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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Harlock" data-source="post: 1038209" data-attributes="member: 4545">I'll be 30 in a month, so I'll tackle all I can remember. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I was 8 when I startedMostly episodic in nature with a focus on powering up, but by the age you're looking at I was just discovering the roleplaying aspects of it all.  It was a magical time, really.When the poop hit the fan back in the early-mid 80s my gramndmother freaked out and told my mom to make sure I stopped worshipping demons.  Fortunately my mom had spent countless hours listening to me and my friends sitting around the kitchen table rolling dice and chasing bad guys so knew all that devil worship stuff was a great steaming pile of feces.  Imagine, a parent actually involved in their kids lives... wait, that's another topic for another board.There were probably about 10 - 20 "hardcore" gamers in my Jr. High.  By hardcore I mean the type that gamed at least once a week and more often during summer vacation.  There were probably 20-40 more casual to closet gamer types.I feel D&D taught me a lot, from adding negative and positive numbers (hey, THAC0 at age 8 is pretty darn progressive, IMNSHO), mapping, communication skills (endless debates about rules and cool character concepts, etc) and doubtless helped encourage a love of reading, better vocabulary and excercised my imagination.I'm a parent who is working on a couple more kids down the road.8 was too early for AD&D, though it was my first game.  I quickly went to the pink box Basic set.  Looking at the box now I see it is suggested for kids age 10 and up.  Meh, I think a kid, with the help of a mentor/experienced gamer could catch on around the ages you asked about fairly quickly.  Kids learn more quickly than us older folks.I think, given your position, a good moral to the story may be imperative to encourage parents to let their kids play "that" game.  I'd focus exposing bad guys and frauds, saving the princess, solving mysteries and the like.  I would also try and direct them more into roleplaying and problem solving rather than trying to fight everyone and everything, as parents may get worked up over the level of violence.Hmm, I'd try to organize a "cheat sheet" of SRD material for a quick introduction.  Helping them create a character seems fairly important as well, but I would not suggest pre-genned characters unless they were dead set on starting yesterday.  An extra copy or two of the PH for them to thumb through until they get their own (in the game area of course) would be cool.  Also, prepare for questions from parents now.  There are several sites on the net that explain away the devil worship allegations and steam tunnel suicide pact crap people always bring up.  I'd print out as many copies as you could to keep for concerned parents and stafemembers of your school.  Tracy Hickman is a very Christian guy and actually writes Dragonlance novels and gaming products.  His personal site has many essays on it.  And, just being available to answer questions is a big boon.I hope any of this is of some use for you, and I wish you luck.  Just so you know, my wife teaches French at a High School here in town and this summer we added two of her graduates to a gaming group.  So far they've been really friendly and fun to be around.  My wife was uncomfortable having them in our home while they were in school since that can lead to cries of favoritism or worse (living in the bible belt and all), but asked them to join during their last week.  It's been rewarding, though I am already tired of being called Mr. Richardson...</blockquote>

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