Gaming with a different generation

[Orion]

I stick with a 18 and over crowd.

Many of the words that come out of my mouth while playing BT would also get me arrested if spoken in the presence of minors.

Best not to risk it.

Beazle said the above elsewhere, and I've been thinking about it.  Rather than derail that thread, I'd like to start one up here.

I rarely cuss.  I rarely have alcohol when gaming.  I think I could game with kids and their parents would have zero problems.  That being said, I think I would give up gaming completely if I had to regularly do it with kids.  I have almost no patience or tolerance when they start acting squirrelly, and find no redeeming value to them when they are good.  I don't think I could enjoy a gaming session aimed at kids, and they'd not enjoy the type of role playing I like to do.  A close friend of mine runs two D&D campaigns in which his 12-year-old participates.  He comments that it's a different type of game, much less serious, no real roleplaying, and feature characters named Sir Clanksalot and Tricksey McStabbie.  He enjoys it, but it would be torture to me.

Gaming is as much about hanging out with friends as anything else to me.  And while in my mind I still think of myself as the 26-year-old grad student at times, the reality is I'm 46, have several degrees, a career, my own house, and have been married 8 years.  I don't feel the need to party, stay up past 2AM every weekend, or overindulge.  I listen to music from a different era, and have different worries and interests.  They treat their phone as more important than the people in front of them, and think I'm weird for not being on Facebook.  Our lives have little in common.  But, when I go into a gaming store, these are the people I see.  Finding players I'd be willing to hang out with after the game is harder each year, and one reason I game so little these days.

Not looking for a solution ("quit being a grouchy old fart" is one obvious solution), just tossing out some observations.  How do y'all handle gaming with those much younger or older than yourselves?  Do you find a different type of game and group dynamic for each age group?  mainly, I thought this may be an interesting discussion.

[Terminax]

I'm 38 and a hard case so I avoid interacting with underage (under 19 for me) crowd outside of the local game store. I can tone it down considerably when I have to - such as when I post here or out in public but at home I'm going to be me unfiltered. My current table involved three high school aged kids but they only play at the local game store or at a rental room at the community center we also use for larger games.

My rules include:

1) Turning off cellphones for the duration of the game. I have the only "on" cellphone during an active game and my number has been passed to parents and SO for emergency contact situations. Cellphones are distraction even when silent because people stop and play games, monkey around with text message and so on and detract from the game.

2) Use of blue booking during the game. This is where you use a journal to for private conversations between a GM and player during game. Usually this is for In-Game use only but sometimes someone will have a question they ask it through the journal. It allows the more adult players to have conversation without involving the kids. It's old fashioned but it also has the advantage of slowing down people so they think about what they're going to say. Eventually, I can see this moving over to tablets but for now it works just fine as is. I picked up this habit from an old Champions sourcebook from Aaron Allston which highlighted his personal campaign.

[Atlas3060]

Funny irony I've had more mature younger players at my tables and older players who act like spoiled children.
I guess the universe makes all kinds.
Younger players require some molding, but they tend to take it better than older ones set in their ways.
Thus I don't mind the younger players.

Cell phones are a given hazard at our tables, sometimes a few players get the "nudge" text meaning "leave the table now and get home for some reason".

I'm actually considering offering my GM services to a local youth group that will get a Battletech boxed set from me soon.

[E. Icaza]

There are some differences, but mostly relatively minor in my experience.  Most of them have to do with attention span, but mine wasn't too great back in the day either.

Honestly, it's mostly been with CBT that I've run into problems.  I had one kid (I'd estimate around 9-10 years old) who quickly got bored with CBT because he couldn't just "shoot everyone in the head".  From what I gather, most of his wargames experience came from WH40k and he couldn't wrap his head around the fact that CBT units have more staying power than the "one-hit kills" of GW games.

[Nav_Alpha]

Interesting.

So I'm 30 and for the past 18 months I've been part Of a fourth edition game of dungeons and dragons. Most of us are of about the same age but we have two players who are slightly younger (19 when they joined us) and came to us as gaming newbies.
There had been the occasional problem with this age gap - a while back we decided to roll up a church sponsored party of holy warriors. We talked about it at length, looking at how the various classes could complement each other, etc. we went away and rolled up a cleric, monk, etc.
Next session he turned up with a chaotic warlock because he though the "paladin idea was lame and I wanted to try something different"!
Worst of all - we'd been counting on his paladin and the party ended up sucking until we re worked the idea, etc.

But both of these guys have turned out really well. The other younger fella is currently DMing - and doing amazingly well!
Patience and a level of understanding and being able to roll with the punches has certainly helpedus come together - sure there's still occasional issues.
But there are advantages of gaming with the iPod generation. Quite often they will come out with a very off the wall and unusual ideas that some of us oldsters would often not even consider.