I have to do a bunch of real work today, so I’m just going to point to a fantastic column at GeekDad that every GeekMom and GeekDad should read: Teaching Kids to Roleplay is Only Natural.
Children are born to role play.
It is one of the key ways in which children learn. Ok, so it isn’t all dice, paper and miniatures, but children have been creating their own RPGs forever. They don’t even use dice.
All the early childhood development professionals know this only too well. Children mimic and recreate the worlds – pre-school teachers set up pretend shops, pirate ships or moonscapes encouraging the creation of both real and make-believe worlds. In these worlds children adopt characters and create personalities in which they can test out behaviors and interactions. (sound familiar)
We know roleplaying is fun, educational and entertaining. So, how can we further foster this roleplaying in our children so it thrives beyond preschool?
One of the greatest challenges I had when I was trying to pass my love of RPGs along to my kids was finding a way to make the experience accessible and relevant to them. It was much harder than I thought it would be, because I approached the whole thing as a guy who had been doing it for almost 25 years. (Sweet Jeebus. Twenty-Five years. Allow me to fall down while that sinks in.) If I’d had something like this column to guide me, I may have been able to add two more pencil-and-paper gamers to the world, and wouldn’t end this post with a lament.
Sigh.
I wish I had someone to introduce me to role playing games when I was younger. My first introduction was from some kids I was babysitting (10 yrs. old) while I was 18.
–JacqueChadall
Wil,
I also highly recommend ChattyDM’s series on gaming with his son:
Starts here http://chattydm.net/2008/08/19/chattys-bedtime-campaign-nicos-quest/
and here’s the tag link to his series: http://chattydm.net/tag/gaming-with-kids/
Good luck with the “real work”. Too bad that by the time you’ve got 25 yrs experience being good at *that* you’re ideally looking forward to retirement and a lighter workload.
I started role-playing when I was 5 years old. My parents sent the girl home and then proceeded to teach me about the birds and bees.
“(Sweet Jeebus. Twenty-Five years. Allow me to fall down while that sinks in.)”
I’m right there with you! I just passed my 25 year roleplaying anniversary last July. I’ve spent over 70% of my life with RPGs.
Thanks for the link, Wil! It was great article from a guest author on our site, and it seems to have struck a chord with many readers.
~Ken
Editor, GeekDad.com
You know that’s a good question. I remember having a vivid, active imagination as a kid, which carried through until around junior high. Suddenly in junior high “pretending” was no longer “cool” and I felt totally out of place hiding the fact that I still liked playing with my ponies and dressing up like a princess. By high school I was completely jaded, and while I did putter around with RP’ing a bit, mostly we’d spend our time making a bunch of characters, then never actually playing. Now, as an adult and I mom I’d love to use my imagination more, for my daughter’s sake. I do RP somewhat regularly now, but I think I’ve mentioned here before how I’m not that good. I just can’t get over that feeling from junior high that it’s wrong to pretend when you’re a grown up. I need a way to break free from that, and luckily, I have a great group of nerds to RP with, so hopefully I’ll break out of this shell and get my imagination going again! I guess playing with my little girl should help too. Coincidentally, all this lack of imagination relates DIRECTLY to my lack of self esteem while writing anything. I sure hope something helps me overcome this roadblock, because it’s seriously driving me nuts!
Anyway, thanks for posting, I need to check out Geekdad.com. I’ve heard about it through you and also at PAX, but never ventured forth to look. 🙂
We recently started playing D&D (v. 1) with our 6- and 11-year-old to get away from the nightly TV habit. I knew my son would love it – swords and smashing things, hurray! – but I’m surprised by how much my very girly daughter loves it, too. She’s created an elaborate backstory for her cleric – elven princess separated from her family, etc – and is almost as bloodthirsty as her brother.
My parents think we’re weird, and I’m sure their teachers wonder at some of their journal entries (Last night, I turned 11 orcs into JAM!!!), but we’re having a ball.
Thanks for the link! I’m looking forward to teaching my daughter (currently 17 months) about games and gaming and all that. So far, she only really knows that you’re supposed to blow on dice before you roll them 🙂
I remember being seven years old and waking up in the middle of the night because my father had snuck into my room to play Swords & Serpents on my TV & NES. I think my mother made him give it up somehow.
While I didn’t inherit the RPG bug, I did pick up his love for scifi. I recently told him that he probably qualifies for some sort of award for reading me great scifi books when I was around nine or ten. I remember him reading me Ender’s Game, The Worthing Saga, and some of Burroughs’s John Carter books. And when I was sixteen he gave me a copy of Neuromancer, my first cyberpunk novel.
Somehow after all this, he was surprised that I did better on my verbal than on my math when I took the SATs.
There are a couple of wonderful little books that cover this very topic – even though they were written nearly a hundred years ago!
