14 year old girl wants to join my game

[brehobit]

I had a similar situation. 16 (15?) year old boy who wanted to play. He and his dad (who is a wargamer) came together. He's now in college (first year) and still comes for Monday games...

Mark

 

[Obrysii]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree with a few people above:

1. Make sure you have talked to her parents.

2. Make sure you game in a public place.

3. If possible with time restraints and all, simply set up another group composed of teenagers and simply be their DM (as a teacher, this may or may not be easy).

 

[Hypersmurf]

I have a fourteen year old girl wanting to join my gaming group too, namely my daughter. We've told he she has to wait until she's 18.

I wanted to join my parents' gaming group when I was a kid.

They told me to wait until I was 6

-Hyp.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It was probably those guys from To Catch a Predator.

 

[WhatGravitas]

I had a similar situation. 16 (15?) year old boy who wanted to play. He and his dad (who is a wargamer) came together. He's now in college (first year) and still comes for Monday games...

Mark

His background (i.e. dad) probably helped... as well as being a boy, instead of a girl. In any case:

Demand to talk to her parents. Even if you're not even considering inviting her into the group: Her parents should know about this, as well as the content of the e-mail. And if you're talking with her parents about it, you'll probably get an idea what to do - but call her parents first, they deserve to know about this.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Thurbane]

Whoever wins, we lose...

 

[bento]

A big factor to me is: why do you and the other's in your group play?

If RPGs for you and your buddies is an excuse to get together, drink beer, smoke cigars and tell off-color jokes without the wife and kids around, then having a 14 year old girl joining seems a little strange.

 

[bowbe]

Of course this may not be a problem at all. The 14 y/o girl may in fact be the 'creepy guy who always plays a hot elf chick'. He's just taking his roleplaying to a new level.

Thanks,
Rich

Bring Farrah Back! (Loved Gamers!)

Also a teacher. Had a minor (16) and female play in a game for over a year. It was cool because her sister and brother in law (both adults over 20) were at every session and she was never her alone. My wife also plays in our group so everything was on the up and up.

That said, I'd say not.

Contacting you out of the blue, not knowing the parents (personally or as personal) and the like is rife with problems. Austrailia may be different but it isn't that different that as others have said there wouldn't be certain ethical and moral questions asked should (she) start talking about who she hangs out with. Sure it may be all fine and innocent but thats not how rumors get going.

My daughter is currently going on 5. Someday no doubt she will want to play, and have her friends play. When that day comes it means no alcohol present, and a strong emphasis on allowed language and allowed subject matter. At that time I am thinking the kids get their own campaign seperate from the adults.

It isn't a matter of you, your morals or your ethics. You also have to consider the morals, ethics, and behavior of every other person at the table. At the end of the day you will be responsible, and if not "legally responsible" you are the host and initial meetings occur at your home.

Sure you may know (socially) many of the people you play with but crazy things happen all the time. You don't want to be the host of a "social situation" that leads to something that could be construed as criminal. More importantly you are the adult and must carry yourself as such at all times. Can you swear the same of every single member of your gaming group? Sure most people think they can, but can they really know for sure? I bet not. Hate to be cynical but thats the way it is. I've known many people (for years) that turn out not as who they seem.

Case

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

If it is a cop posing as a girl, I'm just wondering how I got flagged! (The message came strait to the yahoo group mail, of which there are 2 mods - my missus and I.)

Anyway, she's mentioned that she wouldn't be able to make it to our play location and understands why we can't have her in the group; she basically said that she wouldn't like to make anyone feel uncomfortable. Fair enough, says I. A friend of mine mentioned he knows half a dozen games without a full player load and so I mentioned I could give e-mail addresses at some future point.

Anyway, I played on sunday and I just realised I was running a (Ars Magica/Riddle of Steel) game where there was implied rape (Between BBEG and a village girl), the ritual killing of an infant (A fey queen did it - not the PC's), we all had a few cans of alcohol.

Things I wouldn't raise up in a year 9 classroom. But at the same time, we've had tons of fun; I think bringing in a young girl might just change our style a little too much.

All in all it worked out well.


On the topic of my missus, the reason why she objected was simply because she had already thought the above through, whereas I had not .

In terms of dealing with children and the law here in Aus, Yes your reputation can be ruined for accusations, and those things do get around. But that comes down to the child starting it a lot of the time - I've spent hours tutoring indivudals with no supervision and the like with no ill-effects. I suppose there's still a level of trust here - that most people aren't crazy pedophiles.

 

[Phoenix8008]

Sounds like it worked out okay in the end. Glad to hear it.

While I would have been able to give advice about having kids in the gaming group, mine are all MY kids and not other people's so it changes things a lot. My oldest son (16) has been playing for the past 6 years. Maybe a little early maturity-wise, but he's managed (although he still gets bored with characters and switches a bit often for my taste).

My middle son (12) started playing some a couple years ago ("You let HIM play when HE was ten!" ) and does okay but is also probably not quite mature enough yet. He is a little too scared when things start going badly for his character and freaks out a bit much for gaming. Probably due to his never having had a character killed yet. Should probably rectify that and see if that calms him down when he sees that he can get the character raised or just make a new one.

My youngest son (10) has played a little, but had an extraordinary run of bad rolls right before we moved and lost our previous gaming group. When I started up a house campaign here in our new home, he wasn't interested in playing. Maybe he'll want to again some day later, but if not that's okay too.

My youngest child is a 4 year old girl and she already can't wait to 'do gaming' with us. Me and the two boys played Friday night and when I went up to tuck her in again because she wasn't sleeping good, she asked if we were gaming (she could hear the sounds from downstairs). I told her we were and she said she wants to play to. I explained (again) how she isn't old enough yet to play this game, but I promised I'd let her play with my 'peoples' the next day. So on Saturday I pulled out my gallon sized ziplock bag of plastic mini's and dumped them on the kitchen table for her to play with for an hour. Future gaming girl FOR SURE! P.S.- I also taught her this weekend how to spin her first dice! (She has two sets of the over sized dice) She'd seen us messing with them and spinning them and wanted to do it herself. So I showed her how to hold her fingers on it and she managed to get it up and spinning a few times. She was very proud of herself (and so was I ).