What do you think are the most damaging ideas in the hobby?

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For "Heartbreaker" to apply, IMO, it has to include

1) obvious passion and unbridled enthusiasm on part of the amateur author for a game that has no hope of ever being financially successful

combined with

2) a lack of awareness of the hobby overall - classically, those who have never played any game besides D&D, but this could be any game where the author thinks they are doing something unique and revolutionary simply because they have no wider awareness of the hobby and design trends.
I am well aware of this but I still want to write a weird fantasy 5e heartbreaker. Like, just make something cool for myself that I can share with others who are interested. I already know I am never getting financially compensated for the time I put into this stuff. In fact, I find the lack of financial motivation liberating as I don't need to concern myself with anyone's preferences but my own.
 
I am well aware of this but I still want to write a weird fantasy 5e heartbreaker. Like, just make something cool for myself that I can share with others who are interested. I already know I am never getting financially compensated for the time I put into this stuff. In fact, I find the lack of financial motivation liberating as I don't need to concern myself with anyone's preferences but my own.


I understand the impulse. I've been working on my own fantasy heartbreaker for years in spare moments. It's got a ridiculous amount of classes and races and professions and skills and a magic system where every spell is based on a 70's to 90's alternative rock song.
 
I understand the impulse. I've been working on my own fantasy heartbreaker for years in spare moments. It's got a ridiculous amount of classes and races and professions and skills and a magic system where every spell is based on a 70's to 90's alternative rock song.
Are you pulling my leg? That sounds really cool and, of course, completely unmarketable.
 
ok then, give us the stats for the following random array of spells:

'Stairway To Heaven',
'Dazed & Confused',
'Love Hurts'
'Deadringer For Love'
'Dr Feelgood
',
'You Shook Me All Night Long'
'Thunderstruck'
'Bullet With Butterfly Wings'
and finally, 'Teenage Dirtbag'
:grin:
 
I understand the impulse. I've been working on my own fantasy heartbreaker for years in spare moments. It's got a ridiculous amount of classes and races and professions and skills and a magic system where every spell is based on a 70's to 90's alternative rock song.
Yeah, it's the same impulse that leads to me writing over 200 pages of En Garde! house rules I think. (That definitely isn't marketable though, partly because of the community's incredibly relaxed nature to borrow each other's stuff).
 
ok then, give us the stats for the following random array of spells:

'Stairway To Heaven',
'Dazed & Confused',
'Love Hurts'
'Deadringer For Love'
'Dr Feelgood
',
'You Shook Me All Night Long'
'Thunderstruck'
'Bullet With Butterfly Wings'
and finally, 'Teenage Dirtbag'
:grin:
You forgot “Smells like Teen Spirit”.
 
Yeah, it's the same impulse that leads to me writing over 200 pages of En Garde! house rules I think. (That definitely isn't marketable though, partly because of the community's incredibly relaxed nature to borrow each other's stuff).
Hehe, a game I'd not thought about in a very long time by GDW. Doesn't that make your house rule longer than the actual "En Garde" rule book? Lol
 
Hehe, a game I'd not thought about in a very long time by GDW. Doesn't that make your house rule longer than the actual "En Garde" rule book? Lol
*Everyone's* House Rules are longer than the original. It's because most of the community come from a hex and chit background so take the attitude that if a rule isn't there you should add it. Hence my very important simulationist rules on veneral disease and going to the theatre.
 
During Session Zero (or before I even agree to let someone join a game), I go into detail about my GMing style and how I view rules. One of the things I tell them is that I tend to use "the rule of what makes sense." If a player has a spell that does X, but realistically it also means it could do Y, then it can do Y (and maybe Z), even if the rules don't cover that. A well thought out creative use of a spell (or anything, really) goes a long way in my games.

By the same token, if a given rule doesn't make sense to me, I change it, either beforehand or the first time we encounter it. I'm consistent with those changes, though, so the players know how such things will work in the future.
I want to see how my players succeed at problems. I love seeing them think their way around problems and approach them laterally. I'm a fan of their characters.

