"Family" game?

[alsih2o]

Dragon #300 aside....

i keep hearing people refer to d+d as a "family" game. d+d seems far from "family" to me.

in another thread i mentioned "in the core books alone we find some of the most vile things imaginable.
setting creatures on fire, weapons for disemboweling and clubbing others to death, cloning involving soul hopping(!), biological warfare, the creation of undead, poisoning, complete disentigration, terrible snares and traps, the ability to dispel good(!), life draining magics, people being turned to stone, the harnessing of negative energy, summoning...the list goes on and on."

does anyone have a definition of "family" as it relates to entertainment? how many of you feel d+d fits the bill?

 

[Drawmack]

Well, first off if a child is old enough to seperate fantasy and reality then they shouldn't have a problem playing any fantasy games. That being said I wouldn't play D&D with my 5yo step daughter. Howerver, if she was 12 I wouldn't think twice about it. She has expressed interest in role-playing so I picked up a diceless game so she doesn't have to know math in order to play and I'm working up a storyline that she can understand. Her kindergarten class has three kids in it whose parents I used to game with so I'll get them to play in it.

As far as D&D being a family game my so and I play it together. When the kid is old enough if she wants to play she'll be welcome too. I think this is what they mean when they say a family game.

 

[Ashtal]

I've always seen the game as something for teens and up, and for the mature/intelligent pre-teen (10-12) as well.

Anything earlier than that ... and I just don't think it jives too well. You'd be better of off using a game like BESM, things that are very simple, and can replicate some of the stuff they like to watch, like Pokemon, that sort of thing. D&D is a teen game that can be expanded into more adult storytelling experiences (and I am not equating adult here with exclusively gore and hard core sex). Moving it away from that basic teen demographic would be a huge mistake.

 

[Thorntangle]

It's a lucky person indeed that can get his whole family to play. I'm guessing in reality D&D is hardly ever, in practice, a true family game like parcheesi or Life. D&D is usually too generational, too genre specific, and too complex.

Now I'm sure there are exceptions - you have been noted and now you don't have to reply stating how your mom was the DM for a family campaign for the last 25 years.

 

[Utrecht]

The biggest problem that we run into with descriptions like "family-frindly" is that it allows for too many shades of Grey.

I think that traditionally, family freindly games where those that do not involve any sort of combat.

Games that had combat like Risk, Stratego or Battleship have always been marketed towards a smaller segment (i.e. boys) and not towards families.

That being said, I would not consider D&D a family game (as defined above) However, I feel that you could play it with a family - more likely focusing on the problem solving aspects of it and less on the violence.

Personally, I hope that both my son and daughter will play with me - what I concerned about is the perception (that D&D is VERY good at reinforcing) that combat is the preferred method of solving a problem - and I think that this is where it stops being family friendly.

 

[Zappo]

"Family" as an attribute of an entertainment form is supposed to mean something that kids can watch/play without this being detrimental to their education.

Since noone can tell for sure what exactly can influence a kid's behaviour, there is no clear definition of a "family" entertainment.

Usually, noone really cares about whether it is good for the kids or not as much as whether it gets to be sold to them or not, and thus a "family" entertainment is anything that manages not to draw the ires of conservatives (I'm not saying that in any political sense, ok?). Sad but true. As that envelope gets inexorably pushed, so does the definition of "family". I'm willing to bet that what we now consider R-rated will be PG-13 in 50 years' time (most likely less), unless some scientifically proved major breakthrough in child growing comes up before.

It can be said that D&D used to be "not family". The current situation may have changed (not because the game has changed, but because the society did).

 

[Dinkeldog]

I started playing when I was 8. We added my friends' daughter to my group-on-the-side when she was about that age, too. We just kept everything really abstract for damage concerns and kept any kind of roleplaying themes in concordance with a PG rating (then PG-13, and now we're breaking PG-13 once in a while, but carefully). So I don't know why it couldn't work as a family game. Maybe you could say "exceptional families", but adult gamers seem to be a cut above average.

 

[smetzger]

A family game is any game in which the whole family would:
1) Enjoy playing
2) Would be morally acceptable for the adults and the children to both play.

Number 2 would depend on the ages and emotional stability of the children as well as what is acceptable behavior.

My brother and I played D&D with my Dad in the early 80s. I believe we even dragged our grandma along for the ride one time.
I have played with two Dad's who have brought their teenage boys to play.
Never had a mom or daughter play.

 

[Ashtal]

Exactly. The D&D game you play with your 8-year-old is not the same game that you play when you're 15, 20, +.

I wouldn't sit a little kid down with a Dragon magazine on the best of days, totally sans Vile content - there can be a lot of scary, even horrific depictions of monsters that would be very unsettling to a youngster.

As a child, I was absolutely petrified of the mouthless character in the Twilight Zone movie. I can't imagine what I would have thought of a Mind Flayer or Githyanki or Flesh Golem at that age.

 

[jmucchiello]

I think that traditionally, family freindly games where those that do not involve any sort of combat.

(You never seen my family play pictionary.) They don't involve combat against one another. D&D combat is usually us against them.

It's funny when we play at one of our gaming group member's homes. His son is 9 and Dad GM's Star Wars for his son and some neighborhood kids. When we play there, his son likes to hide in the next room and listen in to how us adult folk play the game "the right way". Very cute. We've joked with him (and the other player/parent of a 6 year old) that they can join the game when they can help pay for the munchies.