To Grow the OSR the Youth are the Key

Just a quick observation.

ENWorld has about 32% of its readership in the 16 to 24 age group.

RPGNet has about 37% of its readership in the 16 to 24 age group.

The Tavern's Facebook Community comes in at 2.4% of its membership in the 16 to 24 age group.

The Swords & Wizardry Facebook Community comes in at 4.9% of its membership in the 16 to 24 age group.

Those younger gamers will be older gamers at some point. Current older gamers will age out and pass on at some point.

Maybe the OSR needs to find a way to tap into the younger player demographic.

(original demographics post with charts is here)

Basic Demographics - The Tavern, ENWorld and RPG.net

I was looking at The Tavern's demographics and started to wonder how similar (or different) they were to the "Big Two" RPG sites.

Not a huge surprise that The Tavern is an older, mostly male crowd. The initial D&D / RPG community was nearly all male and nostalgia for Old School Gaming is still strong.

How about The Tavern's Facebook Community?

Lets look at ENWorld:

ENWorld is a much younger community. The percentage of women is twice that of The Tavern yet still doesn't hit 8%.

How about RPG.net?

RPG.net hits 9% for its female audience. Much like ENWorld, it skews younger.

I couldn't find basic demographics for Roll20, which I think would have been the most insightful.

In any case, those are the numbers.

edit - this is the best I could find for Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds:

Also, this for Roll20:

and this for FG2