Kes Beacon, author and artist

Being a bit of an elder in that gaming circle is really weird - I didn't notice it happening till it did, as the real old guard moved away, or stopped being able to come down, or graduated, or whatever. But with the exception of the big game, where I am solidly middle guard age-wise (although my character is sliding into the longest-standing 20%) I am often the oldest person in my gaming circles these days.

I'm not even that old! (mid twenties)

My Wednesday home group, now, that's the exception - they are my direct peers, and that's for a reason. They're my oldest school friends, and my Wednesday game is how I keep the gang together as we tread our own paths in life. The story is secondary (and thank god, because it was the first game I ever GM'd, I've been doing it for years, and the damn thing is more hole than plot at this stage). And my housemate is my immediate peer, as the first friend I met in uni, and I play with him a lot.

But the rest? My Monday group is largely too young to have the working experience that would illuminate just how cutting my cyberpunk satire is. One of them is so fucking young I processed his admissions paperwork, which is horrifying. I was flabbergasted to learn I was the oldest person in my Sunday group, and less flabbergasted about Friday (I knew that) but it's still weird.

I'll say 'oh yeah I've played THIS MANY characters' and people are like 0.0 holy shit!! I'll ask casually 'oh how many characters have you had die' and they'll go 'uh I've had like two and so far they're fine!' and I'm like oh okay, or 'how many pcs have you killed' 'uh none this is my first game'.

It's... kind of weird, but it's also pretty cool. I get to be the cool older GM who tells you you can do it and teaches you how to play! And hopefully inspires you to run!

(For the record, I've killed nine player characters, a total of thirteen times. Few of them stayed dead. I've had five characters die, a total of six times.* Two of them stayed dead.)

*Unless you count Riss's ritual deaths, in which case, uh, six and nine.