World building with young gamers in mind

[thorswulf]

Greetings all! My primary gaming group are my two daughters who are 7 and 10. As a parent, I have to work with some limitations due to age and attention span, but on the whole my kids like to play games with their dad. The mind boggler for me is how to create a world that is not only age appropriate for them, but detailed enough to keep them interested. Have any of you dealt with this? If so how did you approach things?

My oldest daughter likes fantasy and has read quite a bit of it, mostly newer authors I have not read, but very good stuff on the whole. My younger daughter is more of what I'm concerned about appropriate settings. Monsters can be played down, sure, but what about a developed village or town?

Well just some stuff to throw out there. I hope you gamer parents have some advice or insights. Thanks.

[tetramorph]

I like to keep things focused on fairy tale tropes and archetypes for my campaigns, especially with little ones.

When mine were that age (not so long ago) we went on a hex crawl to rescue hansel and gretel. We rescued rapunzel from the witches tower. We made the troll bridge safe for passage.

I just try to look at D&D as a ticket to the land where our favorite fantasy stories happen. So if you find age appropriate fantasy, you've got age appropriate settings.

Hope that helps.

[Admin Pete]

I think a lot of it depends on your game and the specific children. If you think you need to change your game, then you should do so.

Along with all of the adults, I have played with one 9 year old girl and several 10 year old boys for at least a year for each over the last 7 years and a few other kids aged 8-14 a game here and there over that time.  There was always a parent playing in the game as well. I did not change the game in any way from the way I normally run the game. My one friends daughter was playing when she was 4 years old. She was a very eccentric magic-users and made the game a lot of fun for all of us.

I have found that many times kids are much better players than some adults. In fact the 9 year old girl was the best player of all players I have ever had including my all college game bitd. She was probably one of the highest IQ people I have ever encountered and her grasp of things was inspring. She understood the difference between fantasy and reality on a level beyond most adults. Kids are usually not decision challenged and games with kids can move at a breakneck pace that only the very best adult players ever achieve.

I have never had a child in a game that had a problem with character death. The fact that you can create a new character in a few minutes and get right back in the game likely has something to do with it (I will work adults back into the game when it is reasonable, I get kids back in the game immediately, that is about the only thing I guess that I do different). The other thing is that we are very matter of fact about character death and the risk of dying is part and parcel of the game. Like in Risk where you are out of the game when your last army is dead.

I was reading Greek, Roman and Norse mythology when I was 7 and 8 years old. I also was told fairy tales and invented stories from my earliest memory and in fairy tales the characters are often facing death, being eaten and the like.  I also don't have orc babies and such IMC so my players don't as a rule run into big moral dilemmas.

[thorswulf]

Well my kids are on the right path then! They like mythology, and fantasy, so I think maybe the folk tale approach is a good one. Thanks for the advice!

[hengest]

Have you had any fun with any of this, thorswulf?

[Mighty Darci]

Oct 14, 2016 14:02:27 GMT -5 hengest said:

Have you had any fun with any of this, thorswulf ?

Yes, I want to have kids someday and I would like to hear more from those who have already been there.

[hengest]

Good post above from PD.

I admit I'm not really sure how to introduce new people to all this (although, not children at the moment, so I'm not worried about scarring them, just boring them). Especially re: risk and character death. I suppose the thing to do is just be straight about it: be cautious, your character can die (but you can probably get a new one).

[hengest]

Good but short thread here.

I think what I would do now is something like what tetramorph describes for very little kids. A kind of reffed version of playacting thst they do anyway. Possibly with a pre-seasion of making some model with them (Rapunzel's tower). In fact, for VERY little ones, maybe just the tower-making as an adjunct to their play. Then add in a reffed fairy tale element. For older kids not as instantly immersed, maybe a fairytaleish hook with a loose medieval backdrop. And older / more mature than that, just whatever I was otherwise running. But I still appreciate PD's stories above about having kids play in the regular game. That sounds ideal to me, but here I am thinking about a game just for kids to get them started. Maybe it's not a separate idea, I don't know.

[hengest]

Purely for the encouragement of folks who may find this thread and want to do what's described here.

[Death Even XIII]

I've never changed my game for kids, if they want to play, I let them play. My games are PG where sex is concerned (well cleaner than PG is in movie and TV these days) as a group we have never went there. Roleplaying sex scenes is just not something any of us want to do. (Yes, we educate our own children appropriately, we don't wait till they are 18 for the "talk")

I don't think the violence in the game is too much for kids, I don't describe guts hanging out of a sucking wound or anything like that for an adults only game either. (highlight the invisible part if you want to see it, you are warned)

So other than teaching and making mild suggestions, I treat a child player the same as anyone else. If their character dies, it is a teachable moment. Better they learn those concepts and how to deal with it with a fictional character before they have to deal with it IRL.