kenmarable
Hero
Forked from: With a subscription to DDi Character Builder, buying a PHB2 isn't necessary.
We've had some false starts over the past year, but now is when we're finally getting serious and playing regularly. I originally tried a watered down 3.5 with things like having a single saving throw, renaming the abilities to "Strong, Quick, Tough, Smart, Wise, and Charming", and giving them specific pieces of paper with their possible actions on them (sized so that a move and standard action was the size of a full action, etc.). But that required enough prep that I wasn't as motivated, and playing full 4e now, I can see that the benefit of watering it down wasn't all that much.
My 3 kids' ages are 5 (girl), 7 (boy), and 9 (girl). Their birth dates are spaced such that the older two are back to back in grades, and the younger is a year separated, so there always seems to be a bigger divide there. With that, the older two are picking it up just fine so far.
With my youngest, right now I just tell her a couple good options to pick from (usually re-flavored in terms of calling fairies and unicorns to do things) and what to roll when she picks. So she is probably too young, but there'd be heck to pay if I didn't include her. And, as long as I do narrow it down to "Do you want to do A or B?", she's totally into it. We have only just started, so we'll see how it goes, but so far, they all enjoy it.
As for the best age to start, I don't know. At first I wasn't sure if they were ready, and the first session didn't help since they got distracted a lot. But I'm greedy and want to play more, and they are eager and interested, so I'm keeping it up. Rather than waiting for them to be old enough to be able to learn all the rules and focus on the game, I'm instead looking at it as the game teaching them focus and the ability to comprehend complex game rules. That mindset helps me a lot when I'm totally into an encounter and my youngest has a couple of the miniatures start dancing and getting married.
They are excited, and even if it is too much for them to possibly grasp at first, sticking it out will eventually teach them.
I'm also slowly building to the full rules, which helps. So in the first session I didn't get into action points, and second wind and all that. Just their powers listed right in front of them. Plus I just had enemies give up rather than dragging the fight fully out. (Kobold Hall from DMG - in the first room, they pushed/slid 3 of the kobolds into the central immobilizing goo, and the kids figured that was good enough to "capture" them. That was fine with me.)
Lastly, looking back, I realized that my first regular real game started when I was 10 (Red Box - oh yeah!). Even earlier, we were basically playing during recess, but without dice and paper - just our imagination and the bricks on the school wall as our map. So considering they pestered me for weeks to start a regular game with them, I figure they must be ready.
(trying this fancy new "fork button"...)renau1g said:
We've had some false starts over the past year, but now is when we're finally getting serious and playing regularly. I originally tried a watered down 3.5 with things like having a single saving throw, renaming the abilities to "Strong, Quick, Tough, Smart, Wise, and Charming", and giving them specific pieces of paper with their possible actions on them (sized so that a move and standard action was the size of a full action, etc.). But that required enough prep that I wasn't as motivated, and playing full 4e now, I can see that the benefit of watering it down wasn't all that much.
My 3 kids' ages are 5 (girl), 7 (boy), and 9 (girl). Their birth dates are spaced such that the older two are back to back in grades, and the younger is a year separated, so there always seems to be a bigger divide there. With that, the older two are picking it up just fine so far.
With my youngest, right now I just tell her a couple good options to pick from (usually re-flavored in terms of calling fairies and unicorns to do things) and what to roll when she picks. So she is probably too young, but there'd be heck to pay if I didn't include her. And, as long as I do narrow it down to "Do you want to do A or B?", she's totally into it. We have only just started, so we'll see how it goes, but so far, they all enjoy it.
As for the best age to start, I don't know. At first I wasn't sure if they were ready, and the first session didn't help since they got distracted a lot. But I'm greedy and want to play more, and they are eager and interested, so I'm keeping it up. Rather than waiting for them to be old enough to be able to learn all the rules and focus on the game, I'm instead looking at it as the game teaching them focus and the ability to comprehend complex game rules. That mindset helps me a lot when I'm totally into an encounter and my youngest has a couple of the miniatures start dancing and getting married.
They are excited, and even if it is too much for them to possibly grasp at first, sticking it out will eventually teach them.I'm also slowly building to the full rules, which helps. So in the first session I didn't get into action points, and second wind and all that. Just their powers listed right in front of them. Plus I just had enemies give up rather than dragging the fight fully out. (Kobold Hall from DMG - in the first room, they pushed/slid 3 of the kobolds into the central immobilizing goo, and the kids figured that was good enough to "capture" them. That was fine with me.)
Lastly, looking back, I realized that my first regular real game started when I was 10 (Red Box - oh yeah!). Even earlier, we were basically playing during recess, but without dice and paper - just our imagination and the bricks on the school wall as our map. So considering they pestered me for weeks to start a regular game with them, I figure they must be ready.