If I wanted to win I just... could? I'm the GM, I have all the tools in the setting. But where's the fun for me in that?
 
Ima just leave this here...


Which brings us nicely to Nobby's first law of non-profits: The bitchiness of the politics is inversely proportional to what's actually at stake.
Seen in everything from role playing game clubs to global policy think-tanks.
 
ok then, give us the stats for the following random array of spells:

'Stairway To Heaven',
'Dazed & Confused',
'Love Hurts'
'Deadringer For Love'
'Dr Feelgood
',
'You Shook Me All Night Long'
'Thunderstruck'
'Bullet With Butterfly Wings'
and finally, 'Teenage Dirtbag'
:grin:

I have a master list of all the ones I've detailed so far. Mostly I ended up looking for song titles that, when I read them in this new context, immdiately suggested or inspired a spell or effect

The Advent of Panurge

After Forever

All the World is Green

All Through the Night

All Tomorrow’s Parties

Another Brick in the Wall

Any Colour You Like

Arriving Somewhere But Not Here

As The World Falls Down

Ashes to Ashes

Astronomy Domine

Back in Black

The Beast

Beloved Freak

Birdhouse in Your Soul

Bliss

Blister in the Sun

Blood Roses

Bloodletting

Bouncing Off Clouds

Breaking Up the Girl

Broken Arrow

Bullet with Butterfly Wings

Calm Inside the Storm

Candy Says

Caught a Light Sneeze

Caught in a Dream

Cemetery Polka

Change of Heart

Children of the Grave

Children of the Sea

Cities in Dust

Close My Eyes Forever

Cloud on my Tongue

Cold as Ice

Cold Cold Ground

Comfortably Numb

Control

Court of the Crimson King

Cracked Actor

The Creeps

Dance Along the Edge

Darkening of the Light

Dazed and Confused

Dazzle

The Day That Never Comes

Dead and Lovely

Dead Man’s Party

Demon Fire

Diamond Dogs

Dirt in the Ground

Down The Reeperbahn

Echoes

Electric Funeral

Empty

Enter Sandman

Every Rose Has its Thorn

Every Shade of Blue

Every Thing You Can Think

Eye of the Tiger

Face to Face

Fade to Black

Fairies Wear Boots

Father Lucifer

Feed My Frankenstein

Feelings of Forever

The First Rebreather

Flesh n’ Blood

Flower’s Grave

Fool’s Overture

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Gates of Delirium

Giant’s Rolling Pin

God is a Bullet

Godhead

Goodbye Blue Sky

Halo of Flies

Happy House

Hard as a Rock

Harvester of Sorrow

Head Like a Hole

Heart of the Sunrise

Hearts Never Lie

Hell Broke Luce

Hell’s Bells

Hey Jupiter

High Voltage

Hole in the Sky

Hungry Like the Wolf

I Talk to the Wind

Icicle

If I Close My Eyes Forever

I’m Set Free

Insecurious

Into the Light

Into the Nightlife

Into the Void

Jigsaw Feeling

Just Like You Imagined

The Killing Jar

Kiss in the Dreamhouse

Kiss Them for Me

Kommienezuspaedt

Lady Godiva’s Operation

Learning to Fly

Little Earthquakes

Lord of this World

Love Hurts

Love in a Void

Lullabye

Master of Puppets

The Memory Remains

Mittageisen

Moonage Daydream

Moonchild

Moth Into Flame

Neon Knights

Night Shift

Nine Feet Undergound

No Leaf Clover

No More Tears

No One Knows I'm Gone

No Spill Blood

Nothing Else Matters

On the Outside

1000 Oceans

Only Happy When it Rains

Ordinary Man

Painted Bird

Past the Mission

Pigs on the Wing

A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers

Precious Things

Pretty Hate Machine

Pull Out the Pin

Raspberry Swirl

Red Light

Reeperbahn

Right Between the Eyes

Road to Nowhere

Ruby’s Arms

Run Run Run

Sabbra Cadabra

Scene of a Perfect Crime

See You on the Other Side

Shadow of the Heirophant

Shadowboxer

Shoot to Thrill

Silent All These Years

The Sky is a Poisonous Garden

Slowdive

Snowblind

Song from the Edge of the World

A Sorta Fairytale

Sour Times

Spark

Spellbound

Strong Black Vine

Switch

Tainted Love

Teaching Little Fingers to Play

Tear in Your Hand

Temptation Waits

