Quote from: TonyLBBut 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.

I didn't even do that. The day I bought the box from my FLGS my son saw it, cracked it open, and admired the maps and counters. I came in the room and he was on the couch reading the rules and looking at the pictures of Captain America and Spiderman beating up bad guys. Then he asked me if he could play.

Quote from: RPGPunditBut 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.

So what? If that happens to be the case then the odds are pretty good they'll have other hobbies that make them happy, and we'll have gotten to spend some quality time with our kids. Sounds like a win/win to me.

Quote from: James McMurraySo what? If that happens to be the case then the odds are pretty good they'll have other hobbies that make them happy, and we'll have gotten to spend some quality time with our kids. Sounds like a win/win to me.

I think this is the meat of it, right here. Parents have a responsiblity to their kids, not "the hobby."

Quote from: RPGPunditYes, 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.

Big deal.  When I was a kid, my mother always pushed classical music on me, deriding rock & roll.  As a teenager I never listened to it.  By my mid-20s I was an opera nut by my own hand.  Go figure.  She also pushed literature and art on me, some of which stuck, some didn't.  I'm currently throwing jazz down my son's throat, and I don't expect him to be a consummate jazz-cat when he's a teen.

To turn your prediction on its head, let's look instead at the children of parents who don't ever play RPGs with them.  How many of those kids do you suppose are going to become RPGers as teens?  Do you really suppose that the number of RPGers gained by avoiding potential teenage rebellion is going to offset the number of RPGers lost through lack of exposure?

I think what this argument really boils down to is what most of your arguments boil down to: shitty GM-ing.  Shitty GMs will chase off potential new RPGers like nobody's business.  As Tony suggested above, you seem to be assuming an overzealous parent who forces his kids to play a game that they don't want to play.  How is this any different from a shitty GM forcing his mature players to play a game they don't want to play?  The solution is similar in both situations: Don't be a shitty GM, and don't be a shitty parent.

See? Parenting is really very simple business.

!i!

(P.S. We don't play RPGs too regularly in my family -- my kids prefer board games card games like Pokemon and Xeco -- but they thoroughly enjoy playing HeroQuest with me at home from time to time, and I understand that they've begun to play D&D with their mates on the bus to and from school.  That should warm your cold heart.)

While I never played with one of my parents I did get Basic D&D for Christmas one year, so it was either my dad or my grandparents that got me started on the hobby (can't remember which).

Also, I think the vast majority of gamers never gamed with their parents.

Quote from: James McMurrayAlso, I think the vast majority of gamers never gamed with their parents.

But, were the parents with whom they never played gamers themselves?  That seems to be essential to the thesis at hand.

We're just now getting to the point where we can start to see the results of 2nd-generation gaming.  It's like rock & roll, which people used to say would never last.  It has, but each new batch of teenagers embraces a new form of rock & roll that rejects its forebears, while the predecessors deride the tastes of their successors (which I think bears an unmistakable similarity to RPGPundit's perceived gaming-culture-wars, and perhaps bears out his concerns to a degree).

!i!

The answer to that question requires a lot more research than I've ever done.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaBut, were the parents with whom they never played gamers themselves?  That seems to be essential to the thesis at hand.

...We're just now getting to the point where we can start to see the results of 2nd-generation gaming.

My dad didn't play any games of whatever sort, ever. He wasn't a grumpy fart or anything, it just wasn't his bag.  My mom...well she'd never have anything to do with something so occult.  Uno, Monopoly, and Scrabble (which I played with my maternal grandmother), and a few card games (crib, wisk, which I played with parternal side relatives).  Keep in mind that by the time the very first D&D came out in 1974 my parents were well into their 20's and were just having their 3rd child.  As far as I know it is still pretty rare for people to start playing past their early 20's, and the only people that personally know that have is because of a spouse that plays.

So here I am, my oldest is 12. So yup, that's about right. We are just now getting into the potetial for 2nd generation gamers, with it being relatively rare to have a chance at a second generation gamer that's also of, say, voting age.

My friend Luke's mum's boyfriend played RPGs, and Luke started some time in his late teens. He's now 30.

Quote from: droogMy friend Luke's mum's boyfriend played RPGs, and Luke started some time in his late teens. He's now 30.

Any age difference between Mum and Stepdad? How old was Mum when she had Luke?

Dunno. I'll have to get back to you on those.

