Other gamers with young kids

[Jvirtue55]

So my wife wants me to find gamers at least one of two that also have young children like we do so on some of the game nights they can bring over their wives and children I think this is cool and fair, I enjoy gaming with people who I am friends with out side of gaming until recently that's how I usually gamed. Moving cost me my past game groups.


How do you go about finding other gamers with young kids or does that cause people to give up on gaming in person for the time being?


Or do I have to find friends and convert them to playing RPGs?


Im just hoping for some good discussion on this topic.

 

[was]

It really depends on the age of the children. The younger the children, the less likely the parents are to game. Many give it up for a few years until the kids are older. I have gamed with folks who have included their kids in the campaign. Usually they are around seven or eight and the group looks after them. I would look on the Gamers seeking Gamers forum here and/or check out your local FLGS, you're likely to find some other couples in the same situation. You could also talk to your friends and see which ones might be interested in trying it out. It helps if their wives are already friends with yours

 

[Janx]

I cannot imagine "game night" working out if the house has 10 kids running in and out of the house around screaming and interrupting every 2 minutes.

I have heard of situations where a non-gaming spouse will watch all the kids while everybody else plays.

Otherwise, wait until the divorce, and game when the kids are at the ex's. sad, but true.

 

[Umbran]

Otherwise, wait until the divorce, and game when the kids are at the ex's. sad, but true.

Cynical.

If you are going to work with adults with lives and children, you have to work with their needs. You want to take a parent for 8+ hours on a weekend? Yes, that'll be a problem. That's prime family time.

I have a game that typically runs twice a month. One of our players met a wonderful lady, married her, and she's now pregnant with their second child, and he's still with us and eager. What matters is that the non-gaming spouse recognize that some short time on a hobby and socializing is healthy. We aren't taking him for entire weekends, or even for eight-hour stretches. Just a few hours on a weeknight that they don't generally have plans on anyway. Another member of the group also has a kid - this one about 9 years old - and he's had no more frequent attendance conflicts than anyone else at the table, myself included.

 

[Janx]

Cynical.

If you are going to work with adults with lives and children, you have to work with their needs. You want to take a parent for 8+ hours on a weekend? Yes, that'll be a problem. That's prime family time.

I have a game that typically runs twice a month. One of our players met a wonderful lady, married her, and she's now pregnant with their second child, and he's still with us and eager. What matters is that the non-gaming spouse recognize that some short time on a hobby and socializing is healthy. We aren't taking him for entire weekends, or even for eight-hour stretches. Just a few hours on a weeknight that they don't generally have plans on anyway. Another member of the group also has a kid - this one about 9 years old - and he's had no more frequent attendance conflicts than anyone else at the table, myself included.

You haven't contradicted my point.

You aren't going to regularly get an 8+ hour run with a parent (without causing issues), and you aren't going to have all the kids over WHILE trying to run a game without some issues either.

As you say, a more limited weeknight session with just the player (kids + spouse stay home) is fairly practical and likely to work out.

There's probably somebody who's made it work out with all the kids over, some adults watching, and the rest of the adults gaming. Likely depends on the home design (for isolating the kids out) and the nature of the supervising parents (some do an excellent job of containing the kids, others didn't get the memo that watching the kids is a Job).

 

[Koloth]

For the most part, young kids and RPGs don't mix. When they are in the wriggling larval stage, things are ok just with interruptions. When they are self portable bundles of trouble, gaming is mostly impossible if the kids are anywhere near the game table. Once they are old enough to be on their own for hours at a time, you can game again. Have watched this play out with several gaming groups and friends. Generally, until the kids are 6ish, plan on either no gaming or paying/bribing someone to watch them at a different location.

One game I was in had 5 kids in the 2-3 range running around the house. A ten hour weekend gaming session yielded about 2 hours of useful gaming time. The game folded due to that and it had been running for several years before the first kid showed up.

If they are old enough and want to play, that is different. They cease being kids and are now just players at the table. With some allowances for short attention spans.

 

[Janx]

Koloth's pretty accurately described the growth stage of kids in relation to gaming.

 

[steenan]

I have two kids: a daughter 4 years old and a son 5 months old.

We recently finished a campaign where I was the GM and my wife one of the players. We player a session every two weeks on average. The children definitely require some attention, but it's much less than many people expect. Our daughter can mostly take care of herself during our session and creates a significant interruption maybe twice during a six hour session. The boy requires breastfeeding but it can be done during play with no problem.

I remember much bigger problems when the daughter was about one-two years old. We were still able to play, but the amount of disruptions was much higher than what we have now or what we had when she was a baby.

 

[was]

I think the greater focus here is bringing the wives so yours has someone to visit with. I'd try to get two or three other wives to come along. You could then include 1 or 2 single folks. Maybe count on 1 or 2 other children max. I don't know if I would go full bore on getting 4 or 5 couples with kids at every session. It's hard to do with peoples lives and work.

 

[Celebrim]

I wasn't playing a lot of RPGs when my kids were in the first few instar stages, but I did play adult board games.

In general...

a) First instar humans basically eat, sleep, and poop and as such are easy to take care of in just about any situation. They don't have much patience though, so you have to take care of the immediately. This means that the adults need to supply the patience that the infants lack.

b) Second instar humans like all humans whose brains have gone through the initial compile stage need lots of intellectual stimulus, and in most cases also lots of social stimulus. The still also lack patience, so you have to take care of them immediately and usually continuously. They also become mobile and so require a lot more direct oversight as they have the manipulative digits to manipulate just about anything, but lack sufficient experience to attach causes to effects. Leave them alone and they'll break something, potentially themselves. This is probably the hardest period for getting your gaming in or really any other adult interaction. Your best bet here is to employ baby sitters. This can either be older children that enjoy playing with the little ones (third instars work), or it can be an 4th instar "preteen" or even a "teen" - though the later will usually expect some sort of payment.

c) Third instar humans are much like second instars, but they can reasonably left without direct supervision and usually actually prefer it most of the time provided they have a means of amusing themselves. This lets you use games, electronics, and even other children as sitters, and pretty much everyone will enjoy it as a change of pace.

d) Fourth and fifth instars will likely enjoy being incorporated in the adult gaming itself, and this can be a special pleasure for everyone involved. It may mean you have an especially large group or multiple tables though.

If your kids are beyond the eat, sleep, poop stage, but not yet big enough to be left in front of a movie or a pile of board games with the expectation of only needing minimal help from you for the next few hours, then I suggest you're probably at that point where a) you do actually need friends that know what this is like and are sympathetic and b) that the best adult games to enjoy during this period are the ones that don't require absolutely continual attention and involve frequent short breaks. It's also helpful if everyone is ok with the casual pace of play that is likely to dominate during this period. I suppose RPGs would be theoretically possible, but I think you'd run the risk of looking like a parent from 'The Guild'. Again, employ a baby sitter and split the costs if you plan this. Lavishing high amounts of attention on kids below age 5-6 is pretty much going to be expected. Also, I find that regularly abandoning them and leaving them with a single spouse isn't fun for anyone including the one that got away. It's hard to get enough quality time with 'littles' as it is and the more time they have being co-parented the more content they tend to be. The good news is that this is all pretty temporary and its pretty easy to go back to your pre-parent pastimes once they get a little older.

It's recently occurred to me that the biggest obstacle to families of gamers getting together to play is probably the size of the house required to handle all the gamers and their retinue. Given a group size of say seven, if a large percentage of the group isn't spouses of the other half, it would be pretty easy for the entire group to be over two dozen. Hopefully you have a player with 'Stately Wayne Manor' who is willing to host.