There She Goes

The Thing That Should Not Be

This City Will Kill You

This Wheel’s on Fire

Thunderstruck

Time After Time

Time Will Crawl

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Trouble’s Lament

True Colours

Twilight Zone

Under the Graveyard

Under the Ivy

The Underfall Yard

Undone

The Unforgiven

Unrepentant Geraldines

Until it Sleeps

Venus in Furs

Vow

Walk Like an Egyptian

The Wall

Watch Her Disappear

Way Down in the Hole

Welcome to the Machine

We're All Mad Here

Wheels of Confusion

Who Made Who?

The Width of a Circle

Wild is the Wind

The World is Stone

Wuthering Heights

Yesterday is Here
 
Isn't that basically Freud's narcissism of small differences?

I suspect that the psychology of it is something like that. When something actually matters, it is normally possible to come up with a solution and get buy-in, as people have a real stake in it. When things are immaterial then the major driving force becomes personal ego, forces like narcissistic personality traits become a much stronger driver. Then you get those folks forming into camps that are largely motiviated by being seen to be in the right and getting their way. You can also get interactions with people's personal little empires, or ideological or other external factors.

I once had a lot of fun with this as at a university RPG club, where I was involved in publishing a 'zine. One group (a clique of sorts) even tried to stage a coup, which wound up with the actual publications officer getting elected as president and me winding up as the publications officer. Last I heard, the instigator of the coup attempt is now working as a political science lecturer at an American university somewhere (bearing in mind that this was nearly 30 years ago).

At the other end of the spectrum I had occasion to do a little consulting job at a well-known (by the standards of such things) international policy think-tank[1]. One part of the work was rationalising their email-contact systems, and I did an analysis of three platforms that they were using and came out with a recommendation. The 2IC of the outfit kept trying to sabotage the effort by continually putting off a review meeting for sign-off to the point that it was blatantly obvious that she was trying to undermine it. To this day nobody has any idea what issue she actually had with it, but it was the first time I ever heard the phrase 'mad as a box of frogs.'
______________
1 - One of three such outfits based in the UK; Washington DC is knee-deep in them.
 
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I am well aware of this but I still want to write a weird fantasy 5e heartbreaker. Like, just make something cool for myself that I can share with others who are interested. I already know I am never getting financially compensated for the time I put into this stuff. In fact, I find the lack of financial motivation liberating as I don't need to concern myself with anyone's preferences but my own.

Go for it, I say. But I think you've put your finger on why Edward's idea of a 'fantasy heartbreaker' is no longer really valid, except maybe in a very few cases. He was writing about games that somebody capitalized enough to get them published in physical form, back in the 1990s. So it made some sense to describe their failure as 'heartbreaking,' to the people who put up the cash at least.

Nowadays, though, just about anybody can publish a game essentially for free; all you need is time and access to software that produces pdf files. And Drivethru is crammed with literally thousands of games that might otherwise be described as 'heartbreakers'--somebody's 'new' take on fantasy gaming. But I'd guess that almost all of those games' writers know that they won't make a penny on it. They're doing it to please themselves and to share their work.
 
