Cold Water

With this post, I want to speak only with those people who were born after 1990.  If you were born any time before that, you don't matter.

5th Edition D&D was introduced in late 2014 ... and so those people who began playing the game at the age of 16, are just now coming to the end of their university degree and beginning to wonder whether or not they'll have any time ~ or inclination ~ to play D&D any more.  A great many of those who began playing the "new game" at 16, quit years ago ... but of course, none of them are reading this post.

If you're just inside the boundary I named at the start, you were 24 when the new game was presented ... and since you are still playing D&D and reading about it, I'm willing to make a bet.  Most of the people you personally played with, whether at a game store, or a semi-university club, or just around your dinner table, have quit now.  And among those who haven't quit, almost half are talking about it.  They're telling you, they don't have the time to play, or it doesn't seem important any more ... or the game seems, well, repetitive.

Of those remaining, there's another little bugbear in the room.  They talk about starting campaigns, or picking up their campaign again, or changing genres ... and yet, it never seems to happen.  Or it happens, but after one night of play, nothing.

And then, there's you.  You, reading this blog, and others; you that is still running your campaign; you that remembers the introduction of 5e, and today you still feel about the game exactly the way you did five years and a bit ago.  But all around you, there's a building ennui.  There's that friend who was always there, every Friday night, but now hardly ever shows up.  And when you see the friend, and he or she asks about your game, you can talk about it ... but you always seem to do most of the talking.  Or you have friends that show up for the game sporadically, but when they do, they always want to talk about other things.  They can't seem to focus on the game.  They're not being impolite; and it is great to see them; but still, there's that feeling that they're really there to see you, and not to play.  And they're good friends.  You like it when they come around.  Only, well, you wish it was a bit more like it was in university or college.  Or high school.  Or even, depending on when you were born, like it was in grade six.

For most young people, the window of becoming interested in the game, getting good at the game, tiring of the game and quitting the game all happens in a three or four year window.  This puts us firmly in the second generation of D&Ders ~ except for the reader, of course.  Now, an old sod like me, we slowly gather together a group of long-timers that will die playing this game ... but I remember those early days, when it seemed like every year meant a new crop of players.  And as I got into my 20s, those new players would get younger and younger.  This works out, of course, as being older and older than my players offered me greater respect and attention.  It is far easier to be  26 years old and running early twenty-somethings, than it is to be 16 and running friends your own age.

But there is a very good chance that some readers here, younger than 30 as they are, have lost every player they had.  They watched the players drift away one by one, for numerous reasons, while new players did not materialize.  Today, they love the game; they think about the game; but they don't play the game.  There's no one to play with.

This is what "not quitting" looks like.  And for a great many, who can't give up hope, there's a worse bugbear.  They think about how they need to get out there and find players.  And they think about how, before they do that, they're going to have to get their game world in order.  And make up their mind about the system they're going to play.  And what rules in that system they're going to keep.  And so they think.  And think.  And think.

Only, what if they do that work, and remake their game world, and decide on a system, and build an adventure or two, and find the players to run in their game ~ and the players don't stay.  Like before, they hang around for awhile, but in a year or two (or less), they all just drift away.

Is it worth it?  Because, sooner or later, it won't be.  Sooner or later, you're going to be 35.  Or 40.  And still pretending that there are players out there, even if we're talking two or three weekends a year, when you can find the time to attend the nearest game cons.  Or those you can take time off for.  Sooner or later, maybe, you'll have to quit yourself.  Sooner.  Or later.  Because that's what adults do.  They put childish things aside, and admit, yeah, that was fun, but it's time to be an adult now.  It's time to get on with more important things.  Like my marriage.  And my kids.  And my career.  Along with my house payments.  And whatever else I have to do to make sure I don't mess up my retirement.

Maybe you're like me.  Maybe you've got a gang of fanatics.  Or maybe you're like one of these parents who hooks their kids on the game.  I sort of did (and I'll tell that story again, if I'm asked, but it's already somewhere on the blog).  But kids grow up.  They become adults, too.  And awfully fast.  You might get five or ten years with them; but you know, it will never be like when you were kid, and playing with your friends.

I just thought, a dunk in cold water might ... wake you up.  I don't want you to quit.  I want you to play D&D all your life.  But I do want you awake.  Awake, and active.  Because the nice thing about looking straight at something that scares the shit out of you, it reminds you that you're alive.  And that gaming isn't about thinking, and reading, and clumsily deciding what you're "going" to do.

Gaming is about doing.