You don't sell computer games? You'l be out of business in a year! (long)

[Gurndigarn]

It's an age / generation thing. I'm willing to bet that Jacen is younger than 30, most likely younger than 25 while idrinkarum is older than 30 (no offense to either of you if I'm way off). There is a definite split. The younger crowd never new a time that you could game w/o a PC (you didn't have a choice) and the older crowd tries to hold onto the classic gamer style. I think I'll blame DOOM for this. it came out around the right time for the younger crowd to see a good PC game *and* you could play against other people in real time. Yes, it existed before with the MUDs but DOOM gave you the graphical interface that was "really cool".

I don't think it's one game in particular. I'm more likely to blame it on having less time and, in my case at least, less patience for immaturity as I get older. I played online games more when I was younger. I played RPGs when I was younger. But I do both less now. I don't have time to perfect my skills the same way a teenager does, less desire to do so, and less patience to put up with the few idiots (in online games) who ruin it for the rest of the people. Even when I know it's a small percentage that are idiots.

Thus why I like board games. Quick set up, quick tear down, if you miss next week it's no big problem. You don't have to spend time learning the algorithms and formulas of the game (though, admittedly, I do a lot simpler games these days. Settlers of Catan rather than ASL, for instance, for exactly the same reason. I want to play, not spend forever learning the rules.)

Though one day I'm going to play an entire campaign game of Empires in Arms. Just because.

[Dreamstalker]

idrinkarum, I take it you've heard of the Pulling Report? Now there's some interesting reading...

[Imogene]

Computer gamers, I guess, just don't have the aptitude to commit complicated, need to go by the number murders.

Yup, just like all the killings that were inspired by GTA?

[CaroPhoenix]

Yup, just like all the killings that were inspired by GTA?

That I haven't heard of. What I'm talking about is when there is a gruesome murder, planned, ritualistic, etc. the suspects will always be pegged as either playing D&D or Vampire. I'm not sure why, but they do. Oh, and they'll own swords and go to Renn Faires - leading to the credence that RPGers are already twisted enough to think that murder is just something to sneeze at. And for the record, my husband works for the Fed. Gov't. and he plays D&D, owns swords, goes to Renn Faires & is not a homicidal maniac who plans murders and how to dispose of the bodies in his spare time.

As for GTA, aren't the murders they portray in the game drive-bys and/or carjacking? Just wondering 'cos I haven't played the game.

idrinkarum, I take it you've heard of the Pulling Report? Now there's some interesting reading...

It is "interesting" reading. My next door neighbor, who claims to have played D&D back in the late 70's said they were able to perform actual witchcraft rituals with the spells in D&D 1.0. Those spells are real, what the witches use and I have to be careful. Sheesh and sheesh some more.

My family doesn't understand why we game. We have the Basic Game, with a mod, map & pre-done characters. I've offered to have them come over and play. They always decline. One cannot understand the game unless they actually play it. That's what I believe.

And if RPGs have caused adults/teens to be murderers how does one explain the murderers who came before RPGs? As "L" likes to say "Adolph Hitler and Gengis Khan didn't play D&D and they were very twisted and blood thirsty." And of course, all those serial killers in history - starting with Jack the Ripper, how do you explain them? He didn't have D&D to blame.

[Shabo]

I hid the fact that I played D&D from my mom once. She thought it was some evil, devil-worshipping, cultist's game. It took my BF to explain to her what it actually was and that no, not everyone became obsessed with it and wasted their lives away living in their parents' basement before she changed her mind. We still don't really talk about it though.

Also, Wikipedia claims that the Chuck Norris craze was started by Conan O'Brien, then the mass public took it on using what used to be a Vin Diesel random fact generator and replacing Vin with Norris. Vin never really caught on as that cool guy that Norris is. Does it make sense? Nope, but then again, none of the internet fads make sense. It's just random craziness. I just think it's great that Norris gets a kick out of what we've done with his public image here.

On a side note, when I was watching Snakes on a Plane, someone tried to say, "Samuel's tears cure cancer!" when SLJ was crying over his dead partner... but it just wasn't the same. Norris all the way!

