[Rq-rules] Been gaming a while!

[Paul Cardwell]

--- Gary Sturgess <gazza666 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd have to concur that the number of younger
> tabletop gamers doesn't
> seem to be growing. (Oh, I suppose: started in 1982
> with Black Book
> Traveller, and have mostly played Champions and D&D
> since; I'm now
> 35). I've seen even us older types go through RPG
> withdrawal for Magic
> or WoW - granted, we did come back, but that's
> because we had the
> prior experience of RPGs to know what we were
> missing. I've no doubt
> that to someone who's never played anything but WoW
> they would have
> trouble understanding why RQ round a table with pens
> and paper is so
> much "better" (subjectively speaking).
> 
> Best hope is probably to raise your own kids and
> pass it along that way.
> -- 
> GAZZA

The most blamed reason is the push toward (expensive)
computer graphics "games" and the resulting lack of
imagination training of the young.  If they can't see
it, they can't imagine it.  Therefore video is
considered by them to be superior to tabletop which
requires imagination they don't have.

In addition, video is bound by the software and this
brings in a lot of differences with TT.  The plot
becomes player against the software in a zero-sum
system rather than the players together against the
situation.  The narrowness of the plot (software
determined) versus a good live referee restricts the
solution to a set of right or wrong choices, making it
more a puzzle than a game.

One could even go conspiritorial on this in that the
skills of cooperation, thinking outside the box, etc.
of TT are not what the corporate rulers want the
citizenry to develop as it could threaten their power
(and income which funds that power).  Extreme, yes,
but substancial evidence can be produced.

Paul Cardwell


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