Kids on Bikes

I say this as a friend. Really. The whole' kids on bikes' thing, inspired by Stephen King's It movie and Netflix's Stranger Things as the two things relate to RPG games needs to die. Whether it happens when all fans, about 16 of you, aren't looking or whether we, the real world, have to pan on you to make you stop it, is up to you.

Nobody, including kids on bikes looking at you to be their GM, is sitting around thinking 'What would I do if I were an adolescent and Cthulhu showed up?' for more than a single evening's sitting. And if you need to wonder what it was to be a kid on bike for more than a scenario or two, I apologize to you having the time of my life when I was 10, and then at 13, and then I got a drivers license. Follow up with Grease the musical or movie if anybody needs a map.

If you are really into role-playing, you're either getting a headache while staring at miniatures and remembering obscure rules from books that haven't been printed in two decades or fulfilling a daydream where dice are rolled every now and then. 

Hopefully what you're not doing is thinking that "14 year-olds" should not be allowed to see this or that piece of RPG literature. I say that you should not be thinking about what adolescents should be viewing because exactly when was it that you started "adventure gaming" as a hobby?

Now there is a reflex for a certain reader here to bring up the fact that you are forcing your eight year-old child into playing AD&D with you just before your wife tells that it isn't cool to sleep in diapers instead of just waking up at 27 years-old. You see this is called conflation. Meaning that you are confused. You think that what you did as a teenager was childish instead of being a learning experience and that everything associated with your "learning years" was you being a child. This is probably why your 17 year-old cat is wearing a diaper instead of you knowing how to properly use a mop. But who am I to judge?

Who am I judge OUTSIDE of the role-playing industry, that is. Look we live in an age where grown men can talk about Batman and the women in their life find them sexy. As adults, we can forgo an evening of the latest MCU movie, to role-play ourselves in the role as Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy using broken down Runequest rules. Afterwards, we don't have to wake up early and "teach" 8 year-olds how to play Cyberpunk 2020.

Can your 14 year-old learn how to play Call of Cthulhu? Sure with his friends or while playing with you at a convention, Heck even bring the game to the dinner table for her after the spaghetti and salad has been cleared away on a Friday night. But don't tell the RPG community what is fit for being published.