"Family" game?

[Tuerny]

I just thought of another interesting fact for those who say that WotC needs vile content to be competitive in the market.

The best selling computer game of all time was a game that had no violent, mature, vile content.

Myst. And the puzzles certainly were not of the variety to appeal to a young audience (too difficult). Surely the demographic buying that game was older.

Actually the game was the Sims, but the point still stands.

 

[Tsyr]

Actually the game was the Sims, but the point still stands.

Evidently, you havn't played the Sims with the people I know... they tend to remove doors from rooms and see how long the Sim wil suffer.

Or burn the house down.

Or try to get the sim electrocuted.

Or similar.

 

[Moe Ronalds]

I can play D&D with my 11 year old sister well enough, but my dad hates (DESPISES) fantasy, and my mom tried to play D&D once with my uncle (the saint who introduced me to the game) once and decided character creation was too long and boring. That was an earlier edition though, so for all I know things could be a bit faster now. Then again, I wouldn't want to introduce my mom to the rest of my gaming group (a "goth" kid whose room makes hell look like a land of gumdrops and fluffy kitties, and his friend who seems to be obssessed with the word "doobie". Us teenagers haven't earned our immature repute unfairly.)

 

[Nine Hands]

Interesting. For my family it is one of the core things we do together. My wife is an avid gamer. Heck, she's the assistant manager at a gaming store

My two older sons (10 yrs and 15 yrs) both play. My 15 year old runs a weekly Spycraft game too.

As for the rest of my kids, they are too little to really play. My youngest son is 5 and has the imagination and likes dice to boot My daughter though is close to 2 yrs and has found that it is a little more fun to throw dice around the house than it is to eat them.

So, for my situation, it is a family game. If my kids are not interested, they do not have to play, I will find something that they enjoy and play it with them instead. But I'm not going to give up my gaming totally.

 

[Malhavoc]

The one time I was lucky enough to find a group of people wanting to play D&D (well, and not ruin the game) Anyways, he said his whole family played a game (cool) So my brother DM'ed and of the few things the players found was a bag.

now, whenever a player gets a sack they always think of 2 things: What's inside the bag, is it a bag of holding.. or is it a bag of devouring. These guys had never heard of the latter(I was shocked). They throw a few coins in and some such. Later in the game as they try to remove said items. "you hear a crunch as pain streaks through your arm. A second later you feel a strong pull on your wrist, trying to pull in the rest of you!" After a successful str roll the player freed himself from the bag of devouring. (angry at first but with reassurances that there are ways of getting one's hand back) we were off to play the rest of the game.

2 days later we call him up and ask when's the name game. Never was the answer. The parents heard about the 'bag of devouring' and banned us from thier house forever. :| I was shocked. Moral of the story? D&D to one man may not be D&D to another.


(another funny thing that happened when the game before the one mentioned above. We all had characters made up (mine a wizard, brothers a fighter) and the gm introduced the other characters to us by FIREING upon our charaters. The other people were riding a dragon too. Not to be taken without a fight my wizard unleashed some crappy spell that killed em all. I mean like, to the last point of damage was just enough to slaughter em. They got so pissed it was funny (and I'm not one to hide laughter very well) which only caused them to get angrier. All I could say was "a handshake is better than magic missle."

 

[barsoomcore]

As for disembowling, I would keep the descriptions more to the old movies. Swords would flash around and people would get killed, but there was no gore. Thinking back to my younger days there was no loss of adventure.

There may have been (there is for me, anyway) a loss of revelance, of sophistication and ultimately of interest. Star Wars is a great film (well, even that's debatable, frankly) but it has little to say that I find very interesting -- largely because of its "family" nature.

What makes it a "family" game would be the themes of Good vs. Evil with PCs playing only 'good guys'. Maybe oversimplistic to some, but those games encourage ideals that are beneficial to society - defending the weak, self-sacrifice (possibly dieing for the cause), and common good.

But those ideals can be encouraged (or let us say, explored) without simplistic reductions of human conflict, human emotion and experience. One might argue that in fact they are EASIER to encourage without such reductionism.

All this seems rather a long way from the point, which was, "Is D&D a Family Game"? I agree that you are describing a way of playing D&D that IS family-friendly. Is that the "default" way of playing D&D? I don't think so.

EDIT: Forgot to say anything at all. Oops.

 

[SemperJase]

so, do you not play with vorpal weapons? in their very description gore is entailed.....

Actually no. It just has never come up.

I would guess the people I have played with generally view these as powergaming weapons. In the power gaming campaigns I played in (all adult players), we never seem to get far enough to consider a vorpal blade.

In a game with younger players, I would purposely leave those weapons out.

 

[alsih2o]

In a game with younger players, I would purposely leave those weapons out.

because i am having to type this i wish to state a disclaimer: i am being TOTALLY serious with semperjase and wish nothing in tone or content to imply anything else.


how all would you change the tone and content of those things in the game which denote the various levels of gore and "maturity" for" younger players? teens? adults?
in such matters as:
vorpal blades?
good guys being eaten or swallowed alive? (insert weapon) of blood? (insert weapon) of wounding? poison use? rend attacks? the blood magus (or supplements in general? they seem to have "stronger content") the "look like a loved one" ability of the kyton?

and various other stronger level content?

 

[SemperJase]

how all would you change the tone and content of those things in the game which denote the various levels of gore and "maturity" for" younger players? teens? adults?
in such matters as:
vorpal blades?
good guys being eaten or swallowed alive? (insert weapon) of blood? (insert weapon) of wounding? poison use? rend attacks? the blood magus (or supplements in general? they seem to have "stronger content") the "look like a loved one" ability of the kyton?

and various other stronger level content?

Well, first I don't believe "vile" content is necessary for any maturity level. I just have never found it necessary in my campaigns. Thinking back in campaigns I've participated in, one of the most despised NPCs was an evil Baron who refused to pay a reward to the players. It just wasn't "fair". We PCs HATED that. The Baron later betrayed an ally by taking sides with Iuz. The Baron never had to do anything vile for his evil to be demonstrated.

For young people, I would try to portray the feeling of Narnia (C.S. Lewis) and Prydain (Lloyd Alexander) although I am nowhere near the story teller these two men were. In both series danger and adventure were brought to life with no gore. The struggle with growing up in a dangerous world was enough conflict.

I wouldn't really differenctiate that much between teens and adults. I doubt I would ever use vorpal blades just from a mechanics standpoint. I also don't need blood spurting to add a sense of urgency. Poison may be used against PCs as a threat and demonstration of evil. I may use disease (The Burning Plague adventure on the WotC site) as another danger to be avoided/overcome.

I would never touch the subject of rape and I make it clear to my adult groups that torture is an evil act the PCs should avoid.

Did that answer the question?

 

[alsih2o]

Did that answer the question?

sort of, and mostly i wonder, is anything on that list vile? i think as we have dodged "mature" (or tried to by putting it in quotes) i think it is now neccesary to define vile.

i think part of my point here is that much of core d+d is plenty vile.