ODD as Living Heirloom

[kesher]

I think it's safe to assume that the average age of participant on this board is a good bit higher than many other rpg forums. Frex, I'm 37, and have three kids: a four year-old and twin six month-olds, all boys. When others have commented that I've got half a basketball team or whatever, I merely smile cryptically, 'cause I know what I really have is a fully functional gaming group!

Which is what I'd like to hear about in this thread. I've seen a few posts mentioning playing ODD with your kids; Crimthan, you even posted about playing with your grandkids! I simply can't tell you how cool I think that is. My own kids are still a few years away from gaming, but I've at least looked through my facsimile ODD box with my oldest, rolled a few dice, learned a few things about monsters. He, in point of fact, out of nowhere just a couple of days ago, looked at me and said "Red dragons breathe fire!" To which I replied, "Yup, and how about blue dragons?" I had to remind him, and then we went through the whole chromatic-breath-weapon-mantra. It made me smile all day. Heck, I'm actually smiling right now as I write this.

So, what's it been like passing down the game to the next generation? I'd love anecdotes and/or advice, whatever. Crimthan, or anyone else who's had the experience, I'd really like to hear about what it's like to play with your kids and their kids, all at once. Maybe we can start to build a little handbook for how to hand down the game with as much fun as possible...

Aaron

[Zulgyan]

I'm 22 only now. But will certainly teach OD&D to my boys when I get the chance!

[doc]

At 35 I have three kids at home and two that are now making their own way in the world. My three at home (ages 11, 10, and 7) love gaming, although they have little interest in fantasy. Their genre of choice is super heroes. I created a kid-friendly superhero game about 3 years ago following their insistance that they wanted to play characters like Spiderman, Batman, and the like. I ran the game for them and three other kids, and they loved it, playing it every weekend for a year and a half! They still play every now and then. Now instead of dad creating the villains and adventures, they do it themselves. I love seeing the stuff they come up with!!

Now my oldest son was included in several of my D&D games when he was in his later teens, including OD&D Blackmoor and my Barsoom game. His semi-sane warrior Jonaz even picked up the nickname"Body Count." Although he is now too busy with college (and, let's face it, college girls) to worry about gaming, he still loves to check out what new games I've picked up every time he comes over.

Doc

[Deleted]

I'm 29 (30 in April), & while the missus & I don't have any little hobbits' runnin' around (yet), when that time comes, we most certainly would love to make D&D a family experience. What a great way to spend time with your kids!

[Wothbora]

I'm 44, been playing since 1978. Married with 4 kids, oldest in college and youngest in grade 6. I've played D&D with 'em all, but the youngest is enjoying the game like I did (OD&D Homebrew). At Christmas all my kids played around the table. Yep, my wife sat in the other room and called us nerds. Oh well, the complements never cease after almost 20 years of marriage!

My hope is that someday I'll have grand-kids before my youngest is out of the house. If not, well, I guess I'll just whip up some tables and give it a go "solo" (like I did when growing up in Northern Wisconsin and playing D&D actually WAS proof that one was a nerd).

Wothbora

[Finarvyn]

I'm also 44 and have played since 1975.

My kids play D&D and were even part of the Castles & Crusades playtest before the game was published. (Their names are in the PH and everything.)

I think that one of the greatest things I can pass along is my gaming legacy and I love to discuss game philosophy with them. My daughter is more "old school" and likes simple rules, but my son is more "video game" oriented and also likes newer editions of the WotC game as well as Warhammer miniatures.

Both enjoy OD&D and love gaming in general. It's great to get the whole family together to play.

[Rhuvein]

I had been away from RPG'ing for many years and returned to teach my daughter and nephews about 3 1/2 years ago. It was fantastic and fun and they really enjoyed it.

Heh, I had been away for so long I didn't know there was a 2nd edition let alone a 3rd edition!! ;D

Anyway, my daughter played for about 2 years and then got to high school and it was ~ adios muchaho.

She recently was trying to make fun of me by telling her male friends that her Dad plays D&D. Heh, it backfired because they all reacted "inappropriately" by saying stuff like "really?", "that's cool" and "can we play?" and they were serious.
She then realized how incredibly awful and embarrassing that would be - for here friends to be playing D&D with her Dad, so she immediately stopped that!! LOL.

So now, I have 4 nephews and one of my old friends playing and it's still excellent.

The nephews are 11 - 14 and really like it. In a way, I'm surprised since they were born and raised on computer and console games, but on the other hand, maybe - just maybe, I'm doing something right to keep their interest in pen and paper, live action, role playing D&D!!

Heh, I recently went to my nephew's 14th b-day party and they were playing Halo 3 - and kept asking when we were going to get together for our next session of D&D.

