OK, so the unitiated need to stop reading right now. In the words of Jigga, it's about to get real ugly in here. Anyway, that Margaret Weis note got me to thinking. I recently ordered copies of the old first edition Player's Handbook, the Manual of the Planes and the Deities and Demigods book. I need them for a project I'm working on, but I also wanted them as sort of archives of another time, and as a reminder to myself not to let the daily grind of adulthood kill what the best thing I had going as a child and probably have going as an adult--imagination and curiosity.
But more to the point, after the order, I got to thinking--What would it be like to try D&D today as a full-grown adult? Me and my buddy Ed Park (who does a mean version of She and Him's "Sentimental Heart") were talking about this awhile back, and I think the conclusion we reached was that it almost certainly wouldn't have the same pop. That said, I'm seriously considering teaching my 8-year old son to play (I was seven going on eight when I started) because I don't want his idea of games and gaming to be limited to things that don't require abstraction. There is something to said for having to imagine what that Sword of Vorpral Wounding looks like, or how it would feel to face a White Dragon. My question for the Nerds among us is, Have any of you guys tried D&D as adult? Did you just put away the polyhedral dice and say forget it? Do you ever get the hankering to go rooting through the Caves of Chaos?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
My boyfriend is 25 and still plays with his friends (aged 25-I think almost 40) whenever he gets a chance. I used to kind of look at him funny and hope he'd grow out of it...but he's made the point that getting together with "the guys" once a week or so to watch football or play poker would be perfectly socially acceptable, and if he prefers games with more complicated rules, well what's wrong with that?
If you have some good nerdy friends to play with -- and limited family responsibilities -- it can be fun. I played a little bit in my late 20's. The biggest reason I don't play anymore is I simply don't have the time (or the interested friends).
Ha! It is about to get ugly in here.
I've played D&D with my kids several times (two boys and a girl, ages 6, 10, 14). It's fun, but I think my oldest wishes the younger kids were more on his plane/wavelength (i.e. excessive silliness, inability to figure out the various rolls/applicable numbers, decisions re: spells and weapons when leveling up, etc ... all slows the game down a ton). I mostly agree with my oldest. But we still have a ton of fun (beer helps). The new beginner packages they sell are SO much easier to get set up and going quickly.
Still, the crucial thing is a good Dungeon Master (and chemistry with the DM and players).
I will probably try D&D with my boys when they get older. They will also have access to my Star Blazers video collection and read all my old comic books. I've already stocked their book collection with the books I loved as a child. It's not that different from wanting to take your kids camping and fishing the same place you went with your dad. We all want to share the best, most imaginative and influential parts of our childhoods with our kids, and D&D was certainly that.
I'm 28 and still gaming. And it's still a lot of fun.
D&D isn't quite as exciting as it was when I was a kid, but there are lots of other tabletop RPGs out there, and many of them are more oriented toward adults. Head down to your local game shop and look around -- you'll find something you want to play. If it's a good shop, you'll also find gamers and groups looking for people to play with. If that doesn't work, there's always craigslist. (No, really, I'm serious. You can use craigslist to find gaming groups.)
Also -- your blog rocks.
--Charles
OMG. B2 The Keep on the Borderlands. Awesome.
Check out Wil Wheaton's blog. He's been doing various gaming stuff with his step kids for quite a while.
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/
I play with a group of parents and seven year olds. The kids love the story telling and fighting and the parents have all admitted they really enjoyed. The group of parents includes some who played as kids and some who wish they had. We go for really short adventures as the attention span is about an hour.
I started back up with some of my friends a year or two ago after not playing for about 15 years. It's been pretty fun and also has been a good excuse to see some of my freinds that I wouldn't see otherwise. I've been the DM though and that can get pretty time consuming.
I ran a campaign with six of my friends last year - we're all 23-ish. This, after playing for a while as a middle-school age kid. Findings:
1. Beer makes play harder and less-fun as players and DM alike lose their focus and interest; Mountain Dew remains my drink of choice
2. Continuity is easier; people are more willing to commit over time and DMs are usually more capable of building interesting encounters and campaigns as adults
3. Embracing your participation in DnD can signal to women that you are both brave and charmingly quirky! I'm not even kidding
Is D&D popular amongst black kids generally?
Played it in college once with a bunch of other pre-law students. Play went along uneventfully for a while until we got to the question of an unopened magic scroll, which might be opened and read by one of three players, and might have different instructions depending on who read it.