[Jacen]

[COLOR="Purple"]
Yes, I'm over 30. And you're right. Mainly all of the computer gamers I've known/met are all younger in their late teens to their mid-twenties.

When I was growing up, I knew a 40/50 year old RPG gamer who was heavily into Pokemon. <<-- Awesome RPG, one of the fathers of modern RPGs.

Thanks I got the avatar from Nightangel, and I love it. Frankly, I'm pretty nervous about Stargate Worlds, but I'm waiting until it's almost released before I make any kind of judgement.

I think it's worth holding out for. I'm hoping for an awesome next-gen MMO. From what I can gather, it sounds like it's gonna be a combo of planetside combined with normal RPG elements.


I don't see what games of any kind have to do with crimes.

and Idrinkarum, your beginning to sound biased toward video games.

That I haven't heard of.

I have. The whole video games kill are promoted by anti-video game activists. Mainly (without wanting to offend religious people) christan "soccer mums".

It's similar to "Guns don't kill, people kill" in my opinion.

By the way, I was looking at Seek.com the other day... and there was a software development job listed there, 900,000 AUD annually. Yes, This is a random fact lol

EDIT: by the way, if the future goes the Star Trek way, one day board game RPGs, table top RPGs, video game RPGs, etc will all be replaced by a holodeck

[draggar]

My husband remembers a time when D&D was preached against in church and knew kids who were forced to stop playing the games because of the ignorance of the preachers.

My church tried the same thing. They had some ex-thug / drug addict come in and he said that his low point he was "worshiping the devil and playing Dungeons and Dragons". Thank god I stopped listening to their hypocritical views earlier that year.

Pokemon. <<-- Awesome RPG, one of the fathers of modern RPGs.

Your kidding, right? That's when RPGs became 'cool". That RPG was nothing more than a subliminal advertisement for their other products (movies, toys, etc..). What was TSR promoting when you played D&D? Nothing, maybe a Saturday morning cartoon. It wasn't until years later that Dragon magazine came out and then Dungeon magazine came out, one was to promote the game and discuss news, the other a to give campaigns and ideas (respectively).

Take a step back to Magic: The Gathering which was a money pit. WotC did a great job of selling that game and having people coming back for more and more. D&D you only had to buy a few books (one book for a player, maybe three books for the DM) and you were set. You could add more to expand the game, but it wasn't needed.

RPGs today are almost dead. I haven't seen a D&D book in a book store (B&N, Borders) in over two years.

MMORPGSs suck. They're full of immature pre-teens who think they're cool and tough by acting that way. I'd love to find a MMORPG full of MATURE people, but we all know if you label an MMORPG "mature" then the kids will flock to it thinking it is porn related. LORTO isn't bad now but there are still the bad eggs in there, luckily they hang around all the "cool" places ("Cool, I found Bilbo's house!") and they're not too populous in the outer areas.

It's a lose-lose situation.

I guess the table-top RPG vs. MMORPG crowds debate is as clear cut as the classic rock / modern rock debate?

[CaroPhoenix]

Draggar, the Borders near my house sells D&D books. But there is not a lot of them, I'll give you that much.

My husband bought the D&D animated series on DVD. Actually, they have statted out the characters from the cartoon and they are all 7th level characters. I think my husband's friends all want to play a game and be the characters from the show.

When TSR was making the D&D stuff, they were brilliant. Just enough books and other supplies to keep the gamers happy. Then WotC go a hold of it then it went out the window. Always producing more books, more stuff. D&D miniatures, modules up the whazoo.

As for Magic: The Gathering the card game, that is a brilliant marketing ploy. It's the largest and one of the longest running CCGs out there. CCGs come and CCGs go but Magic is the main one that everyone knows how/wants to play. Pokemon & Yu-gi-oh are both up there too. But those are mainly played by the younger kids, starting around 7 or 8 up to about 14, I think.

And yes, I'll say I don't like videogames. I play Tetris (I zone out when playing that), Diner Dash (and all the add-ons), simple games like that. But I do it on my own time, when I know my daughter isn't at home (like when she's at school).