I suspect that the psychology of it is something like that. When something actually matters, it is normally possible to come up with a solution and get buy-in, as people have a real stake in it. When things are immaterial then the major driving force becomes personal ego, forces like narcissistic personality traits become a much stronger driving force. Then you get those folks forming into camps that are largely motiviated by being seen to be in the right and getting their way. You can also get interactions with people's personal little empires, or ideological or other external factors.
It's very much like a theory of disagreements I have.

If:
1. Everyone has the same goals
2. Everyone has the same information and knowledge
3. The results of decision are predictable
4. The results of the decision are measurable

... then there would be no disagreement. So when there's a disagreement, one of those things is not true.

#2 and #3 are more-or less replaceable - so long as you have at least one of those, the other doesn't need to be in place.

The biggest disagreements, of course, tend to be in #1 and #4 - if there's no measurement (and no impact) of the results, then there's no way to really choose one thing over another. And too often, courses of action are used as a substitute for the high-level discussion of goals that really should be taking place.

Go for it, I say. But I think you've put your finger on why Edward's idea of a 'fantasy heartbreaker' is no longer really valid, except maybe in a very few cases. He was writing about games that somebody capitalized enough to get them published in physical form, back in the 1990s. So it made some sense to describe their failure as 'heartbreaking,' to the people who put up the cash at least.

Nowadays, though, just about anybody can publish a game essentially for free; all you need is time and access to software that produces pdf files. And Drivethru is crammed with literally thousands of games that might otherwise be described as 'heartbreakers'--somebody's 'new' take on fantasy gaming. But I'd guess that almost all of those games' writers know that they won't make a penny on it. They're doing it to please themselves and to share their work.
I think it still is, to the extent that there can be good ideas hobbled by too-fully-internalized assumptions of the hobby. D&D is a great game, but it's not the ideal chassis for everything. And yet to a huge number of people it is still the core conception of roleplaying games.

That may not fully fit the Edwardsian definition at that point, but "some great game ideas buried in a ton of mismatched game design cribbed from D&D that end up hobbling the ideas" seems like it can still happen.
 
It's astonishing how often the new breed of 'heartbreakers' includes weird broken rules tucked away in the 90+% of the game that were intended to simply reproduce something very familiar from long-existing, heavily playtested games. The example that immediately comes to mind is the weapon tables from Heroes and Other Worlds - an attempt to reboot The Fantasy Trip, published a few years before the property was revived by SJG. like most heartbreakers, it has a lot of great qualities, but also a thoroughly broken weapon table that essentially invalidates most weapons and forces everyone to just fight with one or two. A don't mean to single this one out; it's just an example of a general problem - these sorts of home brew games demand a huge amount of reproduction of nuts and bolts material, which often ends up worse than it started. Better off to just get your 2 pages of house rules perfect.
 
these sorts of home brew games demand a huge amount of reproduction of nuts and bolts material, which often ends up worse than it started. Better off to just get your 2 pages of house rules perfect
Well, either it's a reproduction and thus has the same issues as the heart that's broken, or it's original work and thus done intentionally. I get that if you have less material, it's easier to edit and see things, but I don't think this would happen automatically.
In this specific case where it was a retroclone of something that wasn't readily available, I would've been disappointed to just get these two pages of house rules and then tell me to hunt down the original Melee/Wizard from somewhere...

This also reminds me of the truly most damaging idea in RPGdom: non open games ;)
 
That may not fully fit the Edwardsian definition at that point, but "some great game ideas buried in a ton of mismatched game design cribbed from D&D that end up hobbling the ideas" seems like it can still happen.

The cynical side of me says that is why the OSR stuff isn't fantasy heartbreaker material. Most of it just straight up rewords or copies existing TSR-era D&D material, so it isn't like there are any new ideas to hobble.
 
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I think it still is, to the extent that there can be good ideas hobbled by too-fully-internalized assumptions of the hobby. D&D is a great game, but it's not the ideal chassis for everything. And yet to a huge number of people it is still the core conception of roleplaying games.

That may not fully fit the Edwardsian definition at that point, but "some great game ideas buried in a ton of mismatched game design cribbed from D&D that end up hobbling the ideas" seems like it can still happen.

