Gate-Keeping the New RPG: Agism?

A few days ago I was listening to someone's podcast where he pretty much felt that the Sword Dream crowd (err concept, err ruse?) as people hating old men. He would not bow to their gate-keeping. Then I read as someone stuck his head up his ass using terms like "punk" and "disco" incorrectly to mostly make his persecution complex seem hip in his own mind, I slipped into reading someone asking "which game systems are best for kids on bikes RPGing?" This is after a few years of noticing people are bringing young kids, to my later games. And then there is what has become my current dislike of what appears to be other publishers and event organizers becoming more and more adolescent in their reaction to social media theater with whatever the scandal of month. A year after attending conventions in Wisconsin where 20-somethings brought their kids to watch grandpa, my age, aboard his hotel-provided electric scooter run games with talking rabbits and extensive shot-gun blast game mechanics with details.

I suppose what's nagging me is the question of "Am I getting OLD"? Well, of course I am. We all are, but I mean is my visceral reaction to people being ostracized by self-appointed "community" shepherds just me having a "get off my lawn" moment every time I see it? Am I just not hip enough to get what I consider to be some pretty awful artwork trends in the industry are actually the new look? Is my view that my games the result of a hobby that picked up in childhood do not have to be child-friendly, well, frankly, childish. Cutting to the chase, is are these signs of dementia?

Well, okay. Ostracism. That has always happened. The guy talking about being excluded from the club of Sword Dream, is the guy who ten years ago would bemoan that there "no T&T GM dungeons" (dungeons? really?) while my approved T&T products were full of GM-directed scenarios. His gate-keeping wouldn't actually work, so he'd go on to herald himself being an official of the OSR over the next few years. I'd extricate myself in a couple years from that club though because its leaders would become to old-minded in their tastes to do decent gaming products. So I was fresh enough to see when something was getting OLD.

RPG artwork has always had bad art. And the art stays bad until it isn't. I need to be patient. Still the coloring book covers for the Indy releases and the overly shadowy but in color Goya-wannabees of the big publishers is annoying. Is there anyone in the small press crowd that isn't too broke do original anymore? Am I being OLD here or a snob? I guess that isn't going to change, so one up for dementia.

Now about, bringing kids to my table. I suppose I came back to roleplaying fulltime after the kids got old enough to get the hell out of the house, that I hold my fantasy in the same light that I cherish my liquor, heroin, and concubines. For as much as I complain, I happen to rock as a PG-13 GM, when I have to. Ask the parents that couldn't find babysitters. Still I feel something was missing from my "Underage Pool Boys of Doom" or "Cosplayers that Can't Say 'No' "scenarios those midnight sessions of that year gone-by. Perhaps this year I can catch the magic with my scenario for Carnage Gaming Convention "Alien Abduction: The Ass-Raping" which will be played in the 9am-6pm time slot. We'll see. It's a bring your favorite miniature event, bring your favorite pony Bronies and gals! My alien sock-puppets are ready to go!

So. Okay on the 3-point criteria I have set for my as to whether I am senile or not, I am at a 1.95. It's a spectrum after all. Just sit me next to the 20-something playing on his phone.

Okay. I am like 92% done with the next Spacers(TM) installment. Really. It's like one-third of what was supposed to one product, but some around page 134 I thought, "really"? It's like Book 2: The 24th and a Half Century. Coming out before too long.