Anyone have any sort of numbers on when the first big influx RPG players occured? Sure D&D first was sold in 1974, but my understanding is that RPGs were small potatoes compared to war boardgames until sometime into the 1980s, and war boardgames had peeked in the few 100's of thousands of customers. A 100,000 people in the US is far less than 0.1% of the population.

Note that I'm not so much suggesting that you should avoid roleplaying with your kids just because as I am suggesting that you should try to make it some kind of a "rite of passage"; something they'll associate with "being old enough" so that they'll feel more drawn to gaming when they're older.

Anyways, I doubt I'll get far in this argument; parents utterly despise the suggestion that they're ever doing anything wrong in the raising of their precious little darlings, even something as insignificant as this. And hey, maybe when it comes down to it its not "wrong" per se, as one of you said, what matters to YOU is that you're having fun with your kid NOW, but that kind of proves my point that you're doing it more for your sake than for theirs, even if its at the cost that later it'll be one of the many things they will end up avoiding on purpose to distance themselves from you.

RPGPundit

You plainly have no idea what you're talking about.  It's not like you're dead wrong or anything, but you're just taking wild guesses on, what is for you, a purely academic topic.  Wilder than ours are.

!i!

[Edit:  Sorry, I neglected this bit...

Quote from: RPGPundit...what matters to YOU is that you're having fun with your kid NOW, but that kind of proves my point that you're doing it more for your sake than for theirs...

Truer words could not be said...about shitty GMing, or just about any activity, including parenting.  Engaging others solely for your own amusement or enrichment is invariably a recipe for later animosity.]

Quote from: RPGPunditNote that I'm not so much suggesting that you should avoid roleplaying with your kids just because as I am suggesting that you should try to make it some kind of a "rite of passage"; something they'll associate with "being old enough" so that they'll feel more drawn to gaming when they're older.

Anyways, I doubt I'll get far in this argument; parents utterly despise the suggestion that they're ever doing anything wrong in the raising of their precious little darlings, even something as insignificant as this. And hey, maybe when it comes down to it its not "wrong" per se, as one of you said, what matters to YOU is that you're having fun with your kid NOW, but that kind of proves my point that you're doing it more for your sake than for theirs, even if its at the cost that later it'll be one of the many things they will end up avoiding on purpose to distance themselves from you.

RPGPundit

Whatever. Your head is in your ass. You spend time with your kids for their sake and your own. Perhaps you should move from here to giving advice to Everest climbers or astronauts, areas in which I suspect you have about as much experiance with as parenting.

And this line, coming from you, is the amusing: "parents utterly despise the suggestion that they're ever doing anything wrong"
Maybe, but if you ever want to see some one with a problem admitting that they are wrong, get a mirror.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaYou plainly have no idea what you're talking about.  It's not like you're dead wrong or anything, but you're just taking wild guesses on, what is for you, a purely academic topic.  Wilder than ours are.

!i!

Not purely academic, I successfully turned one kid into a roleplayer, my little brother.  The brother-brother relationship is different than the parent/child relationship, obviously.  But here's the deal: my brother is ten years younger than me.  When he was 8 I was 18, etc. etc.  Since he was around that age he wanted very badly to play RPGs with me. And I would have loved to do so with him; there were plenty of times when I almost gave in and went along with his wishes, when I was bored, or wanted to run something for him, be the cool big brother, or what have you.

But I knew that if I did that when he was 8, or 10, or whatever, to drop it when he was 15.  I also realized that if I gamed with him then, it would have been for my sake, for my entertainment, to show off something "cool" I did, etc etc.  He wanted to do it, he might have enjoyed it at the time, but his enjoyment would have been completely secondary to me getting to have my fun.

So instead, I told him, explicitly that he would NOT be allowed to RP with me till he was 16.  He could read my books, look at them, all he liked. He could borrow them if he wanted to play the game with his friends, but he was not allowed to play in my group until he was 16.

He argued with me, tried to prove to me that he was old enough, and finally, when he was 12, he took some books and ran his own game with his friends, introducing RPGs to all of them.  He was already running regular games by the time he was 16, and finally "allowed" to play in my own group, after which he became a regular member of my gaming group in Canada.

So not only do I have some personal experience, but it was a success story, one that made my little brother and SEVERAL of his friends into roleplayers for life.

RPGPundit