Sure. You can easily find games on Drivethru like that, though it can be hard to tell if the claims the designer makes about the game being new and innovative are sincere, rather than just marketing hype.

OTOH, I think the last two decades have really changed things so that the 'fantasy heartbreaker' label is not very useful. Beyond the fact noted upthread that most designers of 'heartbreakers' these days risk little if any money investment, it has become very much easier to familiarize yourself with a wide variety of games and systems. In the early '90s you had to find a store that sold them, buy them at a convention, etc. Now you can download a gazillion of them very easily, and many of them for free or really nominal sums. So the chance that a designer is naively aping D&D (or something else) without realizing there are alternatives is much less.

Then too, the OSR and retroclone movement have largely rejected the idea that a game needs to be strikingly new in its mechanics and conceptions. How many games are there that proudly declare themselves a slightly better variant or remix of some older system, usually D&D? Presumably the people writing them are well aware of what they are doing.

It seems to me that built into Edwards' concept of the 'fantasy heartbreaker' was the idea that a new game, to justify its existence, should be notably different in its rules and conception. This idea came from:
  • The realities of the marketplace in the 1990s, when publishing a new game required significant money, and producing one that was not distinct enough from the others was a recipe for financial failure.
  • Edwards' own preferences, as a designer, for the innovative.
I'd say that the first of these is now obsolete, as long as we are talking about a hobbyist writing up his or her own game and distributing it in electronic form. The second was always a bit questionable; there were points in Edwards' analysis when (I felt) the designers he was critiquing could reasonably have said 'Yes, I borrowed mechanics from an existing game because they accomplished everything I wanted. I don't have any new ideas on that particular front.' And that sort of answer would likely be even more frequent today.
 
I actually thought about posting the first picture, but after another go-around last night with a “If you don’t like 5E there’s something wrong with you” guy I feel Heston is the proper way to go.
It was well played, I loved the Heston reference. :hehe:
 
C&C pretty much got me back into gaming after nearly 10 years away, so I have a lot of appreciation for it.
Have you seen the new tribute covers they're releasing soon? The monster manual one is great:
View attachment 35380

I had seen the new covers for the PHB and CKG. I was unimpressed with those. But this one tickles my fancy. Even though I think I'm on the way out of C&C, I might pick that one up just for the quality of the homage: taking a piece of art I never liked and updating it into something I do.

Will the book be the old Monsters & Treasure? Or will it be the updated expanded version?
 
The cynical side of me says that is why the OSR stuff isn't fantasy heartbreaker material. Most of it just straight up rewords or copies existing TSR-era D&D material, so it isn't like there are any new ideas to hobble.
That's been my take of the OSR stuff that I've gotten my hands on overall. Though in the case of some, I felt layout and wording was seriously improved from the original. That's been my opinion so far of the Old School Essentials stuff that I snagged from Bundle of Holding while waiting for the physical books I've got on order from my local game shop.
 
I have a master list of all the ones I've detailed so far. Mostly I ended up looking for song titles that, when I read them in this new context, immdiately suggested or inspired a spell or effect

