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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 2841617" data-attributes="member: 7240">Well, if you really want to understand their motivation, head over to the WOTC boards and start this thread there. That's where you're going to find a large number of younger players who enjoy this kind of play. If you really want to understand, try accepting the explanations people are offering you.My problem is that I don't see you trying to understand. What I see you doing is seeking confirmation of a theory you already have.Why is this an "or"? Why can't it be both? Furthermore, why can't there be more explanations than that? Why can't people have all kinds of different motivations acting on them to varying degrees at different times, like real people?Agreed. But let's imagine that it's not a binary here, that there is a continuum of ways of thinking about setting and character between D&D as you play it and a computer "RPG." Let's suppose that somebody playing Final Fantasy is sitting at their computer screen and, when they get into a fight with an adversary, they say a whole bunch of cool-sounding threatening stuff, like a dialogue between James Bond and one of the villains he faces down. The player might feel kind of disappointed that there is no way to represent that cool-sounding dialogue in the game. They might also wish that the villain would say stuff back to them, creative, eloquent stuff. This might be their initial inspiration for going out and buying the core rules with a few friends. I think it's great that D&D can function as a "gateway game" for video gamers into the world of role-playing. It might be that they continue playing D&D like Final Fantasy with dialogue. It might be that they go back to playing Final Fantasy and forget D&D. But it might be that as they play D&D like Final Fantasy with dialogue, they begin to see the additional role-playing possibilities the game offers and gradually change their style of play to become more like yours.False dichotemy alert. How is there an "or" here? You don't make money or appeal to a younger demographic. You make money and appeal to a younger demographic. You don't appeal to kid or appeal to players. You appeal to kids and thereby get more players.I think Hasbro knows quite a bit about what kids will like and has good ways of gathering intelligence on that front. Hasbro is a smart company, a heck of a lot older than D&D. I would be stunned if none of their insight about keeping games current across generations was being deployed on a new part of their company they spent a fair amount of money acquiring.Furthermore, doesn't it just seem intuitive to you that the desire to play a half-dragon githzerai druid/monk/whatever is going to skew to a younger demographic. Kids get off on "kewl powerz" more than older gamers do. That's just from casual observation of the hobby.A long time ago, I got used to the fact that I find different things fun in RPGs than the mainstream of the hobby does. I know that the way most people play D&D I don't especially enjoy. I don't like what looks to me like incoherent world-building in the core rules and most popular settings. I don't like the way most people understand religion and physics in D&D. I like to represent plots, cultures and languages in ways that are unappealing to most players looking for a game. I guess I'm having trouble relating to you coming to terms with the fact that most people are playing the game differently than the way you enjoy doing so because that happened to me 15 years ago. What I like about D20, and the reason I came back to D&D, is that the system is now flexible enough to provide me with the tools I need to play it my way and to provide others with the tools they need to play it their way.As a D&D player, fringe politician and all 'round weird guy, all I'm looking for is the chance to do my own thing and let other people do theirs. It doesn't bother me that I've diverged from the mainstream of the D&D hobby because I kind of expect to diverge from the mainstream of anything big that I get near.These kids will grow up and either abandon the hobby or become more role-play focused. That's what happened to our generation, who went through the keep in Keep on the Borderlands and killed the shopkeepers for their stuff; and I have faith that the same thing will happen to the current generation of half-golem nixie illusionist/shadowdancers.</blockquote>

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