The shift in gaming as we get older

[Ry]

Rycanada, is there a bulletin board at your local FLGS? A youth group you can volunteer at in order corrupt new souls? A community college offering nonsense continuing education courses?

Creativity solves problems outside of the game, too.

You know, this is really good advice. Maybe it's time to stop relying on the old crew for all my gaming. I know there's a York D&D club or some such thing. I think it has an online meetup group... I'm going to go look for that.

 

[Silver Moon]

We're coming up on our 25th year of the original campaign. The main way that the game has played is that several strategies are fast-forwarded through via a reference to something previous rather than explaining it all out again. We also tend to have shorter games, now in the 2 to 2 1/2 hour range rather than the previous 3 to 3 1/2.

 

[GuardianLurker]

Heh.

I'd been reflecting on that. I (like most of us here on ENWorld) am an old gamer; in my late 30's, playing since 1e. I GM a group of (mostly) older gamers - one or two in their early 40's, a bunch of us in our 30's and the "baby" in his late 20's. We just finished a 3+ year, biweekly game that ran from levels 1-25+.

I've also played with two other groups in that same time period. Both with a much younger crowd. In both cases, the stories have been well told, there's been exciting combat, and good roleplaying. And yet, I watched the first group implode twice, and am watching my current (play) group implode as well. And in both cases, it's not because of travel times or people moving away or getting married, or any of the other common reasons.

It's because the GMs are (were?) Drama Kings. Even back when I was young and foolish (instead of not-young and foolish) "Drama" was the cause of more group implosions than the other reasons.

What's changed as I've gotten older is that "Drama" is just tiring and almost entirely foreseeable (and predictable), and I just don't have the tolerance for it that I used to.