Jeff Wilder
First Post
So a strange thing happened during a game session today. First, the quick set-up: We play every Sunday (give or take) and every other Saturday in my gameroom, which has a large window open to the gated private alley behind my house. We typically keep the window open (with a screen).
So today, after about two hours of playing, I hear, from outside, "Hello! Hello?!" My chair is nearest the window, so I roll back and look down, to see an attractive young woman with a small stack of books.
"Hello?" I ask.
"Hi! What are you guys doing?"
"Um ... " I look and shrug at the other players, then back down into the alley. "We're playing Dungeons and Dragons."
"I thought so," she says, and shows me the top book on her stack (Cityscape). "Can I come in and watch?"
Understand that at this point I thought she was around 18 or 20 or so. "Well ... sure." So she does. Up close she looks much younger -- my guess is 13 or 14, but the others think 15 or 16. In any event, I'm starting to feel a little weird about it. We're four guys and a woman, all between 30 and 39, and we've just invited a teenage girl in? Does Dateline NBC do this show?
In any event, it turned out she was my directly-behind neighbor, and she'd told her mom where she was going. Anyway, she had to leave for a while, but after we found out she'd told her mom, we said she could come back later and watch the rest of the session. Which she did, and this time she brought her twin brother Marcus. It turned out they were 16.
Now, I strongly believe in getting younger players involved in the game, so when they ask if they could join the game, I'm torn. "First things first," I tell them. "You need to talk to your parents about it. We can see where it goes from there."
"Well, do you want to meet our mom right now? She's right downstairs." Since there were several players there, I figured it was as good a time as any. Their mother, Karen, came up and met us and -- of course -- marvelled at our geekness. I'm pretty sure we came off as harmless, which of course we are, and Karen herself asked for contact information. We left it at that ... completely up to their mother to contact us if she decides it's okay.
The thing is, when I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone afterward, her reaction was ... fairly extreme. She thinks it would be completely inappropriate for us to game with 16-year-olds. I was a little taken aback, and keep in mind that I was concerned about the propriety myself. But I kinda feel like as long as you're completely open with the parents and make sure they know it's entirely their decision ... well, I'm not really sure what the big deal is. If they do join us, we'll have to dial back maybe 30 percent on the ribaldry at the table, but it seems like everybody thinks helping young players get involved in the hobby would make that worth it.
What do people think about this?
So today, after about two hours of playing, I hear, from outside, "Hello! Hello?!" My chair is nearest the window, so I roll back and look down, to see an attractive young woman with a small stack of books.
"Hello?" I ask.
"Hi! What are you guys doing?"
"Um ... " I look and shrug at the other players, then back down into the alley. "We're playing Dungeons and Dragons."
"I thought so," she says, and shows me the top book on her stack (Cityscape). "Can I come in and watch?"
Understand that at this point I thought she was around 18 or 20 or so. "Well ... sure." So she does. Up close she looks much younger -- my guess is 13 or 14, but the others think 15 or 16. In any event, I'm starting to feel a little weird about it. We're four guys and a woman, all between 30 and 39, and we've just invited a teenage girl in? Does Dateline NBC do this show?
In any event, it turned out she was my directly-behind neighbor, and she'd told her mom where she was going. Anyway, she had to leave for a while, but after we found out she'd told her mom, we said she could come back later and watch the rest of the session. Which she did, and this time she brought her twin brother Marcus. It turned out they were 16.
Now, I strongly believe in getting younger players involved in the game, so when they ask if they could join the game, I'm torn. "First things first," I tell them. "You need to talk to your parents about it. We can see where it goes from there."
"Well, do you want to meet our mom right now? She's right downstairs." Since there were several players there, I figured it was as good a time as any. Their mother, Karen, came up and met us and -- of course -- marvelled at our geekness. I'm pretty sure we came off as harmless, which of course we are, and Karen herself asked for contact information. We left it at that ... completely up to their mother to contact us if she decides it's okay.
The thing is, when I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone afterward, her reaction was ... fairly extreme. She thinks it would be completely inappropriate for us to game with 16-year-olds. I was a little taken aback, and keep in mind that I was concerned about the propriety myself. But I kinda feel like as long as you're completely open with the parents and make sure they know it's entirely their decision ... well, I'm not really sure what the big deal is. If they do join us, we'll have to dial back maybe 30 percent on the ribaldry at the table, but it seems like everybody thinks helping young players get involved in the hobby would make that worth it.
What do people think about this?
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