intolerance for time wasted by stupid people doing stupid things for any reason. I don't have time for fools, at work or at play, and I punish stupidity at play with (character) death.

 

[Mouseferatu]

The older I get, the less I care about story-telling--I can get that from books, comics, movies, TV, etc.--and the more I treat it as I would if it were real: carefully employed resources, optimized capabilities, strong team discipline, and an increasing intolerance for time wasted by stupid people doing stupid things for any reason.

Heh. I'm the polar opposite. I want interesting personalities (both PC and NPC), character development, and stories as gripping and intricate as possible. I have no interest in tracking resources beyond the bare minimum (I cannot remember the last time I bothered keeping track of ammo or rations), and I'd much rather an interesting character concept than an optimized one.

 

[Zaruthustran]

My experience was:

• Long campaigns in grade school, middle school, and early high school (pre- 16th birthday).
• One-offs and aborted campaigns in late high school, college, and post-graduation.
• I've just turned 30, and for the past couple years have again enjoyed long-running campaigns.

Looking at that data, it seems when life is stable I'm able to enjoy long campaigns, and that a chaotic life prevents long campaigns.

Makes sense to me!

-z

 

[SteveC]

I'm curious as to whether anyone else sees a shift in gaming as we get older.

By that, it seems that most campaigns (IME) tend to sort of fall apart before ever even getting to the high levels. Maybe it's because I've moved around a lot, but I know a fair number of others that have as well.

It's almost like the "standard" model of "start at 1st, advance to 20th, and then retire" doesn't really work for most people. People either get bored with the campaign, or RL issues prevent the story from coming to a successful completion.


How do you handle this? Ignore it, and continue on, or do you try to shoot for a more "episodic" kind of game where people can come and go as they please?

Wow, sounds like a lot of people don't have the same experiences as you do, so I think I'll chime in to agree. Your experiences have been very similar to mine, but I've been fortunate enough to keep a group together, even including new people.

For me, it's become a situation where the game gets called on account of real life issues, usually because of work, although child care has started to creep into it as well as my friends start to have families.

How do we handle it? Honestly, we don't, at least not well, and not yet. How do I think it makes sense to handle it? By starting the games a little farther along the line (at 4th level, say, rather than 1st) and then expecting things to not necessarily keep going all the way through 20th level. More Red Hand of Doom and less Age of Worms, so to speak.

Any other ideas, well, I for one would appreciate them!

--Steve

 

[Mistwell]

None of my characters have actually ever reached 13th level since the release of 3.0.

 

[Mark CMG]

I run some higher level one-shots, and the occasional series of higher level games, but most of the players I DM for stick with the pre-teen levels, so to speak. They tend to get overwhelmed by the number of options and high death rate of higher level games.


Nevertheless, I prefer to run more in depth plots and rping, and always have. That hasn't changed with age, for me anyway.

 

[Festivus]

I have the opposite experience.

As I have gotten older my campaigns have been longer and more regular.

It's almost the opposite for my digestive system.

For me, it's all about the why... why are the monsters there, why is the BBEG wanting to destroy the city, etc. Some of the best sessions played are those with no combat for me now. Characters have depth, cities come alive, and I can envision life there. Family (wife & children) require regular play times, as do responsible things like work and sanity from gainful sleep.

When I was younger, it was all about killing stuff, didn't matter what it was or why it was there, just did it have a +2 vorpal sword or not. We would play whenever we felt like it for as long as we wanted to... usually all weekend long... almost non-stop. The adventures were stop start, with different characters almost every game, made up for whatever TSR module we were playing.

 

[painandgreed]

In high school, we played every Sat and it was simply a case of "bring a character of X-y level and I'll run everybody through this module". No continuality or campaigns really although people played with the same characters from week to week so the level of the dungeons raised with them. In college, we developed regular weekly campaigns that would run for years at 8 hours or more per game session. They woudl eventually stop due to somebody graduating or somesuch. Now, in the real world, people love ongoing campaigns and would love to play but RL stuff finds them unable to commit. If not for camping, concerts, job schedules, children, SOs, and the like, I'd still have five ongoing campaigns to participate in like in college. Those olders ones who have realized they have no ability to commit because of such things, seem willing if not eager to return to the high school model of simply meeting whenever with random characters and dungeon crawling for the evening like one might go see a movie. For that matter, players who care about role playing and character interaction and development and can attend regular games, seem to gravitate to games other than D&D. Usually some nitche game or old favorite they enjoy and play with a close group of friends.


Most do like to go from 1st level and on up, but they usually break up for some reason long before anything like even mid-level. I'm thinking of starting at a game at "high" level just to play at that area. I've never had a character go higher than 17th and that was in multiyear 1E campaign with 3 or 4 "end of epic storyline ramping up plus final bonus" levels and two years of play.

 

[TarionzCousin]

One thing I can't handle now that was a staple of my younger gaming days: hard wooden chairs.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

My gaming has changed. At least in retrospect.

In my younger days, I gamed as a form of "art." Now, I game for fun. Whether that entails long, drawn out complex stories or simple smash-kill-loot scenarios differs on my mood.