I don't play with my kids (not having any helps ). I play with my nephew and niece, their parents play but not "with" them to my knowledge.

Quote from: RPGPunditI've previously stated: I'm against gamer parents playing RPGs with their kids.  It almost certainly guarantees that said kids will reject roleplaying games along with everything else from their childhood in an act of rebellion against you when they hit their teens.

It'll be "that stupid geeky thing dad likes, that he forced me to do when I was 9".

RPGPundit

Ummm, Klaxon played with us since he was little. By his teens he was writing "Papageniopolis Station" and "Book of Jalan" and "Sweet Chariot" with me. He'll turn 20 in January - if he's going to reject RPGs, he'd better get a move on...

-clash

Quote from: SilverlionI don't play with my kids (not having any helps ). I play with my nephew and niece, their parents play but not "with" them to my knowledge.

Hmm. That is less bad than if its a parent, especially if you're the "cool" uncle. But its only going to fly if their parents don't approve. Otherwise, you're just as fucked when they hit the teen years, and we miss out on more gamers.

The best possible strategy if you're the cool big brother or uncle is to let them know all about RPGs, but then not let them play with you "until they're older". This will drive them up the wall, and they'll take up RPGs by themselves (which you tacitly encourage them to do if they want to) just to show you that they're old enough to do it.

RPGPundit

QuoteIt'll be "that stupid geeky thing dad likes, that he forced me to do when I was 9".

He's 5, and he asked to play.

I personally don't care if he decides to drop gaming as a teen or not. If I get to have fun with my kid; help his reading, math, and problem solving skills; and feed his imagination then I'll do it gratefully. I'm certainly not going to turn my back on mutual (non-TV) entertainment for me and my kid on the off chance that he might decide a decade down the road that he doesn't like it any more.

Besides, I don't believe that bit that they're gauranteed to dislike the things they did with their parents. When I was growing up me and my family played a lot of games: Scrabble, Boggle, Monopoly, Backgammon, Chess, etc., etc. I still love all those things. My mom and I played a lot of video games together and I'm still a huge fan. My dad and I never sat and read the same book together, but he was always very encouraging of my reading, and I still love to do that. Both my parents listened to a lot of "classic Rock" and although it's started to become "Oldies Rock" instead, I still listen to some of the songs I grew up hearing.

If the things you do with your children chase them away, you're doing it wrong. Of course, using phrases like "forced me to do" shows pretty clearly that whoever the comment applies to did it very wrong.

Children don't reject everything their parents do, it's usually just the things they don't like themselves. Kids all over still watch TV even if their parents did. They still drink themselves stupid even if they had alcoholic parents. They still watch football on sundays even if their dad was a major "live sports vicariously through my kids" asshole.

Basic Marvel is like Basic D&D.  Great gobs of easy to play goodness in a box.  It's even better now because Marvel is offered as a FREE PDF.  Oddly enough, I can get my friends to play Marvel but can't even get them to try playing Basic D&D again.

Sniffle! It's even better!

Instead of playing Spider-man for Day of the Octopus he opted to make his own character. "Spark Everest" the electro-zapping, street healing, gravity thief.

Yesterday he spent resources to buy gear and karma to increase a stat.

Quote from: James McMurrayYesterday he spent resources to buy gear and karma to increase a stat.

Cool, "Spark Everest" is not a bad name either...

This afternoon Spark Everest bumped into his buddy The Thing outside the police station. Beside them a ring of fire / portal to another realm opened and they saw Human Torch fighting a bunch of devils. They stopped the devils but not before Torch was knocked out and the Thing was too weak to continue. Torch told Spark that he'd been sent by Dr. Strange to stop The Crimson King (ruler of Limbo) from taking over the earth. Spark decided to continue on and stop it.

He found a bridge by a chasm and chatted with the gaurdian. He didn't give any of the wrong answers and never lied, so he was let past (no, it wasn't Monty Python ).

At the castle he met the kind, who is really a little boy dressed just like my son was. They talked for a while and the king was nice so Spark didn't stop him from capturing the Earth and putting it in a micro-solar system glass case in his trophy room. I certainly wasn't expecting that.