The Advent of Panurge

After Forever

All the World is Green

All Through the Night

All Tomorrow’s Parties

Another Brick in the Wall

Any Colour You Like

Arriving Somewhere But Not Here

As The World Falls Down

Ashes to Ashes

Astronomy Domine

Back in Black

The Beast

Beloved Freak

Birdhouse in Your Soul

Bliss

Blister in the Sun

Blood Roses

Bloodletting

Bouncing Off Clouds

Breaking Up the Girl

Broken Arrow

Bullet with Butterfly Wings

Calm Inside the Storm

Candy Says

Caught a Light Sneeze

Caught in a Dream

Cemetery Polka

Change of Heart

Children of the Grave

Children of the Sea

Cities in Dust

Close My Eyes Forever

Cloud on my Tongue

Cold as Ice

Cold Cold Ground

Comfortably Numb

Control

Court of the Crimson King

Cracked Actor

The Creeps

Dance Along the Edge

Darkening of the Light

Dazed and Confused

Dazzle

The Day That Never Comes

Dead and Lovely

Dead Man’s Party

Demon Fire

Diamond Dogs

Dirt in the Ground

Down The Reeperbahn

Echoes

Electric Funeral

Empty

Enter Sandman

Every Rose Has its Thorn

Every Shade of Blue

Every Thing You Can Think

Eye of the Tiger

Face to Face

Fade to Black

Fairies Wear Boots

Father Lucifer

Feed My Frankenstein

Feelings of Forever

The First Rebreather

Flesh n’ Blood

Flower’s Grave

Fool’s Overture

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Gates of Delirium

Giant’s Rolling Pin

God is a Bullet

Godhead

Goodbye Blue Sky

Halo of Flies

Happy House

Hard as a Rock

Harvester of Sorrow

Head Like a Hole

Heart of the Sunrise

Hearts Never Lie

Hell Broke Luce

Hell’s Bells

Hey Jupiter

High Voltage

Hole in the Sky

Hungry Like the Wolf

I Talk to the Wind

Icicle

If I Close My Eyes Forever

I’m Set Free

Insecurious

Into the Light

Into the Nightlife

Into the Void

Jigsaw Feeling

Just Like You Imagined

The Killing Jar

Kiss in the Dreamhouse

Kiss Them for Me

Kommienezuspaedt

Lady Godiva’s Operation

Learning to Fly

Little Earthquakes

Lord of this World

Love Hurts

Love in a Void

Lullabye

Master of Puppets

The Memory Remains

Mittageisen

Moonage Daydream

Moonchild

Moth Into Flame

Neon Knights

Night Shift

Nine Feet Undergound

No Leaf Clover

No More Tears

No One Knows I'm Gone

No Spill Blood

Nothing Else Matters

On the Outside

1000 Oceans

Only Happy When it Rains

Ordinary Man

Painted Bird

Past the Mission

Pigs on the Wing

A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers

Precious Things

Pretty Hate Machine

Pull Out the Pin

Raspberry Swirl

Red Light

Reeperbahn

Right Between the Eyes

Road to Nowhere

Ruby’s Arms

Run Run Run

Sabbra Cadabra

Scene of a Perfect Crime

See You on the Other Side

Shadow of the Heirophant

Shadowboxer

Shoot to Thrill

Silent All These Years

The Sky is a Poisonous Garden

Slowdive

Snowblind

Song from the Edge of the World

A Sorta Fairytale

Sour Times

Spark

Spellbound

Strong Black Vine

Switch

Tainted Love

Teaching Little Fingers to Play

Tear in Your Hand

Temptation Waits

There She Goes

The Thing That Should Not Be

This City Will Kill You

This Wheel’s on Fire

Thunderstruck

Time After Time

Time Will Crawl

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Trouble’s Lament

True Colours

Twilight Zone

Under the Graveyard

Under the Ivy

The Underfall Yard

Undone

The Unforgiven

Unrepentant Geraldines

Until it Sleeps

Venus in Furs

Vow

Walk Like an Egyptian

The Wall

Watch Her Disappear

Way Down in the Hole

Welcome to the Machine

We're All Mad Here

Wheels of Confusion

Who Made Who?

The Width of a Circle

Wild is the Wind

The World is Stone

Wuthering Heights

Yesterday is Here

The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round

She Bop

Turning Japanese

It's Raining Men

I was going to say Walk like an Egyptian but I see it's already there.

More seriously: The Sound of Silence, Eyes without a face, Blister In the Sun, Invisible, Comfortably Numb, Under a Blood-Red Sky.
 