Soon, I hope!

[korgoth]

rhuvein said:

Heh, I recently went to my nephew's 14th b-day party and they were playing Halo 3 - and kept asking when we were going to get together for our next session of D&D.

It's funny. When I was a kid (I'm 34) I was lucky enough to actually have the Nintendo NES with cool stuff like Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, Metroid... the whole 9 yards. I'm a little bit surprised I did have it in retrospect, since I'm not sure where the money came from. My stepdad was also a D&D player from the OD&D school (though for me and my cousins, etc. he ran fast-and-loose AD&D or Mentzer). Nintendo was what I would do when I didn't feel like looking at books or there was nothing else to do. But I would always much rather play D&D than Nintendo.

Granted, we didn't have the graphics of today, with rag doll physics and ray tracing to accurately model the appearance of your opponent's viscera as you blast him with an M203, etc. but I'm not sure if that even makes so much difference... I think kids just love to use their imaginations and engage in fairly open-ended play.

[thorswulf]

My 22 month old daughter discovered her daddy's miniatures last saturday. She pointed at some of my painted and half painted figs and said, "is it?" I told her that those were daddy's toys and she might like the horsies better than the ogre! I was right! Last Wednesday I got home early from work and was busy painting some medievals when her grandparents dropped her off. She ran to where I was painting and she asked "What you doing?" Then she saw the bright bottles of paint and she squeeled with delight. I think I may have a future gamer on my hands.

Oh yeah one last thing. She pointed to my dice jar one day and gave me a puzzled look. "Dice", I told her. "Diiiice", is what she said back!

[coffee]

Reminds me of some friends of mine, and old DM and his wife. They were a normal gamer couple for a while, and they the babies started happening.

I told her that the baby would be special, having gamer genes. The next week, when I showed up for the game, she showed me the iron on transfer she had made for a t-shirt for the future tyke. It had a picture of some dice, and the legend "I have gamer genes!"


Also, in the same game, we had a younger player who played a necromancer. He had style, though -- he copper plated his skeletons. So they painted up 5-6 skeletons with copper. He loved it. The DM didn't have enough minis for the game one night, so he used gummi bears. Well, one thing led to another and the gummi bears ended up impaled on the spears the skeletons had.

This was well and good, until about two years (!) later, when the kid was getting into the miniatures and eating the gummi bears, which they themselves had left on there all these years. They tried to blame the necromancer, but it was clearly their fault...


Moral: It's good to breed your own future gamers, but don't leave candy on the minis!

[kesher]

I created a kid-friendly superhero game about 3 years ago following their insistance that they wanted to play characters like Spiderman, Batman, and the like. I ran the game for them and three other kids, and they loved it, playing it every weekend for a year and a half! They still play every now and then. Now instead of dad creating the villains and adventures, they do it themselves. I love seeing the stuff they come up with!!

That's great. I'd love to see a copy of that game; I wouldn't be half surprised if my oldest didn't go for superheroes first. Plus, it'd be an easy way to get his cousin into it, too...

we most certainly would love to make D&D a family experience. What a great way to spend time with your kids!

No doubt! I know a guy from the indie-gaming community who started playing because his mom bought BD&D, thinking it seemed like a fun thing for them to do after school. His whole family ended up playing every weekend until he graduated high school. I get teary just thinking about that!

I should point out, though, that my dad was our first DM. He ran me and Dave Setzkorn through Keep on the Boderlands, and we ate it up. After we'd cleaned out about half the caves, he let us take over, but man, I remember soooo clearly how it felt to go up a level for the very first time!

She recently was trying to make fun of me by telling her male friends that her Dad plays D&D. Heh, it backfired because they all reacted "inappropriately" by saying stuff like "really?", "that's cool" and "can we play?" and they were serious.
She then realized how incredibly awful and embarrassing that would be - for here friends to be playing D&D with her Dad, so she immediately stopped that!! LOL.

That's hilarious! Maybe she'll return to the fold someday...

Nintendo was what I would do when I didn't feel like looking at books or there was nothing else to do. But I would always much rather play D&D than Nintendo.

I was exactly the same way (though we were strictly an Atari house, console, computers, everything... Go Temple of Apshai!) I can only hope the same thing'll happen to my sons, since by the time they're old enough to really start getting into console gaming, it'll all be immersively holographic...

These have all been great responses so far! Some of you have mentioned playing with all your kids, or nephews, or whoever; I'd really be interested in hearing how exactly you played with these young kids. What were the adventures like? How did you go about making characters? Crimthan, I seem to remember reading in your campaign threads that you have a section of your campaign world for kids to start in; how does that work?

Aaron

*and, as a complete aside, I can't seem to figure out how to get the software to let me designate who a particular quote was from; help?