Mamacat's helpful hints for gaming with couples with or without kids

[Kesh]

But I am glad that you at least don't practice such (barbarian) methods. People who hit their children should be prosecuted and have taken away their rights to be parents. Luckily, this is how it works in many countries. Believe me or not, but talking to kids who have had this happen to them, seeing how it screws up their life, can make even a cold-hearted sob like myself a sad panda.

Cheers

Yeesh, that's cutting rather close to the line of nationalistic politics again. Can we drop this whole side-track before the thread gets closed?

 

[AstroCat]

Our gaming group of 6-7 people are in their 20s and mostly 30s and have no kids. I know plenty of couples with kids as well. There is no way I'd run a game with young children around while we were trying to actually relax and game for a few hours.

No way. It's enough work getting everyone's busy professional lives together for 4 hours a week to have it ruined by uncommitted members and constant interruptions. Kids are full time and yes they come first but that means gaming is pretty much out if you expect people to actually game and not just work around the kids for 4 hours. It's not fair to anyone, including all the other players. Look if you can't get it together for 4 good hours a week forget it, it's not worth anyone's time.

Kids are fine, no problem, but don't expect to burden me with your kids and expect me to have to put up with it or anyone else. You have kids, deal with it, don't expect everyone else to have to. It's not fair to anyone.

I can be reasonable but the tone of some of this thread is like your doing someone a favor gaming with them and they have to deal with your kids no matter what, well they don't.

If you going game with kids I would hope you would work out a way to get a good free 4 hours, it can be done, I've seen it. I fully realize when/if (mostly when) we have children my gaming is done for as it has been for a long time, I won't burden my kids on my gaming friends. I'll try and make it work at times but I'll let everyone I game with know I'm pretty much out as a dependable member and can not be counted on because the kids will come first and thier needs are not on a schedule I can control.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I'm not wild about having kids around at a game night. I've only seen it in action once or twice (My "Game Night" tends to be a rough analog of other guys "poker Night"...that is, a night out with the guys)

We used to play a LARP of Vampire the Masquerade man years ago though that the organizer had gone to a lot of effort to create. Deep storylines, costumes for main characters, a hired string quartet and a rented Victorian Hall.

...and this one couple that brought their baby and their toddler.

Buzzkill didn't describe it.

I think they were eventually asked to leave after being asked a few times to not bring the kids.

 

[Teflon Billy]

One deals with his gf trying to get him to do something else every time we game. We've offered to move days, but then the other options we have conflict with other people's SO's schedules. Of course.. She has NO friends of her own, so that's a key problem there.

That was my exact situation with my first wife.

Sunday was my gaming night for years before we were together. She made some big to-do about it early on in our relationship ("Sunday is Family Day") so I consulted with the group and we changed it to Wednesday evening.

After that, I usually got the to game in a bad mood following the same exact fight every week, as follows...

Me: "Allright, I'm off to the game! Bye bye"

Her: "What? You are going to the game???"

Me "Yes...did we make other plans or something?" (we occasionally did)

Her: "Well, no...but now we definitely can't" *pout*

I wasn't as familiar those many years ago with this manner of passive/aggressive behaviour in young women.

My curent wife has never pulled anything like this.

 

[racoffin]

It all seems to come down to whether or not it is a burden for your group or not. To some, it is and you find a way to work around it. Others don't find it an issue at all.

As long as the group talks about how to work around the kids (or any other potential distraction) then that is all that really matters. Everyone wants to have a good time, its just a matter of finding a way to do it.

 

[Rel]

Allow me to make it official: We'll have no further discussion of the "spanking" topic in this thread.

 

[Mercurius]

Allow me to make it official: We'll have no further discussion of the "spanking" topic in this thread.

???

 

[pawsplay]

Kids are fine, no problem, but don't expect to burden me with your kids and expect me to have to put up with it or anyone else. You have kids, deal with it, don't expect everyone else to have to. It's not fair to anyone.

That's your onetruewayism. For some people it's fine. For many parents, it's preferable. For many people without kids, it's worth it to game with their friends, even if it means kids. You're trying to tell other people what their priorities are.

I would never insist someone deals with my kids. But it's a package deal. If they game with me, at least some of the time, they're going to game with my kids. If they don't want to, no problem. I'll game with someone else.

I wouldn't drag the kids along to a Vampire game or something like that. But a nice, relaxing Friday night game with my friends? Yeah, my kids are there. Yeah, they do disrupt sometimes. Yes, we are the only kid-having members of the group currently (there were two others at one point).

Hey, we've played our D&D game all the way from 1st level to 14th. It's actually one of the most stable, long-running games I've had in years. If this is what kids does to a campaign, bring it on.

 

[jmucchiello]

Given the myriad distractions that children provide and the amount of attention that's required to prevent them from swallowing things inappropriately, how on earth do you parents expect to do immersive role play?

You of course are asking this assuming that is the style of game they play. Not everyone needs, wants or desires immersive play. Right?

 

[Mamacat]

We used to play a LARP of Vampire the Masquerade man years ago though that the organizer had gone to a lot of effort to create. Deep storylines, costumes for main characters, a hired string quartet and a rented Victorian Hall.

...and this one couple that brought their baby and their toddler.

I think they were eventually asked to leave after being asked a few times to not bring the kids.

OK, in that situation, that is someone burdening a game with their kids.

But when my husband and I put together our current group, we made it plain up front that we have a daughter, and are planning another baby, and so kids are a part of our household. We also can't afford a babysitter every week, and so we hold games at our house, and provide snacks as well. More of a case of saying, "we'd like to play, but we've got to play in our yard, so do you want to join us?" type thing. People are free to say yes or no, of course. Even the guy who doesn't like kids realizes this, and he deals with it. But we've stopped taking her to other people's houses when we want to game. We'll visit folks for other reasons, but for now, we have to game at home, with whomever is willing to come game with a toddler in the house.