Again, it's the non-human contact aspect of the gaming. No matter what board game/miniature/table-top RPG you're playing, you're playing with real people. People who are in the same room with you, who want to hang out with you and be seen with you and not faceless computer images who don't know you from Adam. Gamers aren't exactly the friendliest, getting-to-know people types of people. But they make great friends.

And for those (and I've talked to them in the gaming store and elsewhere) who say they don't have enough time to table-top game (either board or RPG or whatever), then why do you have time to play for 3 or 4 or 5 or longer hours? That time could be used to make up a paper character/get your books together/get everyone together for a table game.

This, I tihnk is all I have to say on the subject.* Thank you.


*not unless I feel I've left something out and then I might say something more, but I'm not sure as of yet.

[Gurndigarn]

Your kidding, right? That's when RPGs became 'cool". That RPG was nothing more than a subliminal advertisement for their other products (movies, toys, etc..). What was TSR promoting when you played D&D? Nothing, maybe a Saturday morning cartoon. It wasn't until years later that Dragon magazine came out and then Dungeon magazine came out, one was to promote the game and discuss news, the other a to give campaigns and ideas (respectively).

Dragon came out sometime in the mid-late 70's, I believe, before the craze hit. I still have a few of the issues in the issue numbers 70s-80s somewhere. The first one I got had the first Phil and Dixie comic with color.

[Geek King]

Pokemon. <<-- Awesome RPG, one of the fathers of modern RPGs.

Yup, I have to take exception to this too.

Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior were the Fathers of the modern console RPG, if you want the full history, we can go back to Zork (and other text-based games, but Zork is considered the best) and Rogue, followed by the origional Ultima, Wizardry, and Bard's Tale which brought real graphics to the table. All RPGs can be traced to the old Chainmail tabletop rules, the direct father of D&D.

Pokemon was a fun take on RPGs, which then got buried under the hype and merchandise. To call it the father of modern RPGs is to ignore real classics of the genre that broke new ground.

Now get off my lawn, you darnned kids! <waves cane>

[Dreamstalker]

RPGs today are almost dead. I haven't seen a D&D book in a book store (B&N, Borders) in over two years.

I miss the days when most RPG books were softcover...easier to carry everything around. Now I can only fit half of what I used to in my backpack (the hardcovers are too damn heavy!) Back then I had access to my school's book-covering machine so I would just put that adhesive mylar over the covers to protect 'em.

(yes, I recently had to pull a very large White Wolf RPG book return...three trips up the stairs to get them all and I was unable to lift the boxes once packed up)

[Bloodsoul]

I've actually had to split up my D&D collection; core books and similar things go in one bag (along with binder and drawing pads), and all the other books in other. Tsk, why cast Lightning Bolt when I could probably kill something by throwing these?

[Dreamstalker]

I wouldn't even need to throw them, just lightly whack someone.

[Bagga]

Magazines called Dragon, and Dungeon, in the States perhaps, but in the UK we had White Dwarf, which was cool until GW took it over, and before that we had Games & Puzzles magazine. I still have a full set of G&P in original binders, somewhere.

I think it is funny when people who can give you a full schedule of what soaps are on when, and who sometimes watch soaps from 4pm to 830pm, accuse US of wasting time playing games.

No one has mentioned perhaps the most durable of all the MMORPGS, which was Ultima Online. It seemed to have many different aspects to it, and when they introduced the idea of house building you could even play interactive online Lego, but it lost out against the eye candy of more modern MMOs. ( I spent four years in UO, most of it trading at Britannia bank on the Europa server. I am the Txips Family - I wonder how many people remember them?)

[Gurndigarn]

Yup, I have to take exception to this too.

Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior were the Fathers of the modern console RPG, if you want the full history, we can go back to Zork (and other text-based games, but Zork is considered the best)

Which in turn goes back to Adven. Which possibly had some precursor, but I don't know about it. I played Zork on a mainframe-- this was a program so advanced that it could only be played after hours, it sucked down so much computational power.