Other If you had to break Roleplay "types" into age/experience groups, what would they be?

[Congenial Organism]

The reason I'm curious is that on this site I've noticed high school roleplays attract a lot of younger or newer roleplayers. So if you had to break the roleplays up into age or experience groups... how do you think it would go?

Obviously, there are always exceptions but let's say I wanted to attract roleplayers who have been on the site for a while and have a bit of experience as well? Which roleplays do you think attract which brackets of roleplayers? I personally feel Dice Roll roleplays generally attract older/more experienced roleplayers while high school anime RP's attract younger and newer roleplayers.

My personal opinion is that maybe the high school roleplays feel a lot more flexible and therefore attract more casual and free-flowing minds whereas Dice Rolling RP's attract people with a real knack for challenge and story/character building. What are your thoughts? Please keep it polite, these are all just opinions!

 

[Tove]

To be honest I think it's more of someone's personal preference that can attract them to certain roleplays. Age may play a part but I'm not under 18, dice or tabletop roleplays if I knew more about them are not attractive to me. People that do like them that's fine but it's not my cup of tea. It really doesn't matter what age you are I think it just comes down to what appeals to you.

 

[smallnscrappy]

Lol!!!

Highschool, anime, fandom, psychotic sex stuff, angst:

Yeah basically I lump them into the 12-17 range. Gender doesnt matter. You never *really* know.

Space, fantasy, horror, vampire, romance
17-21ish

More niche, advanced, original, dice, interactive, long haul, world building what have you.
20+

 

[Randomfella]

I think only a few niche roleplays either attract old or new/young roleplayers. My way would be to ask for an example post during the interest check or character sheet as it can show how experienced they are or if they're quite young. Though it's not guarenteed to work it at least shows how they write which should be good enough.

 

[rae2nerdy]

well as one of the resident old ladies I think you can only really break this up in fandoms. As certain things are popular at different times.

Example when I started it was wall to wall anime. Now it’s the JPop thing.

But general genre? Fantasy/sci fi/etc don’t really fall into age groups.

And casual/detailed aren’t really age divided either.

So I’d do as the above poster recommended.

Just ask for the players you want with whatever plot you want

 

[Daisie]

Younger audiences tend to be less mature, and therefore don't have a super clear or informed view on a lot of things. One of these things being how to spot good or bad writing, and in turn, how to write well. I'm not saying that every 11yo is horrible at writing, nor that every 20+ yo is good at it, but rather that you're right that the majority of 11-year-olds are significantly less experienced than the majority of 20-year-olds, and therefore the majority of younger people are more likely to catch interest in less experienced writing than the older audiences.

The teenage years are usually when kids mature to the point where they're feeling wild new emotions they've never experienced before, and are understandably excited to experience more and more of. So usually they fall into more "Cliche" things: things that are used time and time again because they give a good, consistent, satisfying, and safe amount of emotion nearly every time, like some of the really popular stuff on Rpnation. Highschool roleplays, angst, and a portion of anime roleplays. They're good roleplays for teenagers who are learning new things about emotions to dip their toe into the more dramatic universe, and since they're not quite mature enough to have a good grasp on the physics of how emotions work, these roleplays are often melodramatic, too slow or fast-paced, generally more flawed, ect. as the teen starts to work out what is a natural reaction and what isn't.

As a teen matures into an adult and gains more roleplay experience, however, they start to get curious about other types or roleplays, slowly coming out of their safe zone of cliches. Typically they start to write more, using more eloquent words, trying to add more detail into their words and worlds. They have a better grasp of how emotions work and because of their prior experience, can start to really expand beyond the typical highschool roleplay, adding twists and unexpected things to make the roleplay more interesting and out of their norm, trying new genres and wading a little farther into the side of roleplay that they couldn't see before because of a lack of maturity. As they grow up even more, their writing grows with them, and they understand how to talk about darker subjects with more respect and understanding than before. They start seeing a broader variety of possible roleplays. They understand how to plan out more, so that they can worldbuild and make an overall more interesting setting/story, generally with darker/more realistic themes.

I feel like dice roleplays attract an older audience because one: it requires more knowledge of mathematics, rules, and typically things that bore younger audiences with less attention spans (Like myself, I'm afraid to admit). And two: because DnD (The Goliath of dice roleplays) is just an old game. It's still popular, but honestly, it's dying out, and as time goes on, the people who play DnD tend to get older, too. It's just how the cookie crumbles, I'm afraid.

In conclusion, generally people who are fans of these different types of roleplays are just at different stages in their life. It doesn't even have to be age-related; everyone grows up differently. It's fine if you're 34 and still like cliche highschool roleplays. Like what you like freely and as you wish, I'm just addressing the majority as I've seen it here on RpN since I made an account in 2016.