I've noticed interesting difference between twenty-something gamers and their still-younger counterparts, so this month instead of talking about how awesome we are compared to older gamers, I want to muse nostalgically about how we aren't as good as those even younger than us.

When I was a kid and I first got into gaming, I went crazy. I was designing games left and right, building systems and settings and characters most of whom would never see the light of day. Every time I got a new game for the computer I built a PNP around it, and every time I heard about a new RPG I made a character for it, even if it wasn't out yet. I was in love in that crazy, all-in way that kids are.

I look at how I treat games now, ten years down the road, and I like what I see. I'm not quite as obsessive as I was, but I'm just as enthusiastic. I've matured, a little bit, and I spend more time detailing settings and characters, making them more robust and realistic. But there's one thing I had back then that I miss; system building.

When I was around ten I must have made a new system every month. I made a Fable RPG, I made a Yugio RPG, I made a Phantom of the Opera RPG (I was a goth kid, it was weird). Everything was fodder for a game, and each game demanded it's own set of custom-built rules. I would get this intense fascination with a given setting and gain this burning need to play in it. It never occurred to me to use an existing system. A new setting needed a new system, it was as simple as that. But now when I see a new setting I'm interested in, I don't build a system for it. I'm just as easily infatuated with a given story or game or film, but I react to it differently. I see what systems it would run well with, what kind of characters would be standard. I think about what parts of the setting must exist because of what has been shown; if they used this device in the film, or that weapon in the book, someone must have created it, who are they, what's their story etc. I build up a universe in my head, not a framework, and because of that it comes to nothing more often then not.

Don't get me wrong, most of the games I made as a kid came to nothing. At least so far as they were never played. But they were built, fully functional if not particularly brilliant or insightful. I had made something with the ideas in my head, whereas now, for all the greater amount of polish and detail my ideas have, they don't go anywhere.

I see a lot of people my age in the same situation. We've become more aware and insightful about the games we play, and on the whole I think we respect them more. We understand the work that was put into them and can appreciate a well-crafted system or rule a little better. But we've become involved with the theory of RPG's, whether a given system lends itself more to narrativism or simulationism, how it plays in groups as opposed to one-on-one, what kind of rewards system it has and how it's progression economy works. We've gained a greater understanding of the pieces we work with, but in so doing we now work with those pieces in a very different, somewhat less free way. We study other peoples work, dissect it and examine it and try to learn from it, but so rarely do we improve on it. It's become a study to us, rather than a game.

I'm certainly not saying that RPG theory is bad. It's useful to us in so many ways, and gives us a vocabulary that we can use to push the boundaries of our beloved hobby. But I think that it's something we use to distract ourselves. We've gained a set of tools that should allow us to make better systems and games, but we're so busy playing with the tools that we don't use them.

I'm certainly not saying that we don't build new systems as we grow older: I'm currently building a system on these very boards with the help of all of you wonderful people. I'm loving it, and working very hard on it. So are you: all number of RPG-netter's have contributed and influenced it, and each has seemed passionate and involved in the creation of a system, and I assume that they come from any and all age groups. The plethora of brilliant, clever indie games out there assures me that this is not a hard and fast rule. It seems more likely to me that it's simply a phase that gamers go through. We begin with passion and dedication, but little understanding. As we grow older we begin to understand the things we surround ourselves with a little more, and spend time focusing on learning to use those things in new and exciting ways. Finally, hopefully, we come out the other side with both passion and understanding, ready to build the next generation of games.