Gaming Families

IronWolf said:

Thanks for the suggestions. We worked on some characters this morning (younger sister IronPup wanted a character), so it looks like we are rolling forward with a Human cleric that has two guard dogs, a gnome druid who has a tiger for an animal companion. Should be fun!

Oh and IronPup was interested in making sure their backstories worked, so he wanted younger sister IronPup to be his sister in the game as well. So he came up with his human parents had gone to war, fought, found the gnome druid and adopted her because her parents had passed away during the war. So the gnome druid is now the human cleric's adopted sister and they get along splendidly!

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. . . and it's weird how the parents always get it in the first scene. I've learned not to take it personally.

I started playing with my oldest this past year when he was close to nine years old. He's now playing 4+ hrs/week with his friends in two different campaigns which I DM. My littlest monster is only 2 1/2, but he loves paying with "guys and monsters" and throwing the dice. He's growing his miniature collection (mostly to keep him away from ours) - each >50 cent piece at a time.

I started by buying lots of miniatures for my son for Christmas - he loves Lord of the Rings and playing with soldiers, but there are few good fantasy toy soldiers to be had for cheap. Once I bought them and started looking through them, I remembered how fun it was to play AD&D more than 20 years ago. I decided I would give D&D a try with my son.....

AWESOME! AWESOME! AWESOME! Easily the best thing I've done this year.

I've since expanded to play five games a week as part of my ESL tutoring job, plus two games with my son and his friends.

My son already has expressed interest in DM'ing at some point and was amazed when I told him that I would let him create and DM one encounter for his game. I saw his face light up with a newer realization that he really could create these stories that we play. (I'll be buying him the D&D Essentials DM Kit for Christmas)

I'm always asking him advice about the games I'm preparing for my other classes, advice about what miniatures to buy for our growing collection, etc. He's fully involved. We've always been very close, but this has added a new dimension to our relationship and something else that we can talk about at length. The best part is to be first hand, face-to-face, to share his imagination and see the in-game excitement on his face. Most parents know that when your kids is old enough, you most often see that excitement from a distance (for example when he scored in his soccer game yesterday). It's not too often you get to see it up close, at length. It is something I hadn't realized until I experienced it with him while playing D&D.

My son is very bright and well traveled/mature/experienced (some of the benefits of his parents teaching/traveling - to go along with some of the drawbacks). That has helped make him a great player for his age. I'm pretty confident in saying that if you start young, your kids will most likely really enjoy playing. Whether they grow out of it or not, who knows. But you'll likely gain some quality time in the meanwhile at the very minimum.

Lastly, I was expecting my games with him to be slightly easier and slightly less gritty. But as we've played, I've realized that they can handle most of the complexities of the game, that their imagination can handle whatever you throw at them. They've seen enough movies and played enough computer games to grasp the complexities and understand the violence/death/gore without having to go into great details (except when I really want to pack a punch). It's pretty easy to underestimate kids' abilities to grasp rules and plots, but in reality they are quite good at these things and actually spend much of their free time practicing it.

Go for it - good luck!

Longtooth Studios said:

Our 3 year old just likes to roll the dice, but we celebrate every roll. He is going to be disappointed one day when he figures out that there is a chance for failure!

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classic, and so true with my 2 1/2 y/o.

I have two daughters, ages 10 and 7, and I started playing D&D with them when my older daughter was 6, toward the end of first grade. Basically, I was just waiting until she was comfortable with reading and basic arithmetic, and then I pounced! My younger daughter is now at the point where she's controlling more of her mechanical decisions, instead of just rolling dice when I ask her to.

We started playing with a very simplified 3e (3 abilities, a few skills, etc.), and worked up to where we're now playing standard 3.5. Of course, I handle quite a bit of the mechanics and reference work for them, since I have no wish to inflict the full detail of 3.5 on them. (I play both 3.5 and 4e, and like things about both, but 3.5 requires more system mastery and is less kid-accessible.) I'm itching to finish up this campaign so I can get them started on 4e. (Actually, they've both recently added D&D Encounters and the latest Game Day, so they now have some 4e under their belts, and we'll be going to the Red Box Game Day this weekend.)

I should also mention Castle Ravenloft. We played a game of it last weekend, and it's almost like training wheels for 4e, in that it uses extremely simplified 4e mechanics, and is a lot of fun, to boot. I even got my wife to play.

My now-six-year-old son Ethan started to play with his big over-sized six-siders when he was ~3 months old or so, and we have been painting miniatures together since he was ~4 years old. He asked to start a D&D game as part of our Friday night Family Game Nights about 2 months ago now, and he's been having fun exploring my version of Castle Greyhawk.

His brother Henry (2 years old) "plays" by rolling dice (and having unnaturally good luck too: Henry's MU has rolled more natural 20s throwing his darts than I can shake a wand at!), but he doesn't otherwise really play.

My wife Heather played the first few sessions, but has been studying for the GRE lately, so no gaming for her until Thanksgiving or so.

I started playing D&D at 7, so Ethan starting at 6 seems pretty reasonable to me.

Qualidar and I don't have kids (yet ), but we have a niece who is 3 and a brand new nephew, so I am looking forward to running ICONS for them when they get older. Our niece is really creative and smart, so I can see her really enjoying creating characters. She told me once that her toy giraffe was saving the world from the "bad guy". Lately, she has been laughing at the death of Mufassa in The Lion King so I can see her growing up to be a TPK relishing GM.

My soon to be 7 year old has been showing interest for quite a while. First rolling dice then playing with mini's. About 6 months ago, we played a rules non-existent session and she was hooked. Since then, I've moved her toward AD&D since I don't think she's ready for 4e. I have to give my group a big thanks as they have let her sit at the table for an hour or so a couple times and we've run a very rules light AD&D session with her and her favorite character, Knight Ariana. She's been in heaven and constantly asks the next time we/she can play.
She also loves hearing about our sessions and I've recently started reading the Hobbit to her at night.
I do have one concern with her. As part of her get to know you packet for school, there was a question that asked, "What is your favorite game?" I suggested D&D, she responded, "Yes it is, but I'm too embarrassed to share that with my class" Great, she's already worrying about being cool.

My 4 year old likes rolling the dice, so we'll see what happens next with her.

Now I need to try to convert/interest the wife.

Mrs Shadowlight said:

So when Joshua Dyal announced the birth of his little Logan (congrats again by the way) I noticed a lot of people out there had kids.

My question is, how many of you play with them and how old were they when you first introduced them to the game? (I figure at least old enough to not choke on dice/stick them up their noses)

Did you modify the rules?

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Somewhere on EN World is the first game that I wrote for my middle child. I let her play a humanoid cheetah character.

My eldest child is playing currently, and is getting ready to run his first games.

Both of these kids have playtested my current ruleset.

My youngest is still too young, but I can wait.......


RC