Weekly Discussion Topic: OD&D for gamers starting with 3e+

[rsdean]

The demographics thread (https://odd74.proboards.com/thread/14900/demographic-odd74-membership) would suggest that getting a discussion together with gamers who are using OD&D after starting on later additions is going to be a bit difficult.

Can anyone talk this up elsewhere and see whether we can find some approprite participants?

[nagnar]

You could try the OSR discord. I have seen people posting OD&D based games in the looking for games channel there in the past.

[jeffb]

From my experience I would say there are probably quite a few people on the various OSR related MeWe groups(and there are a ton of them)

[Deleted]

It seems to me these days that a majority of newer people coming into the OSR subreddit and discord groups are Millennials and Gen-Z'ers.

ALTHOUGH, the former group would have technically started gaming in the AD&D 2e/BECMI time period, as I did. At least the first half of Gen Y, the slightly older ones. Gen Y is split down the middle on either starting there or with 3e. Gen Z would be the 4e/5e group. I'm getting this from taking their likely birth years and adding between eight and twelve years. I was born in '84 and started tabletop in '94. People the year I was *born* were playing 1e, but that doesn't apply to my experience in any way. Those would have been younger Boomers and older Gen-X'ers.

[tetramorph]

@ampleframework, I can never find a good break down of generation theory and suggested dates. Which do you use? Any suggested resources?

[Deleted]

Jun 10, 2021 14:34:47 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

@ampleframework , I can never find a good break down of generation theory and suggested dates. Which do you use? Any suggested resources?

Despite its poor reputation based on how poorly moderated it was 20 years ago, Wikipedia is a good starting point these days, and then follow the linked resources. The thing about those generation lines is that they're very blurred and very Western-centric. The experiences that define them are far from universal or agreed upon, nor are the years. I know more about mine than any other, to be honest, because the term "Millinnial" is a favorite pejorative term, and I'm fascinated by how it continues to be applied to teenagers and college-aged people to this day, erroneously. (The same thing happened with Generation X, to a lesser degree)


I'm also interested in how my specific generation straddles a line of pre-internet and post-internet. The youngest Millennials grew up in a world with internet and cell phones. My peer group did not. Our entire childhoods and most of our teenage years were analog. To me, that makes it a somewhat divided generation, with the older ones taking more after the Gen-X and Boomer traits and the younger ones being sort of proto Gen-Z. The older Gen-Y'ers are the last generation who grew up before social media or other instant gratification things. We adopted them but we weren't weaned on them like the kids, and we can do without them. (I made the decision years ago to quit all social media besides forums for mental health and to save time, and I'll never regret that decision.)

[badger2305]

Jun 10, 2021 14:34:47 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

@ampleframework, I can never find a good break down of generation theory and suggested dates. Which do you use? Any suggested resources?

As a sociologist, with some training in demography, I have never found a decent, agreed-upon breakout of generations for this purpose. I'll see if I can confirm this in the current literature.

[Deleted]

Let us know if you find a good answer. It reminds me of another topic that interests me - traditional Appalachian folk healing. My family is steeped in those traditions and that lore, but if you go around the region and ask ten different people you'll get ten different answers about the subject.

[plethon]

All I really remember from 3e as a kid was continuously being asked to roll "spot" and "listen" checks to see if I could see and hear things. So I would always dump a fair number of skill points into "spot," and "listen," picturing my character with huge bugging eyes and massive ears gained from years of sensory training, ready to interact with the game world.

[Deleted]

Jun 26, 2021 12:50:09 GMT -6 plethon said:

All I really remember from 3e as a kid was continuously being asked to roll "spot" and "listen" checks to see if I could see and hear things. So I would always dump a fair number of skill points into "spot," and "listen," picturing my character with huge bugging eyes and massive ears gained from years of sensory training, ready to interact with the game world.

That gives me a fun idea for a unique magical experiment a mad mage could perform on his subjects. "Gentlemen, this is my new wall-eyed Kobold variant, and for just nine payments of 100 gold pieces, he can be yours!"