Culture

Culture is an odd thing. People grasp onto it as among other things it offers a sense of identity and people fight to protect it along national boarders that define who is who.  However, paradoxically no matter how tightly a civilization holds onto its characteristics they will inevitably change. There is a natural law at work I suspect and the same can be said for communities, role players being no exception.

People have their 'ways' of course but I have been wondering if Roleplaying is a cultural phenomena that comes and goes with a civilization or whether it is something deeper akin to the performing arts. Ancient Greece has waxed and waned but their tragedies remain and something similar will be the case for our club. Not to say we are tragic of course but we do have quite a diverse membership. It was Glen who told me that there was a fairly recent BBC article on the resurgence of Roleplaying (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42874044 "The revival of a Geeky Pastime") and we are indeed getting a constant trickle of people at the club it seems. What is interesting is that the summer months are usually a quiet time as players book holidays and crawl out of their cracks in the earth to see the light.

The BBC affords quite an archive of its articles and a cursory search exposes pieces going back to 2004 at which time "In the age of iPods whatever happened to D&D?". Wizards of the Coast paint their picture of course and despite a few wobbly releases they firmly assert that it never really went away and they may have had a point. Either way if civilization collapses you can rest assured that your investment in plastic dice will remain quite secure.