Mamacat's helpful hints for gaming with couples with or without kids

[Quickbeam]

SteveC:

I find your comments to be completely fair and not the least bit parent or kid loathing. We all need to be respectful of the time, commitments, and obligations of other group members. Some people work odd hours, others may travel frequently. The point is to work together in an effort to achieve the best environment for each session given outside factors like kids, work, school, etc.

I think that the other members of my group would likely agree that I tend to shepherd our scheduling of sessions along. That's because I treasure the several hours of gaming I get every other week; that time is very important to me, and I want to make sure it transpires with as little friction as possible. The hardest part is getting each person in a group to recognize that every other person in the group had to set aside other "things" to game. I think folks tend to take other people's time for granted -- kids or no kids.

 

[Desdichado]

Speaking of which, Quickbeam, this coming weekend I'm out of town and therefore unavailable, but the next weekend after that looks clear. Let me check with Julie one more time to make sure I'm not forgetting something, and I'll respond to the latest rounds of scheduling emails.



EDIT: The white box around the smilie is very, very annoying. Is that going to go away soon?

 

[blargney the second]

EDIT: The white box around the smilie is very, very annoying. Is that going to go away soon?

Not if you're using Internet Explorer. It doesn't handle PNG images properly. Grab Firefox.

 

[CoatRackOfDoom]

Mamacat, thanks for the topic!

I'm a parent and a gamer, who's gamed with other parent/gamers as well as non-parents for several years now. Fascinating and gratifying to see so many people with different perspectives.

But what I wanted to contribute here was this:
When I discovered gaming, specifically AD&D, in 1979 I learned the ropes from another kid my age (11yrs). Then, several years of playing it with my pals and my brother... It wasn't until I was an adult myself that I met and learned from more experienced DMs. I would have thoroughly loved to learn the game from a group of adults, even more so if those adults were my parent(s) and their friends!

Seriously, how awesome would that have been?!

So, big kudos to those of you introducing children (your own, and those of your table mates) to this fantastic world. My daughter is 5 and utterly uninterested - but one day, I hope to bring her into the fold.

Cheers!

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

But when posters claim that it's just like having too much Mountain Dew or cracking lame jokes? I'm sorry, but it comes across as a parent's rationalization to me.

As one of the posters who made that equivocation I feel I should explicate some things.

First, I'm not a parent, and this wasn't an argument presented to me by any of the parents I know.

Second, I am frequently a DM and like you and your group I have to pick and choose what distractions we deal with, how intensely we will focus on play, and what sort of play we will embrace. I didn't mean to say that Monty Python jokes were inevitable, but that looking at those issues was. Choosing to have children at the table struck me as one more decision. One that is frequently incumbent first on the individual player - just as the individual player chooses to drink too much Mountain Dew or to attempt to enforce rigorous play style - and then on the group to adapt to that decision. My secondary point was that I was lot happier to have to face the choices surrounding children then I was the other common distractions associated with the hobby.

I certainly didn't mean to imply there was an inevitable and deterministicaly natural role for distraction within the game.