A Note on Kids and PnP RPGs.
Feeling inspired today. Just finished a conversation with a friend about bringing his 11 year old son into some of our D&D4e games. He was hesitant, thinking that the group might not like bringing someone so young into the games (average age for the group is 30). I told him that he had nothing to worry about, the boy is bright and seems really interested in playing. Of course, those are the obvious reasons.
The not-so-obvious reasons are based in my own experiences of being a boy about that age and being invited to play D&D (2e, baby!) at my older brother’s friend’s house. I remember that game like it was last night. I was raised a young evangelical Christian, so I had seen the scary-as-hell tracts telling me about the evil powers of Dungeons and Dragons. Heck, I had even seen Tom Hanks take LARPing to a new level in Mazes & Monsters. So, maybe I was a little nervous. But that quickly evaporated when I saw the miniatures and character sheets my brother’s friend had prepared for us. They were awesome.
The night is ingrained in my memory. I remember the first frantic fight with the orcs in the entryway to the cave, the weird underground pond populated by carnivorous frogs, and a final that peaked when our Dwarf fighter yanked his spear back out of the hands of a troll. The classic troll: green, lanky, and hard as heck to kill. We all hooted with glee when the Dwarf got his spear back, you could feel the tension ratcheting up when the DM described the troll’s wounds healing as fast as we were making them. It was better than a movie, miles better than a video game.
It’s funny how these memories stayed with me so persistently, but I think it was the first time in my young life that I felt like I was a hero in the company of heroes. We knew it was game, but it was such an exciting game!
This only increased when I got to play with my older brother’s friend’s actual group. They were all older guys, but we were all on the same playing field, and you would have thought that I had entered the vaulted halls of the Justice League of America. This experience really shaped who I am today in a profound way. It really uncovered creative tendencies in my personality that I might not have recognized otherwise, and it turned me into a voracious reader. It was like someone flipped the switch and my imagination came to life in a way I hadn’t experienced before.
So, yeah. Bring your kids. They’ll have more fun than you could imagine.
