Did your parents get you into gaming?

[talien]

To keep a long story short, my mother was advised by a school counselor, when I was six years-old, to get me involved in an hobby that would foster creativity and challenge me intellectually.

So, I'm a first generation gamer, but I owe it all, a lifetime hobby, to my mother.

Ditto! Who knew that recommending D&D as part of a "Gifted" program would change my life?

Or that so many other places were actively discouraging gaming?

 

[KB9JMQ]

No but I hope someday my three boys will answer a similar poll yes

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

My folks did play D&D back in the early 80s, but I wouldn't call them gamers. Hell, my mom still looks down on my gaming hobby. I own their old gaming stuff now. I even found my dad's character sheet and a map of a dungeon.

I actually got into gaming through an after school club.

Any kid of orchid and mine will turn out to be a jock just to spite us.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Depends how you define that term.
I checked "NO".

My parents bought me the "RedBox" sext for my 9th birthday.
But are they imaginative, or would they ever actually PLAY with me? Not likely.

So I consider myself a "Self-taught" gamer.

But, come to think of it, I'm actually only one in my entire family with a fertile imagination, and an interest in games (or literature, or writing....)

You get the idea.

 

[Beckett]

Second generation gamer. My dad played in the air force, and I waited patiently (and impatiently) for a time when I'd be old enough to sit at the table. I grew up reading Dragon magazine and the 1e AD&D books. My two brothers and I all participated in the hobby, but I'm the only one who stuck with it.

My dad has long since given up table top in favor of computer games; he's always shown a lot more dedication to finishing CRPGs than I have, and now spends more time on WoW than I do. His old AD&D books are on my shelves now, and I have a tacklebox full of minis he painted (along with some old character sheets). I even have his old dice mixed with ones I've collected over the years, and used them for several years (they've since been set aside in favor of an older set).

Timing was such that I never did get to really game with him; he was switching to computer gaming more as I was hitting what he considered the right maturity level. He did plan to run a 2E game for my brothers and I, but after we got started he decided that we had plenty of friends we could game with. Still, he instilled in me a love for D&D and gaming in general, and it was nice knowing that my parents weren't ever going to freak out that I was playing "the Devil's Game."

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I was in grade school in 1980 and D&D was becoming pretty popular (a lot of kids I played with would deny vehemently that they ever played because it would hurt their status as a jock or a non-geek in High School). My parents didn't know anything about the game. After I started playing, my parents were curious (mostly I'm sure because they wanted to be sure I wasn't living something from a Chick Strip), so we started a Saturday evening game; my parents, my older brother and myself as DM. It continued on and off for a couple of years until I decided it wasn't cool to be playing with my parents, and that was the end of it.

 

[Wombat]

I said, "No", but in a very, very roundabout way they did...

My mother always encouraged my love of reading books on folklore, religion, mythology, and the Arthurian legends.

My father pushed my love of history and encouraged my first forays into miniatures gaming.

RPGs didn't appear until I was in high school, and even then they were only considered "a very strange wargame".

Since it looked like the kind of game I was going to like and I had purchased it with my own money, my parents encouraged me to continue with D&D.

So, yet, kinda roundabout...

 

[sniffles]

No. My parents both passed away before I got involved in gaming - I didn't become a gamer until I was over 30. I was in high school when D&D came into existence, and I didn't know anyone who played back then.

 

[JustKim]

My dad has never been able to wrap his head around what makes D&D a game and not just a vast collection of books.

Every year it seems more likely that he's been right about it all along.

 

[kenobi65]

My dad has never been able to wrap his head around what makes D&D a game and not just a vast collection of books.

Every year it seems more likely that he's been right about it all along.

LOL. My father can't wrap his head around the concept that it's a game that doesn't necessarily have "winners" and "losers". It's become a running joke now that he asks me, "so, did you win?", knowing that there's not a simple answer.

I voted "no"...I started with D&D in the early 80s, and it's not the sort of thing my folks would have ever played, anyway (they're more into bridge). However, I would say that they did, indirectly, lead me into D&D, by fostering my love of reading and games in general.