Do you have kids? Do they RPG with you?

[Barendd Nobeard]

My son turns 8 this weekend, and my daughter is 12. They both play D&D. I have promised to take them to GenCon at some future time, probably 2004 (before my daughter loses interest and when my son is a little more responsible).

My son has had a run of bad luck with his cleric. He got to 5th level, but then suffered an attack that drained his charisma and another that drained his wisdom (both permanently). Then he got crushed by a trap and died. Since this adventure had only 3 PCs, that's quite a problem and they will probably bail out of their task (at least temporarily). Which is too bad, because it was a redemption quest for my son's fallen paladin (he was playing two characters).

The other group (which both my kids play in) is going through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil right now. Only four PCs and no cleric. I expect a TPK eventually, but they're pretty resourceful and (since they are children) I give lots of hints if they appear to be "stuck" on a problem too long.

Playing with kids is fun--they can still be scared by goblins. But it's a lot more work, since the DM has to really be on top of the characters. For instance, once they get barricaded in a secret room by some orcs. They had to open the barricaded door, but could not figure out a way to do it. After 15 minutes, I told my daughter to look at her spell list and check out the "Knock" spell.

We also played over the Christmas break with my brother. I ran them through a 3e conversion of "Against the Giants." We didn't get very far, but we had a lot of fun.


[edit - fix typo]

 

[DiamondB]

He's only 6 months old, so he's not really able to participate yet, but when he's older and shows any interest I'll happily bring him along. Of course, he's going to be raised with a considerable bias toward gaming, he's already got his NPC shirt, courtesy of Captain Midnight's (I believe) site.

Here's a shot of him, if anyone's interested.
http://inconnu.isu.edu/~bingo/joshua/pictures/PDR_0011.JPG

 

[HellHound]

Two kids.

They not only game with us, they headed that project that included Ashy's son...

The Kid's Colouring Book o Critters - a d20 monster book that has received excellent reviews.

 

[Imhotepthewise]

My son 16 plays, is a good DM, and can't understand that Dad has other responsibilities sometimes. My daughter 12 doesn't RPG but plays Magic well. Wife does NOT PLAY! Don't EVEN ask her!

 

[Broken Fang]

My daughters are 7 and 2 1/2. Though both love fantasy and sci-fi neither show much intrest in gaming...other than rolling my dice and liking the minitures.

 

[Chauzu]

I don't have kids.

At least I hope I don't...

 

[Richards]

My sons are now 18 and 17, and they both play. I started them at 8 and 7 on Hero Quest, then "graduated" them to AD&D (2nd Edition) after about a year and a half.

We've been playing about every other week since. (We converted to 3E when it came out.)

Johnathan

 

[hammymchamham]

I'm only 23, so no kids. I do play with a late 30 year old man and his 11 year old step son. Its been a real joy having him

 

[mistergone]

I don't have any kids and don't really like them. So this means in the game I play in currently when one of the guys' 10 year old son plays with us, he sits right next to me and climbs all over me and we get in pillow fights and hide each other's dice. I don't know how that happens.

I think having kids roleplay is a good idea (but not with me - grrr) but I've seen some abominations too (surprise surpsrise). Like for a while I was gaming at a local game store and this couple would bring in their kid cause I guess they couldn't get a sitter. Well, most of the time the guy spent yelling at his kid for one reason or another, and that was just annoying. Luckily, these people weren't in my group, or I would have raised Hell. As it was, some crappy father yelling at his kid in the middle of a crowded gaming room was the worse thing ever.. worse than the wargamers with their show tunes bleating out of the boombox nonstop.

Uh.. so yeah.. I voted "No kids."

 

[Templetroll]

I read my daughter "The Hobbit" as a bedtime story.

When my daughter was younger I heard her tell her grandmother, as she showed her a card game, "I turn Thomas the Tank Engine and you take three points of damage." Friends put together a Magic deck for her and we played that for the couple of years. Her fav card was Dragon Engine, and she thought the Atog had pretty eyes.

She started playing D&D with us when she was 10; her preference is playing intelligent animals. Savage Species is just a little late, our DM had it all figured out long ago!

She is a good roleplayer and I don't ever want to see her play CE!!!

When she ran a D&D adventure for me it took place in a mall with pokemon encounters.

During the Council scene in FotR she commented about Boromir, "I think he's trouble." She wept when he died; we still get teary eyed at that scene.

Kids are the best thing, sharing something like gaming is great!