Pyramid: Gaudeamus Igitur: Age and Society in Roleplaying: Part II -- Youth

Gaudeamus Igitur: Age and Society in Roleplaying

Part II -- Youth

by Michele Armellini

"Let's rejoice, therefore,
While we are young.
After a pleasant youth,
After a troublesome old age,
The earth will have us."
--Gaudeamus Igitur, translation from the C.W. Kindeleben 1781 version

The first article of this series pointed out how age classes and conventions about age groups characterized different civilizations through the ages, and how these defining elements can be useful in roleplaying as background elements and adventure hooks. This article deals with what is possibly the most interesting age class, and the most useful for many promising adventurers: youth. The ideas and suggestions presented here should be useful to everyone; one section is GURPS-specific.

Rites Of Passage

Every reader went through it (with the exception of those who are undergoing it now!): awesome changes, raging hormones, the challenge of finding a proper place and a respected role in a more complicated world, new needs, new responsibilities.

This experience is so universal that it speaks to the heart of everyone, and it's so stressful, intense, and important that it has been the theme of countless fictional accounts; for Germans, it's even a literary genre on its own, the Bildungsroman. The well-known teenagers' angst has indeed existed in every human civilization -- but today it's only a shadow of what it was in the past.

In today's affluent societies, adolescence may be . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.

Article publication date: August 22, 2003

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