When we left off Spark had asked to be able to explore some of the planets the Crimson King had captured and was off to visit Ramalar.

I'm training him right. He's already learning how to detect the largest monkey wrench and hurl it straight to the center of a GM's well-laid plans.

Quote from: RPGPunditI've previously stated: I'm against gamer parents playing RPGs with their kids.  It almost certainly guarantees that said kids will reject roleplaying games along with everything else from their childhood in an act of rebellion against you when they hit their teens.

Hey, good thinking.  By that logic, maybe I should start smoking and drinking with my kids now.

Honestly, I don't think you know whereof you speak.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaHey, good thinking.  By that logic, maybe I should start smoking and drinking with my kids now.

Honestly, I don't think you know whereof you speak.

!i!

Those are vices, not nerdly hobbies. While its conceivable that a kid might "rebel" against a hard-drinking hard-smoking parent by becoming totally straighedge or finding Jesus or something, there's a huge counterweight called "teen culture" that tells him these things are SO fucking cool, that even if your parents do it its ok for you to do it too.

Not so with the "Nerdly Arts".

RPGPundit

I think you'll find that actual parents have the crazy idea that they know more about their kids than you do. Nuts, I know, but people are funny like that.

Pundit:  I think you're assuming one particular possible situation which I agree would be bad:  Dad takes his unwilling children and compels them to play roleplaying games in such a way that it remains "dad's activity."  That's bad not so much because of later teenage rebellion as because it's a sucky thing for a parent to do.  But yes, it will also lead to teenage rebellion.  Karmic, that.

But every parent I know who RPs with his or her kids (including me) has instead offered the experience in a way that makes it attractive.  It is not hard to convince a kid to play these kinds of games with you.  What's hard is to convince them to stop so that you can, y'know, eat and sleep and go about the rest of your life.  And then, because the parent doesn't RP enough for the kid, they go off and find some friends and teach them to play.

It's not a game that the parent plays, anymore.  It's a game that the child plays, which the parent happened to introduce him to.  The parent becomes one member of the circle of gamers that the child has at their disposal.

Now I'll admit that my kids have not yet become teenagers, so maybe I'm underestimating the power of the teenage desire to rebel against anything the parents can possibly find fun, but I don't personally think that the type of thing I describe above is going to lead to many problems.  I'll get back to you in 10 years or so with hard data.

Quote from: James McMurrayAt the castle he met the kind, who is really a little boy dressed just like my son was. They talked for a while and the king was nice so Spark didn't stop him from capturing the Earth and putting it in a micro-solar system glass case in his trophy room. I certainly wasn't expecting that.

Awesome!  "Try to eat our planet now, Galactus!  PWNED!"

Quote from: TonyLBPundit:  I think you're assuming one particular possible situation which I agree would be bad:  Dad takes his unwilling children and compels them to play roleplaying games in such a way that it remains "dad's activity."  That's bad not so much because of later teenage rebellion as because it's a sucky thing for a parent to do.  But yes, it will also lead to teenage rebellion.  Karmic, that.

But every parent I know who RPs with his or her kids (including me) has instead offered the experience in a way that makes it attractive.  It is not hard to convince a kid to play these kinds of games with you.  What's hard is to convince them to stop so that you can, y'know, eat and sleep and go about the rest of your life.  And then, because the parent doesn't RP enough for the kid, they go off and find some friends and teach them to play.

It's not a game that the parent plays, anymore.  It's a game that the child plays, which the parent happened to introduce him to.  The parent becomes one member of the circle of gamers that the child has at their disposal.

Now I'll admit that my kids have not yet become teenagers, so maybe I'm underestimating the power of the teenage desire to rebel against anything the parents can possibly find fun, but I don't personally think that the type of thing I describe above is going to lead to many problems.  I'll get back to you in 10 years or so with hard data.

Yes, we'll have to see who was right.  But I'm willing to bet that of the people with kids here who they've gotten to roleplay, most of your kids will no longer be roleplayers by their 16th birthday.

RPGPundit