Chris,
Please post your training program so those other parents with young chilern
(aka the future) can start in with. I may not have any myself, but amoung my
gamer buddies we have some, and most want to computer game, over mini or RPG
games.. :-(
(Beth you can post yours as well)
DOC Agren
(Lurker on the Digest)
In a message dated 12/1/03 4:38:24 PM,
> owner-gzg-digest@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU writes:
<< Subject: RE: THE LADS
I was watching scrapheap challenge (junkyard wars) with my eight year old
daughter,
the challenge was to build a "tank" armed with a potato gun. Over the intro a
ARV
is seen plowing through the mud of a driving range. At this point my daughter
says
"Daddy that's not a tank!", I asked why not - "well it's got tracks and
armour
but no gun". 10 minutes later another clip is run (this of an Abbot
SPG).
"Daddy he's done it again!", "Done what?", "Well he said it was a WWII tank,
and
it looked like some kind of modern self propelled gun to me." I'm not sure if
I should be worried or not.
Chris Downes-Ward >>
G'day,
> Please post your training program so those other parents with
Biggest rule is don't exclude them. Plenty of times I've seen friends with
kids say "why don't my kids want to play?" and then as soon as the kid turns
up its all "why don't you sit down and be quiet or go over there or go do
something else" etc. Kids want to be an active part so let them. Let them roll
dice, if they go flying across the board explain patiently to them they're not
allowed to go outside the box and mark out a box on the table edge. If you
don't want the kids to touch the figs tell them politely and have some
"touchable" ones in reserve or use one of their toys. After that its just a
matter of slowly winding back the "let kids go first, don't enforce all rules
with deadly precision" quotient until they're full on. The key underlying
factor whether the kid is 2 or 42 is patience. As in everything they've got to
crawl before they walk and you've got to have the patience to see them down
that road without just ordering them away because its too much hassle.
Second biggest rule is silly is fine... zombie amazons protecting the great
chocolate box temple from the heroic band of dwarf loving centaurs would freak
out some of the more straight laced historical gamers down here, but kids love
it. After that its a surprisingly short step to "Mum I did Napoleon's grand
battery in show and tell today!".
Cheers
I haven't done much figure gaming with my daughters but we have done quite a
bit a board gaming, but I do have a stock of figures that the girls (6 and 8)
are allowed to play with. However we regularly play "Awful green things from
Outer space" and have graduated to "Fighting Sail". Briony (8) does not show
much interest in SF gaming (other than "AGTFOS")but is showing interest in
doing WW1 having bought an built a Mk IV (with some help from dad) and some
british infantry so all I need is some simple WW1 rules (Comptemtible Little
Armies? or Stargrunt lite?)
Chris
[quoted original message omitted]
> Christopher Downes-Ward wrote:
> I haven't done much figure gaming with my daughters but we have done
I don't know how simple they are, but the War Times Journal (www.wtj.com)
offers a free set of regimental WWI rules (1916). I haven't played them, but
their Napoleonic ruleset is pretty good.
> Andrae Muys wrote:
[...]
> I don't know how simple they are, but the War Times Journal
Thanks for this info, Andrae.
Mk
> Second biggest rule is silly is fine... zombie amazons protecting the
After that its a
> surprisingly short step to "Mum I did Napoleon's grand battery in show
Good advice Beth - especially the "include them".
My youngest, used to love to just play with the individually mounted 28mm
figures (yes, I had to have loads of glue and greenstuff handy afterwards, but
she tried) and terrain including the fairly robust big trees, a celtic
farmstead, an Egyptian House, and "baggage" elements. She vene helped
build the Farmstead which is another _really_ good tip for buy-in.
When I painted up a group of female RPG characters that play gradually moved
into a skirmish game with v.v.simple rules. Okay, the theme was almost always
"the good and heroic girls freeing the enslaved
Nubians/Celts
and fighting off Dad's horrible Egyptian Bowmen/Roman Legionairies who
are coming to imprison them all again" but she found it great. And it was only
a short step into a Romano-Celtic RPG, with no real magic but hinted-at
Druidic powers.... which she keeps asking for every holiday now. :-) or
:-( I don't know, as I don't have the time to knock-up the adventures!
Strategy was only slowly learnt but it's a case of enjoying it and playing
so _they_ have a challenge which isn't too easy but can be fun (I
enjoyed
it, anyway ;-) ).
It had already worked with her elder brother: he now acts as a GM/aide
for
a participation game and regularly plays FT - so much so he wants to
take FT around as a participation game next year.
Success!