Floor Games and Little Wars, by H.G. Wells (yes, *that* H.G. Wells) are nonfiction pieces that talk about, well, RPGs! Wells covers topics such as the best surfaces on which to build your campaigns and tips for making one’s own terrain, and admonishes the toymakers for their poor quality miniature soldiers and others. He goes into great detail (including photographs he took) about the campaigns that he and his children set up.
My favorite passage in Floor Games is where he basically blames crappy, unimaginative toys for crappy, unimaginative urban sprawl.
Seriously… all of you gamer parents (and well, even non-parent gamers) should go out and get these books! (Or at least Floor Games.) They are an absolute delight, and really, save for a bit of dated vernacular here and there, could appear on just about any blog today and be completely relevant.
I’ve always had a pretty good imagination.
I’m twenty-two and I still live in made up worlds. It’s probably not all that good for me, but it is fun.
Sometimes I’ll pretend to have conversations with people I know. Sometimes I pretend to have conversations with people I don’t know but would like to. Sometimes, I wish I had the wherewithal to live in the real world. But not often.
Timely and helpful. I’ve been looking for suggestions for RPGs with young children.
Still trying to reconcile the concept with “Geek” and “Kids”. Are true geeks allowed to breed? When did this happen? Damnit I miss one friggin Illuminati meeting and suddenly the rules go out the window.
Wil, I just came to say that you are my favorite Twitterer!!!
I think role play is so important to share with children.
I was shy growing up and I’m horrible at expressing myself creatively; one of the reasons I never played RPGs myself. Sure I read my brother’s D&D manuals from start to end (loved them). I sat and watched friends play their games, but would never take part. As an adult, being creative, innovative and expressive is one of my greatest challenges. I’m just thankful I finally found dance which has given me opportunity to work on some of the same things as role-playing.
Anyway, I enjoyed the article; wish I lived closer to my godkids so I could play with them.
Wil, went to DragonCon in Atlanta with my teen so she could geek out with the Gaia crew. I knew I would be bored silly, so I took my copy of the 3.5e Dragonlance campaign setting so I could get ready to run my first game as DM.
While wandering the vender’s faire, I got to meet Margaret Weis, and she signed my copy. Yes, I did the geekboy squee and nearly passed out, but in my ramblings I told her I’d played Dragonlance way back in its beginnings, and she said, “That’s what, about 20 years or so.”
I had a hard time coming to grips that knowledge, too, but it made me more determined to get my kids excited about the game. I’m really fed up with games that don’t challenge them.
You can’t post “cheats” online for table-top RPGs. The best you can hope for is that you brought enough chocolate and poptarts to bribe the DM.
Thanks for the InterWeeb Link, Wil. I’ve been trying to find ways to get my son into RPG’s – by starting with the Lord of the Rings Minis — something he’s familiar with – and it was great for a while .. but he’s since found other things to pre-occupy his time.
Like ROCKBAND!! Which is AWESOME.. but i still want to keep him into RPGs, and rushing him, i think, will just turn him off.
I’ll give the column a read..
Thanks again, from one D&D-Dad to another.
Another 25 year veteran of D&D and RPGS here also. Seems now like so long ago. Got introduced to it when I was 10 by one of my friends who was a couple years older. I was a single child and we had no television in the house so I had to entertain myself all the time. I was already a LotR fiend so D&D was a natural fit. Started out with the old red boxed OD&D set and then slowly obtained the other four boxed sets.
Spent the next couple years designing characters, backstories and worlds. Didn’t actually have that many people to play with. Wasn’t until 13 or 14 that I started having regular people to play with and also forays into 1st edition AD&D. Fond memories of those times when we ignored many of the rules and just played for the fun of it. Had many very weird campaigns and characters. Probably half my friends I’ve met because of or through gaming.
Never taught anyone really young. Actually got turned off on teaching anyone new to the game after some really bad experiences, ie no girlfriends of players that just want to be included. Also for a while I wouldn’t even consider teaching or playing with anyone under 21 for a couple years after some bad experiences with teenage players.
That said, as long as you know what your getting into in the beginning I think teaching kids to play would be great fun. My best friend and I occasionally discuss when we’l try and start his daughter playing, she’s still a couple years away from being ready. And how we’ll tell her mother about it. As it is she’s not completely happy with us playing, but humors us.
“Floor Games and Little Wars, by H.G. Wells (yes, *that* H.G. Wells) are nonfiction pieces that talk about, well, RPGs!”
Well, H.G. Wells used real munitions in his indoor wargaming. If you thought Micronauts were unsafe for children…
Wee-update here:
Just thought I’d let you know, that after reading the article, it has inspired me to FINALLY get the 4th edition rules Core books and Brand-Spanking-new glittery dice for my son.
Thanks for the inspiration, Wil. Now i’m looking forward to hours of new Gooey D&D pleas1ure while my wife and kid.