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Go for it, I say. But I think you've put your finger on why Edward's idea of a 'fantasy heartbreaker' is no longer really valid, except maybe in a very few cases. He was writing about games that somebody capitalized enough to get them published in physical form, back in the 1990s. So it made some sense to describe their failure as 'heartbreaking,' to the people who put up the cash at least.

Nowadays, though, just about anybody can publish a game essentially for free; all you need is time and access to software that produces pdf files. And Drivethru is crammed with literally thousands of games that might otherwise be described as 'heartbreakers'--somebody's 'new' take on fantasy gaming. But I'd guess that almost all of those games' writers know that they won't make a penny on it. They're doing it to please themselves and to share their work.
You can still find them I think, but you have to deep dive on Drivethru. We're not talking OSR stuff, we're talking about individual games that feel like they could have been released in 1988, generally from designers that have only that game listed.
 
I had seen the new covers for the PHB and CKG. I was unimpressed with those. But this one tickles my fancy. Even though I think I'm on the way out of C&C, I might pick that one up just for the quality of the homage: taking a piece of art I never liked and updating it into something I do.

Will the book be the old Monsters & Treasure? Or will it be the updated expanded version?
I'm not sure. I like C&C, but don't follow their kickstarters cause they're notoriously late in delivering. I saw that the new CKG printing just became available for sale from TLG a couple weeks ago, and then they shared the upcoming art for Monsters, but I'd have to dig through their kickstarters to get details on it.
 
I'm not sure. I like C&C, but don't follow their kickstarters cause they're notoriously late in delivering. I saw that the new CKG printing just became available for sale from TLG a couple weeks ago, and then they shared the upcoming art for Monsters, but I'd have to dig through their kickstarters to get details on it.
Sounds like how Monte Cook Games Kickstarters run. Those drive me nuts,so much so that I've decided not to back anymore of them.
 
Last night I was talking to some folks who worked in the retail side of gaming for many years, and one of them gave off a “Modern retailers can never match us pre-internet game store folk” vibe with his words.



After work today I encountered someone who has gamed since the 80s, and in their comments about modern gamers they horseshoe theoried around to the point that I felt like maybe they were burning copies of D&D back in the 80s rather than playing it; this was my third such experience in as many years.



I never thought there’d be an “us vs them” generational gap in the world of gaming, but it exists.
 
Last night I was talking to some folks who worked in the retail side of gaming for many years, and one of them gave off a “Modern retailers can never match us pre-internet game store folk” vibe with his words.



After work today I encountered someone who has gamed since the 80s, and in their comments about modern gamers they horseshoe theoried around to the point that I felt like maybe they were burning copies of D&D back in the 80s rather than playing it; this was my third such experience in as many years.



I never thought there’d be an “us vs them” generational gap in the world of gaming, but it exists.
Oh it definitely exists and in both directions sadly. :sad:
 
I never thought there’d be an “us vs them” generational gap in the world of gaming, but it exists.

I tried finding facebook groups for older games and all of them that I found had this attitude. There was almost no actual game discussion, just patting each other on the back about how much better they and their game were better than any new players or games.
 
I tried finding facebook groups for older games and all of them that I found had this attitude. There was almost no actual game discussion, just patting each other on the back about how much better they and their game were better than any new players or games.
That's a weird one for me because I've happily run for an age run from about 18 to 60 or so. And there's no notable difference demographically. Just good and bad players.
 
That's a weird one for me because I've happily run for an age run from about 18 to 60 or so. And there's no notable difference demographically. Just good and bad players.
Right? That's my view as well. Though I think I'm more of it just being 18+ with no upper limit. The under 18 would be fine, I just don't feel like dealing with any minors parents. That's unfortunately where you run into more issues than any potential immaturity of the player.
 
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That's a weird one for me because I've happily run for an age run from about 18 to 60 or so. And there's no notable difference demographically. Just good and bad players.
So have I. I think it's more a property of facebook groups than gamers in general. That's part of why I just do a quick login once or twice a month to see if any distant relatives died or anything.
 
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