Introducing Kids to TTRPG’s (part 1)

If you’re unfamiliar with the abbreviation, TTRPG stands for Table-Top Role-Playing Game. I interact with different children fairly often and whenever I mention RPG’s, they are either unfamiliar with them, or they know them only in a video game sense. To their credit, video games have expanded the popularity of this genre and have introduce several generations to the concept of designing your own character to play in a story-driven open-world, making choices along the way while engaging in battles using skills your character has developed with experience. Yet the understanding of RPG’s often ends there, and kids are perplexed when I talk about table-top RPG’s. Many of them have never sat around a table with friends to play a game, because most interaction between gaming kids is through online multiplayer video games. I’m a huge fan of video games—don’t get me wrong—but it saddens me when I think about imaginative kids growing up without ever experiencing a TTRPG. I know there are still some kids that play them, but the popularity of TTRPG’s is generally more sustained by adults that grew up with them than kids of this current generation.