Pundit, I think your argument is based on the flawed premise that parents who game with their children are doing so to fill a gaming void in the parents' life.  While there might be some cases like that, I have a hard time imagining that it's a widespread phenomenon.  And even in such cases, I'm unconvinced that it would be a negative thing.  (I certainly find the beauty pageant parallel to be over-the-top.  I think that speaks more to your perception of RPGs as a purely adult activity than anything else.)

I lack a set of data on parents who play RPGs with their kids to go on; I only have my personal experience.  My experience is that the children saw the adults playing RPGs and having fun.  They "got it," and they wanted to play, too.  It's really as simple as that.  You're imagining the coercion from the wrong side.  

I have wondered if my kids will come to see RPGs as something to reject when they're teens.  The jury is still out on that one, but I will say that the oldest of the kids have become young teens and it hasn't happened, yet.  (But I also haven't seen teen rebellion in full force, yet.)  Actually, the two older kids have started playing RPGs with their friends, so even if they don't want to play with Dad, anymore, at some point, I'm not sure that would also mean a complete rejection of RPGs.  But even if it did, so what?  I rejected all sorts of stuff when I was a teen.  But I survived and grew out of it.  (Except for brussel sprouts.  I still hate those fucking things.)

I was just thinking about teen rebellion.  Pundit, if you had some rebellious teen kids, I bet they'd reject Amber and start playing My Life With Master.  That would show you.

Quote from: two_fishes;382570Great OP. Very cute.

I agree.

I can hardly wait to see the full game!

Quote from: two_fishes;382570Does Pundit have any clue how laughably ridiculous he's being?
Probably not...

I certainly hope not.  This place would become considerably more boring if he ever regained his sanity.

Quote from: Fifth Element;382563How about, they want to play the game they see you playing? Kids have this thing where they like to be like mom and dad. It's how they learn shit.

A kid might be really excited by my gun collection or my wife's piercings, but that doesnt' mean I should let my 6-year old play with a glock or a 5 year old get a tongue piercing.

QuoteBut you can say for certain that it would have been a bad idea?

Not for absolute certainty. I'm sure that some of the kids of gamer-parents who inflict D&D on their toddlers will grow up to be D&D geeks themselves, and will have warm memories of having been introduced to orcs and beholders on daddy's lap.
But I suspect that more will end up rejecting it in adolescence, the age when they SHOULD be playing RPGs, because they will now think of it as something that's "babyish" (because they were made to play it when they were still babies) and as something "lame" (because their parents do it).
And I think that in the case of any of those gamers who game with their children because they have no adult group, those kids are going to end up needing a fucking psychologist. Because they're essentially being used, in the same way that child-beauty-pageant kids are being used.  They might like it, more or less, at the time they're kids, but when they're adults do you think they won't figure out that it was more about satisfying what daddy wanted than anything else?

QuoteDidn't work for me. When I showed interest in the game my parents were only too happy to buy me some books and dice. They didn't play with me but did nothing to discourage me from playing.

I'm not saying that's a bad idea either. All I'm saying is DON'T PLAY WITH THEM. Shit, of course, if your kid asks you to buy you D&D for him when he's 11, go for it. Let him run his game in your kitchen table with his friends. Just don't play with him, don't impose yourself into what should be about kids creating their own fun. Because its not the same if dad is there, no matter how much dad wants to imagine it'd be the same; its like the difference between kids kicking around the ball on the street (or these days, I guess in the park), and organized little-league soccer.

When he's about 16, and essentially not a child anymore, if he wants to join your gaming group (and yes, go get a motherfucking gaming group full of adults), then you can let him in gladly, and he'll get the feeling that its a rite of passage for him. You'll have made a gamer for life.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;382581I was just thinking about teen rebellion.  Pundit, if you had some rebellious teen kids, I bet they'd reject Amber and start playing My Life With Master.  That would show you.

No I don't think they would, see, because I wouldn't have let them play Amber with me. They'd "rebel" by getting their own Amber group together and playing RPGs like god intended young gamers to do it: a bunch of kids with no fucking clue what they're doing making half their shit up and running godawful monty-haul adventures that make no fucking sense, without any parent around to ruin the fun.

RPGpundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;382795A kid might be really excited by my gun collection or my wife's piercings, but that doesnt' mean I should let my 6-year old play with a glock or a 5 year old get a tongue piercing.

WTF? Comparing gaming to guns and piercings?

Quote from: Benoist;382815WTF? Comparing gaming to guns and piercings?

And kiddie beauty pageants.  Pundit clearly sees RPGs as an adults-only kind of activity, such that it's actually kind of perverse for adults to include children.  (Or at least for adults and children to play in the same game.)

I find that bizarre, but don't have much else to say about it.

GUNS & Piercings! the next D20 Modern release coming soon this fall from Gonzo Games!!


You gotta admit that does sound like it could be the title of a game book or expansion.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;382879And kiddie beauty pageants.  Pundit clearly sees RPGs as an adults-only kind of activity, such that it's actually kind of perverse for adults to include children.  (Or at least for adults and children to play in the same game.)

I find that bizarre, but don't have much else to say about it.

