Gaming Families

Put my kid on a pretty much daily diet of roleplaying at 3 and haven't stopped since. Started out with a few Papo/ Schleich/ Safari figures and a bunch of Playmobil guys as props. Agent Zero, Chloe Cloak and Underwater Girl were a few early favourites, but she's older now and an awesome player. (Not an accolade I hand out lightly or to myself).

We're currently deep inside 'The Legend of Coco Wildwolf' campaign, which uses the Treasure RPG mechanics at their most freeform. Improvisation and 'on the fly' design is the standing order of the day with elements of D&D, Traveller, Vampire and plenty of others thrown in and out of the mix.

There's an emphasis on mysteries, exploration and mission-based play; but combat is great fun. Coco's smackdowns can, perhaps, be best described as 'grace under pressure'/ 'elegant'.

Mates who play the same basic adventure as a party 'power up', 'fire up' and take down the opposition. So much so that they totally forget to look for opportunities to interact with the environment or vary their actions.

Coco's far more likely to give the large idol at the end of the room a quick shove and topple it on to the advancing horde

I read several posts before realizing how old this thread is! Funny to see some of the familiar posters.

I started gaming in one form or another with my sons when they were about ages 5, 7 and 9, maybe even a little earlier. We played the Temple of Elemental Evil PC game, which was a great intro as I let them have their own characters in the group and decide what they did in combat. We also played combats using the minis game. I tried out the boxed set intro games for 3.0 and 3.5 with them, and then started looking for something to use for a regular game. We had a decent Castles & Crusades game going, but it just never seemed to really click.

Then a few weeks ago I took them to play with my regular group, playing OD&D (with diaglo, who ran a kid-friendly game for them). They all loved it, and started begging to play at home. I read through all the retro-clones and settled on Basic Fantasy RPG, and have been running a game for them that is taking off. The game is simple enough for them, and for me, and still does everything we need. It is interesting seeing them come from d20-based games. They have asked a couple times to do something that they remember from a feat in other versions, and I just on the fly come up with rules to let them try. We are playing Lost City of Barakus, which has a great old school feel.

We've also tried some supers games, such as BASH, M&M and ICONS. I think I could also run an ICONS campaign with them, and will likely do so eventually.

My .sig if from when I asked Col_Pladoh (Gary Gygax) about advice on getting my sons into gaming.

I have ran family games on a few occasions, but it is my son (13) who shows the most interest in the game. He plays in my weekly game and is interested in running one of his own, but hasn't committed to take the plunge yet.

I have three old enough to play, with my wife, that make s a good party!

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!

No children myself, but friends that introduced me to roleplaying, now about 20 years ago, learned to play from their fathers who were a party in the late seventies, early eighties... At least so the story goes there might be some revisionist history going on

I've played with IronPup off and on since last Christmas when he was 6. He has kept an interest and has been asking to play an actual adventure again. I am thinking since he is asking it is time to come up with a short story arc and actually get a regular game going with him. The issue is he would be playing as a solo character which makes things just a bit tougher, but certainly not insurmountable.

Holy Thread Necromancy, Batman!

Funny to read my comments back in 03' in light of how things stand today.

So yeah, my daughter has turned out to be quite the gamer so far. Not only does she game with my wife and I but she's also a GM, has written her own system and is writing blurbs for other game designers, listing her design credits.

heh - posted before realizing I had already posted to this thread years ago.

In the spirit of a followup to my original post: I have all four of my kids actively gaming (ages 14 through 10, two boys and two girls). They are enthusiastic role-players with their own dice and gaming libraries. it is fairly common, in the morning, when I get up, to see both of my boys with one of the Pathfinder rulebooks open, making characters or monsters. We are currently beginning the Paizo Kingmaker AP.

My dad played 1e/2e in college, then introduced me and my brother to 3e when we were 8 and 6 respectively. We played without AoOs for the longest time (partly because dad didn't understand them, either), but didn't change much other than that. Now I'm starting my sophomore year of college, and with it a Midnight True20 campaign. We still play as a family unit when I'm home, though; dad GMed a short-lived Dark Heresy game over the summer and I DMed a Traiblazer/Pathfinder hybrid through Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale.

IronWolf said:

I've played with IronPup off and on since last Christmas when he was 6. He has kept an interest and has been asking to play an actual adventure again. I am thinking since he is asking it is time to come up with a short story arc and actually get a regular game going with him. The issue is he would be playing as a solo character which makes things just a bit tougher, but certainly not insurmountable.

Click to expand...

Maybe add a pet, a ride and a selection of helpful NPCs, (who, at times, might as well be wearing red tunics in an episode of Star Trek). Don't kill the PC or the pet whatever you do, but offer plenty of prompting that they're running low, taking a major risk, need somewhere to rest. There are lots of other 'consequences' to gradually introduce in terms of plot, possessions, setbacks and outcomes without asking a 6-year-old to confront PC death.

For me, such options are one of the huge pluses of TRPGs. In most card games, boardgames and wargames everyone except the winner is metaphorically killed. With a TRPG the GM can simply go 'what's best for the game/ players in front of me?'

nedjer said:

Maybe add a pet, a ride and a selection of helpful NPCs, (who, at times, might as well be wearing red tunics in an episode of Star Trek). Don't kill the PC or the pet whatever you do, but offer plenty of prompting that they're running low, taking a major risk, need somewhere to rest. There are lots of other 'consequences' to gradually introduce in terms of plot, possessions, setbacks and outcomes without asking a 6-year-old to confront PC death.

Click to expand...

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!