Do not -- repeat, do not -- put a debate over hypotheticals in front of a bunch of prelaw students.
The scroll never got opened. Instead, we spent the rest of the night debating potential courses of action based on what it *might* contain, who should interpret it, and how.
thus I found out why law students and D&D players tend not to overlap.
I haven't played as an adult, but i did play up to my late teens and played with adults, most of whom played the caltech reworking (lots of percentile dice rolls,...i don't remember what else). all seemed to be having fun. I don't have much to add here, but it's nice to see D&D get some props. it was a great imaginative tool, and when the chemistry was right and the DM good, a really special experience. Considering that so much of what's played as games today involves having things visualized for you, i'd love to see a D&D renaissance.
I played in a 3rd Ed. campaign with friends for three years? Four? I forget--when I lived in Boston. The only reason I quit was because I moved to California four years ago. We occasionally had to take breaks when the GM and his wife had to deal with small grumpy children. I was in my early 30's then, which made me one of the younger people in the campaign.
Now, I play with another group of friends on the East Coast. We use AIM, Player Genie, and a webcam, and we've been playing almost every Saturday for over three years. I'm going to be 40 in a couple of years.
Wow! Just wow!
I played D&D for the two years that I lived in Saudi Arabia, when participating in sedentary indoor activities was a must. As soon as I returned to the States, I immediately lost interest in D&D after seeing a room full of smelly nerds playing in the back of a hobby shop.
I started playing this year, together with two friends who've never played and our DM who hasn't played since high school. None of the none-DM nature had played before, but we are having a *blast*. We're of a geeky sort ranging from 25-28, with our DM in law school (which unfortunately means that sometimes gaming takes a back seat to finals), but my Saturday night is officially booked.
I'm 22 and I still play when I can. My fiancee got me the 4E core books and I can't wait to play a session.
I'm 38 and I just started playing again after leaving it behind almost two decades ago. I had stopped playing because my high-school friends and I all moved to separate parts of the country.
After grad school I started playing World of Warcraft for awhile and got board, then tried Eve and the same thing happen. Then I joined one of my old friends online to play City of Heroes thinking that would be like old times. But the problem is that no matter how good a computer game is it will always be more limiting than a role-playing game.
I came to the realization that it wasn't my old friends (who I still talked to and emailed all the time) that I was missing, and it wasn't the fantasy aspect (which you can get from computer games) it was the imaginative part that I was craving after all these years.
About two months ago I looked for a group in my area using the internet and started to play again. It has been a little hit or miss because they are all about ten years younger than me but ever Sunday I find myself looking forward to playing. I think I am going to try to start a 30 and older group in my area but I'm not sure how many other professionals are missing the old imaginative impulse that I am, but I guess I will find out.
In another 30 years there might be a lot of fun games in the retirement home.
*Thats bored of course, and I just realized I'm 37. Ugh... can I blame it on old age yet :)
Ok, time for a word from the old school.
I never played D&D as a kid. It didn't exist. Yes, I'm that old. I'm 51. I first heard about D&D my last year in college.
I first played D&D my first year in grad school. With other Computer Science grad students at Stanford. So there was no issue of them not being able to keep up with the rules.
Tabletop role playing is something that's been a part of my life ever since. It is one of the things my wife and I like to do together. We've taught it to our kids, now my son (19) is an awesomely good gamemaster.
I had to laugh at Diana's story about law students. One group I played with spent an entire session once on fashion shopping in Paris in the 1920's. The game was "Call of Cthulhu", but we called that session "Call of Couturie". We're all into acting and character development and imagination. And we have our bloodlust, don't worry. Or maybe you should worry.
I'm 35, and I still play when I get time (not nearly so much anymore...the odd vacation when I visit friends who still play...my job precludes spending the time doing that on top of the other things I enjoy). I'd agree with earlier commenters who say that it's still a hell of a lot of fun, and that as an adult it becomes more intricate, plots get better, session-to-session continuity is better, characters and role playing get better fleshed out, and a good time is had by all. Is it the truly magical escape that it was when I was 7? No, but when I was 7, I was still learning to dream, and it was only easy to dream in a place built for dreams and dreams alone. I've since learned how to dream in real life, so gaming is now a really fun diversion instead of a central piece of my emotional being like it was when I was a kid.