No, its more like I see RPGs as a kind of rite of passage of early adulthood; which can be absolutely spoiled by any of the following:
1. Having it introduced to you too soon.
2. Not being allowed to work it out on your own, having all the effort, and crazy-early-wrongness taken out of it.
3. Having it "structured" by older authority figures.
4. Having it ruined by it being associated with your lame older relatives (especially PARENTS), which sucks all the early-teenage "freedom" out of it.
5. Particularly if you come to realize that when said parent was gaming with you, you were basically being used by him as a substitute for a "real" group.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;382995No, its more like I see RPGs as a kind of rite of passage of early adulthood; which can be absolutely spoiled by any of the following:
1. Having it introduced to you too soon.
2. Not being allowed to work it out on your own, having all the effort, and crazy-early-wrongness taken out of it.
3. Having it "structured" by older authority figures.
4. Having it ruined by it being associated with your lame older relatives (especially PARENTS), which sucks all the early-teenage "freedom" out of it.
5. Particularly if you come to realize that when said parent was gaming with you, you were basically being used by him as a substitute for a "real" group.

RPGPundit

That's... a really weird way of looking at it.
None of these things "have to" or even are "likely" to unfold if a young child plays RPG with his parents. It seems you're thinking about parents who are gamers as inherently dysfunctional in regards to gaming and their children. That's WAY too close to the "brain-damage" argument for my taste, honestly.

Part of me wishes I had found RPGs before I became a teenager.  I was big-time into pretend when I was really little, and really liked playing specific characters and developing elaborate situations.  I also played quite a bit of video/PC games (Mechwarrior and Wolfenstein were among my favorites).  In fact, I began playing Wolfenstein because I saw my father playing it one time and wanted to try (and thus began my quest to play more challenging and complex "adult" games in the form of PC games, which in turn led to me becoming a "gamer", which in turn led to Magic, which in turn led to D&D).  I also remember watching quite a lot of sword & sorcery/scifi on TV with my dad, which I really enjoyed.  My father wasn't really a gamer, but he did have a passing interest in some "geeky" things.

So, maybe I wasn't that rebellious as a teenager, or maybe that rebellion took other forms, but I think when you get down to it (and the science behind it), you see that the things kids want most, even in their teenage years, is to be accepted by and spend time with their parents.  I personally wish my father and I had more in common, and that we had done more together, since now we have very little common ground on anything, and our relationship isn't as good as it could be.  He had his own "rebellion" of sorts when he got remarried, completely flipping from an apathetic Lutheran to a fundamentalist born-again Christian who decided to reject all of the knowledge and wisdom he had gained as a father and a Mason and substitute in superstitions.

Maybe a parent's rejection of the hobby spurred others on, but when you're a relatively good kid who believes they have an ok relationship with God...I don't know.  When my father told me the things I derived joy from were somehow evil, satanic, and that they were corrupting my soul, sure, I shook my head because I knew he was being silly, but it also hurt that I couldn't speak of the things I enjoyed with him, and that a lot of our other common ground had also been tossed aside to make way for his new religious life.

I think that having common interests with your family and loved ones is important, and trying to take a hobby like RPGs and squarely place them in the realm of "friends only" is being a bit unfair.  By their nature, RPG groups form from social cliques often made up of peers, but that doesn't mean that they're limited solely to that sort of social situation.  You could replace RPGs with any other sort of activity teenagers might get into, and it would work just as well, since it's not that certain activities only work for socialization or passing into adulthood, but just the act of sharing a common activity.

I don't view not playing RPGs or other sorts of games that teenagers get into with my parents as "how it is", I view it as a missed opportunity to spend time and share an interest with my father.

Fuck, that was long.  Sorry.

Quote from: Peregrin;383051I don't view not playing RPGs or other sorts of games that teenagers get into with my parents as "how it is", I view it as a missed opportunity to spend time and share an interest with my father.

Fuck, that was long.  Sorry.

That was one hell of a good post. Kudos.

Quote from: RPGPundit;382995No, its more like I see RPGs as a kind of rite of passage of early adulthood; which can be absolutely spoiled by any of the following:
1. Having it introduced to you too soon.
2. Not being allowed to work it out on your own, having all the effort, and crazy-early-wrongness taken out of it.
3. Having it "structured" by older authority figures.
4. Having it ruined by it being associated with your lame older relatives (especially PARENTS), which sucks all the early-teenage "freedom" out of it.
5. Particularly if you come to realize that when said parent was gaming with you, you were basically being used by him as a substitute for a "real" group.

I'm gonna go with Benoist on this one; this is mighty close to a Swiney argument. You're arguing that there's a "right way" to start playing RPGs, or at the very least, a wrong way. I know several people who were introduced to D&D by their parents, a couple of them are in my current group and have been playing for nearly 30 years.

Your assumptions here about how a game run by a kid's parent are just a bit batshit, too. Why wouldn't the game be run for the kids, rather than the adult? Unless the parent is a Viking Hat DM who can only run one type of game (regardless of what his players want), but those are pretty rare.

Quote from: Benoist;383026That's... a really weird way of looking at it.
None of these things "have to" or even are "likely" to unfold if a young child plays RPG with his parents. It seems you're thinking about parents who are gamers as inherently dysfunctional in regards to gaming and their children. That's WAY too close to the "brain-damage" argument for my taste, honestly.

I'm sure there are more than a few geek parents who are far from the "dysfunctional geek" model (I mean, at the very least they were sufficiently functional to be able to mate, which already puts them ahead of the typical dysfunctional gamer).

I'm sure there's lots of parents who are playing with their kids because the kids begged them to, and are not trying to coerce them into it, don't push the kids about it if the kids get bored with it, etc.
But even in those ideal situations, where the kid is totally not being taken advantage of in any way, I think it does deny those kids some special elements of discovering and exploring RPGs on their own that are very formative in the RPG experience.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Koltar;382308Thats because she wants him to have elf-confidence.


- Ed C.

L'd OL at that.